In the framework of climate change mitigation and security of supply strategies, renewable energy sources are becoming a priority worldwide. In this context, Europe has adopted ambitious objectives for the next decade (the so called ’20-20-20 by 2020’ objectives) and a Strategic Energy Technology Plan (‘SET-Plan’).
Nonetheless, challenges still have to be overcome if renewables are to become major contributors to the energy mix, including cost reduction, large scale implementation and grid integration. The European Space Agency is aware that space technologies can be a fundamental part of the infrastructural and challenging solutions required to make clean energy integration within electricity grids a reality and to facilitate the large scale development of renewables.
With this in mind, the Agency has developed EARE, managed by CENER, to assist its Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP) Programme designed to”set up relationships with user communities to collect requirements for new services while federating the demand towards sustainability of them”.
The following themes are embraced by the EARE ambassador platform:
Power generation forecasting using natural resources
The variable nature of resources such as wind, solar radiation or biomass is a serious issue for any operational scenario. Space assets are foreseen to play an important role in implementing support-to-RES services, including infrastructure planning, monitoring and forecasting.
Renewable energies grid integration
Stability of electricity grids is one of the major concerns currently preventing the massive adoption of renewables. In addition to this, a substantial change in the power production paradigm is required: Moving from current approaches based on the abundance of fossil resources to medium or even micro-scaled distributed models. Last, but not least, these challenges require the advent of the so-called Smart Grids, offering capabilities to monitor and balance themselves in a more efficient way. Space technologies can be a fundamental part of the infrastructural and challenging solutions required to make renewable integration within electricity grids a reality. Forging links between clean energy and space technologies
To this end, CENER and the European Space Agency will jointly organise a series of workshops to bring together renewable energy sources and space communities to discuss opportunities for new projects in the framework of IAP. The first workshop will be organised at CENER’s headquarters in Pamplona on 30 March under the title “Renewables and space: finding the synergies”.
The European Space Agency is an international organisation with 18 Member States, the mission of which is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
CENER is a highly rated and internationally acclaimed technology centre specialising in applied research and the development and promotion of renewable energies. CENER’s 200+ researchers across the five continents work in six areas: wind, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic, biomass, bioclimatic architecture and renewable energy grid integration.
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