Cogeneration of heat and electricity constitutes an important pillar in energy and climate policy. The optimal dimensioning and operation of residential micro-combined heat and power (mCHP) systems is an important area of ongoing research, especially because these systems are prohibitively...

In optimisation models, the characteristic features of capacity investment and dispatch planning of supply technologies are well explored for electricity systems. Little attention to date has been paid to exploring these features in an adequate manner for heat systems. This paper discusses the...

Against the background of the ambitious German targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency, this paper investigates the economic potential for thermal load management with virtual power plants consisting of micro-cogeneration plants, heat pumps and thermal storage within the residential...

At the beginning of 2012 the legal framework for the promotion of electricity generation from renewable energies in Germany was amended. The compensation scheme for electricity generated from biogas and biomethane, previously based on a fixed feed-in tariff, will henceforth be supplemented by an...

From a private investor's point of view transaction costs of project-based Kyoto mechanisms relate mainly to project management and interaction with government representatives. However, when analysing the cost effectiveness of project-based Kyoto mechanisms these transaction costs are often...

Against the background of the recent trend towards ever larger wind turbines at higher hub heights, this contribution determines the total technical potential and associated costs for electricity generation in Europe with large turbines, based on a GIS-based methodology employing cost-potential...

Germany has set itself some very ambitious targets for energy supply from renewable sources, including 80% of electricity by 2050. The favourable economic political framework for renewable technologies has led to the rapid expansion of onshore wind and other renewables in the past years....

An explicit proof of a simple time-step propagation scheme is given in the framework of basic probability theory. It can be used in Monte Carlo simulations solving the Boltzmann transport equation. If the stochastically selected first scattering event occurs before a given time t1, the particle...

During recent years, closed-end funds have become one of the dominant financing schemes for wind farms in Germany. Having evolved out of the traditional model of local citizen-financed wind farms (‘Bürgerwindpark’), closed-end wind funds can be seen as a logical consequence of the...

The new federal government in the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg has set a target for 10% of gross electricity generation from wind energy by 2020. Given that currently around 0.1% of the electricity generation comes from wind energy, this paper examines the technical feasibility and...