Urban Renewable Energy on the Upswing: A Spotlight on Renewable Energy in Cities in REN21’s “Renewables 2019 Global Status Report”

Abstract

Published in June 2019, the new edition of the annually updated Renewables Global Status Report (GSR) compiles the most recent developments and trends in the adoption of renewable energies worldwide and in specific regions, countries and sectors. The report represents a rich resource for reliable and up-to-date information about individual renewable energy sources and their use. The analysis also covers a review of energy policies. Renewable energy policies still strongly concentrate on the power sector, while transport and heating and cooling are given less attention. Most investment in renewable energy today happens in developing and emerging countries, which is a major change to the situation some years ago. The 2019 edition of the GSR report includes a feature on renewable energy in cities, which highlights the importance of prioritising the urban context in order to achieve more sustainable schemes of energy supply and consumption. More than half of the global population today lives in cities, but around two-thirds of energy consumption happens in an urban environment. The GSR 2019 identifies that cities already are among the most active players in the adoption of renewable energies. One interesting finding is that in more than 100 cities worldwide at least 70% of the electricity already comes from renewables. This includes cities in both developed and developing countries.

Underutilised Resources in Urban Environments

“…In addition, another work studies the recovery of waste heat from urban infrastructure [10], and thus combines an uncommon circular economy approach based on heat valorisation with the search for more sustainable energy schemes. Two contributions explicitly focus on more widespread adoption of renewable energies in cities [11,12]. Table 1.…”

“…The book review of Kusch-Brandt [12] highlights that renewable energy in cities is already increasingly being exploited worldwide. The review summarises the contents of the most recent edition of the Renewables Global Status Report, published by the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21) [15].…”

Smart Energy in a Smart City: Utopia or Reality? Evidence from Poland

“…Energy infrastructure stands out as one of the key elements of a smart city, especially because its state and structure determine whether sustainable development principles will be implemented and residents will be provided a high quality of life in a clean urban environment. Cities are increasingly important players in implementing renewable energy based on endogenous resources [21]. According to the premises of the smart city, the energy system must be wholly integrated into the local context [22].…”

Voltage Stability Enhancement and Power Oscillation Damping of a Grid-Connected Wind Power Plant based on Dynamic Optimized GA-PI Controller

“…Moreover, FACTS compensators are applied for solving the transit problems in case of the nonlinear loads and abnormal conditions. STATCOM is one of the FACTS compensators which can control the reactive power of the system with WES [1][2][3].…”

“…Traditional control algorithms have been presented for FACTS compensators such as PI regulators [4]. However, the fixed parameters controllers have many limitations with respect to the different operating conditions [1,3,[5][6][7]. However, the system of the power plant integrated with different types of renewable energy resources is a multivariable and strong coupling nonlinear system, the application of the traditional fixed PID controller with such systems cause the system to have insufficiencies.…”