The
International Network
for Sustainable Energy
Latvian Sustainable Energy Vision 2050
The Latvian Vision2050 is similar to the vision for EU; but developed to fit the visions of the Latvian INFORSE member Latvian Green Movement.
The vision includes a Strategy for Immediate Actions Until 2020 (pdf file 156 kB).
The proposed development follows in general the same path as in the European vision, but given the large biomass potential, the strong growth in construction and transport, and the need to replace nuclear import without increasing gas demand, the vision has a strong focus on actions that can be implemented cost-effectively until 2020, and include more growth than the vision for EU. It includes a transition of the energy supply and demand with phase-out of fossil and nuclear energy over a 50-year period, 2000 - 2010.
If this vision is turned into reality it will have a
number of positive effects for Latvia that is fully dependant on imports
for its fossil fuel supply. With a transition to domestic energy sources,
Latvia will no longer be hurt directly by the energy prices increases
of fossil fuels that many expect will come as a result of the dwindling
resources of fossil fuels. With realisation of the vision, Latvia would
also be in the front in the reduction of climate change, a position that
can be very valuable in the future. Further, the emphasis on local resources
will also benefit the Latvian economy with increased employment and a
more positive trade balance. If Latvia is going to continue its development
and growth, it has do be efficient, not the least energy efficient.
The vision includes a phase-out of electricity imports from 2009, increased
use of renewable energy, strong emphasis on energy efficiency, and reduction
of natural gas after 2010.
Factor 4 for Energy Efficiency
In line with INFORSE’s global vision for sustainable energy, the
Latvian Vision is based on increase of energy efficiency to reach an
average level in 2050 similar to best available technologies today. A
number of studies have shown that with best available technology, on
the market or close to market introduction, it is possible to increase
energy efficiency with a factor four or more for most energy uses. Most
energy consuming equipments will be changed several times until 2050,
and if new generations of equipment are made with optimal energy performance,
and markets are made to promote the most efficient technology, it will
not be a problem to reach today's best available technology, even though
the efficiency gains achieved are very large, - in the order of 4 times,
similar to an annual increase of efficiency of over 2% per year from
2010. This will not happen by itself, given that the "natural" technological
development in EU countries has been about 1% per year. It will require
concerted actions from stakeholders involved, but if it is done on EU-scale,
and the market therefore is large for each new generation of efficient
equipment, the changes will be cost-effective. The extra equipment costs
will be off-set by energy savings. To realise this, it is, however, necessary
to go beyond the conservatism of many market players in this field, and
develop a truly enabling market for energy efficiency throughout the
society. The factor four increase of efficiency is possible in Latvian
electricity demand, except for construction and agricultural sectors
that has very little electric intensity today, for road transport and
for industrial heat and fuel demands.
The Challenge of Reducing Heat Consumption
For buildings the situation is different from equipment and vehicles
because buildings often have lifetimes of 100 years or more. Many of
the houses to be heated in 2050 are probably already built. Statistics
indicates that efficiency of heating did not improve 2000 – 2005.
On the other hand, the need for large replacement or major renovation
of block houses build during the Soviet Union gives an opportunity for
large increases in efficiency, if appropriate standards and support is
in place. For Latvia, the proposed energy conservation targets for domestic
sector should be realised as planned in 2016 and 2020 to reach final
heat demand of respectively 195 kWh/m2 and 150 kWh/m2, and similar targets
should be set for the service sector. In parallel, efforts to stop and
reverse electric heating must be introduced rapidly. After 2020, efforts
should be continued following EU regulation, leading to specific, final
heat consumption of 82 kWh/m2 in 2050, or only 36% of the level in 2000.
This is expected to be a combination of improved heating installations
in houses and improved buildings.
It is also a challenge to reverse the current trend of increasing electric heating in Latvia for hot water and for rooms, a trend that goes again this visions proposal of strong energy efficiency. Electricity is the form of energy with the highest value and the highest environmental costs in production. It is therefore a pure waste to use electricity for heating. The vision does not include heat pumps in Latvia as they do not have an added value in the Latvian energy system; but heat pumps have been included in INFORSE vision for other countries with more intermittent electricity supply (mainly windpower). In Latvia the current trend in some places to replace wood-based heating with heat pumps goes again this vision. Instead we propose efficient and clean use of wood and in areas with more dense housing: extension of district heating.
Efficient Transport
For transport is assumed that the conversion-efficiency from fuel
to transport-work is increased 2.5 times (from current 15- 20%
in combustion
engine systems to 50% in fuel cell systems with break-energy recoverage;
direct electrically driven vehicles have even higher efficiency),
and that the vehicles will be equipped with recoverage of break-energy,
so the "end-use" of energy in transport is limited to the unavoidable
friction losses in transport (except for aviation). This increase is
expected to happen until 2050. Most of the changes are only expected
after 2020, and the efficiency increase 2000 – 2020 is only
expected to be 22%.
Growth
Factors
The growth of energy services, i.e. heated floor space, transported
goods and people, energy consuming production, is expected
to be rapid for
2-3 decades and then level off for most sectors towards the
end of the 50-year period of the vision. This corresponds with
present
rapid
growth
and later approximation to the slower growth in the EU countries.
The development is in general not “business as usual”;
but will require policies to redirect economic development
to less resource-demanding
sectors and solutions, such as train transport instead of road
transport for personal transport and stop of electric heating.
The electricity
demand follow Latvenergo's forecast for 2010, but is 7% lower
in 2020 than extrapolation until 2020 of Latvenergo's forecast
until
2016. Assumed
growth in activities for Latvia are:
·
Floor space, households: 2% annual increase from 2005 (6% in total 2000-2005),
from 2030 only 0.5%/year, leading to 41 m2/person in 2050;
· Floor space service sectors: 4.8% annual increase until 2015, then reduced
to 2% until 2030 and then to 1% per year in the following decades.
·
Electric appliances in households and service: 47% increase 2000-2010
following current trends, then 20% higher growth than growth
in heated floorspace until 2030 and then growth following growth
in heated
floorspace.
This will lead to an electric energy service level in 2050
of three times the 2000 level.
·
Electric appliances in service sector: 68% increase 2000-2010
following current trends, then 20% higher growth than growth
in heated floorspace until 2030 and then growth following growth
in heated
floorspace.
This will lead to an energy service level for electricity-using
equipment in 2050 of five times the 2000 level.
·
Industry: growth of 49%/decade for processes demanding electricity and
66%/decade for processes demanding heat and fuels 2000 – 2010,
following trends for 2000-2005; after 2010 no growth
in physical production volume, i.e. no growth in drivers
for energy
demand; assuming
that increased value in Latvian industry will come from improved
quality instead of increased quantity, following trends in
Western Europe. The
change of steel production in Liepaja from gas to electric
arc heating technology is included with a change of 4.4 PJ
of gas use
to 3.6 PJ of
electricity use in the steel sector before 2010 (assuming
and efficiency increase of 20% with the change).
·
Personal transport: the vision includes a doubling of private car use
2000-2020, following current high growth. Then we
expect a stabilisation on the 2020-level on 520 cars/1000
inhabitants
equal to Western European
(EU-15) level (current level in Latvia is 357 cars/1000 inhabitants).
Bus use is expected to grow 43%/decade until 2020 following
current trends and then 10%/decade until 2040 and then stabilise
in 2040
on a level
of 2.5 times the 2000-level. Train use is expected to grow
72%/decade following current trends until 2030 and then increase
10/decade
reaching a level in 2050 of 7 times today's level. This follows
a rapid decline
of train use in the 90's when train use fell to 1/3 of the
level in the early 1990's. As part of the increased train
use, there
are large opportunities
to improve use of existing train lines in Riga and many other
places.
·
Freight transport: the vision includes an increase in freight train use
of 4%/year until 2020 following current trends 2000-2006
and then increase 2%/year until 2040 and then remain stable
on 3.3 times
the 2000-level. Road freight is expected to quadrouble 2000-2010
following current trends and then grow 63% until 2020 and then remain
stable remain stable on 6.6 times the 2000-level.
Navigation
and pipeline
transport is expected to remain unchanged.
An underlining assumption for this development is a generally stable
population in Latvia, with fluctuations below approx. 10%.
Renewable Energy
As a fraction of primary energy, renewable energy use is expected
to grow from the 2000-level of 35% to 38% in 2010, to 51% in
2020, 60%
in 2030, 77% in 2040 and 98% in 2050. For electricity the renewable
share
is above the share of primary energy, starting with 48% in
2000 and increasing to 82% in 2020 and 88% in 2040.
The most important developments are in windpower and biomass
including important use of agricultural land for biomass plantations,
use of
crops for biofuels and use of straw for heating and for combined
heat and power
(CHP) production. An important part of the straw is straw from
liquid biofuel production from rape-seed. The use of agricultural
land for
energy plantations for solid biomass is expected to be 2200
km2 until 2020,
similar to 64% of the current area of non-used agricultural
land. Also increase use of solar is including in the vision,
while there
is no
increase in use of hydro-power, and geothermal is not included
as the temperatures
are low and the potential is uncertain.
Graph: Increase in renewable energy supply, following this
Vision
Graph: Change in primary energy supply, following this vision.
The decrease after 2020 is because assumptions of a less
material growth
than today
and strong emphasis on energy efficiency.
Fossil Energy
Fossil fuel use is expected to grow until 2010 to cover electricity production
and increasing heat and transport demands and then gradually be phased
out until 2050.
Graph: Fossil fuel supply Latvia according to Vision2050
Energy Conversion, Hydrogen
The energy conversion system will also have to be changed. The electric
grid is likely to increase in importance, because electricity will
also be used for transport, directly or via conversion to hydrogen.
The increase in electricity demand and the change to biomass power
will require construction of biomass CHP plants to produce 4 TWh (14
PJ) of electricity and 15 PJ heat. This will require construction of
800 – 1000 MW of biomass CHP plants until 2020.
The increasing dependence on intermittent electricity supply from windpower
and later solar PV can be managed with regulation on thermal and hydropower
plants; but it might be necessary to construct heat storages in the form
of hot water tanks to the CHP plants to decouple heat production and
heat demand. With such storages CHP plants can better follow electricity
demand. The intermittent electricity production from windpower will only
be 15% of demand in 2020, according to the vision. It is not expected
to increase relative to electricity production later.
District heating will increase in importance, covering more than 40%
of household and service sector heat demand from 2030 and more than 46%
in 2050, an increase from today's 36% for household and 37% for service
sector.
Gas networks are expected to have decreasing importance. They might play
a role for transportation of hydrogen or biogas, but probably not for
long-distance transport.
Graph: Development of electricity production and sources, following
Vision2050
Energy Trade
Energy trade is expected to be much less than today, only a moderate
electricity exchange is expected. Net electricity import is expected
to be phased out until 2010 and then exchange with little net import
or export is likely to continue in the following decades. If the efficiency
assumptions are realised, there will be surplus electricity in 2050
for export.
Graph: Phase out of CO2 Emissions from Energy
The above graph shows the CO2 emissions from energy resulting from
realisation of this vision. There will still be greenhouse gas
emissions from other
activities such as agriculture, probably including CO2 emissions.
Note
with the Assumptions for Vision for Latvia (pdf file, 1
MB)
The work on this paper and the sustainable energy vision for Latvia is partly paid by funding received from the Nordic Council of Ministers and the European Commission; but it express the findings and the views of the authors and of INFORSE-Europe and not necessarily of the European Commission. The European Commission is not liable for use of the information.