The term 'Renewable energy' actually encompasses a rather heterodox set of energy sources which have in common only their capacity to regenerate either naturally or by human intervention: water, wind, biogas, primary solid biomass, solar photovoltaic, liquid biofuels, municipal and industrial wastes etc. Renewable energies are essentially used in the production of electricity and heat.
For the European Commission, the future development of the production of renewable energies is important for three reasons (European Commission's homepage, 2008):
- Renewable energy has an important role to play in reducing Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions - a major Community objective.
- Increasing the share of renewable energy in the energy balance enhances sustain-ability. It also helps to improve the security of energy supply by reducing the Community's growing dependence on imported energy sources.
- Renewable energy sources are expected to be economically competitive with con-ventional energy sources in the medium to long term.
The importance of renewable energies can thus be summarized in two points. First, the production of locally based renewable energies aims at bolstering energy independence by reducing the need for energy imports. The second point relates to the challenges linked to climate change: the production and consumption of renewable energies are deemed to have lower impacts on the environment than carbon-based energies (coal, oil, gas etc.).
Being strongly dependent on the avail-ability of specific renewable resources, the production mix of renewable energies differs significantly between individual regions and countries. Figure 1 provides a synthesis of this 'renewable energy production mix' at the national level.
The Russian Federation is the largest BSR producer of electricity and heat originating from the exploitation of renewable energies with a production total of more than 200,000 Gigawatthours (GWh). This figure should however be put into perspective: while Russia is the largest country (in terms of area) in the world and is also one of the world's largest producers of energy the share of renewable energies in the Russia energy production mix is almost negligible.
The largest producers of renewable energies after Russia are, respectively, Norway (139,466 GWh), Sweden (115,189 GWh) and Germany (86,463 GWh). Other BSR countries have a much more limited production of renewable energies. The smallest producer of such energies is Estonia, with a production of 1,182 GWh.
An interesting feature displayed in figure at the p. 16 is the composition of the production mix of renewable energies in each country. In this regard, one can identify three main categories of countries.
The first category comprises those countries that have hydropower as the dominant form of renewable energy. Norway, Russia, Sweden and Latvia belong to this category, making use of their extensive resources in terms of river basins.
The second category consists of those countries where primary solid biomass is the dominant contributor to the production of renewable energies. According to the International Energy Agency, solid biomass is "defined as any plant matter used directly as fuel or converted into other forms before combustion", including wood. Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Belarus belong to this category. It is worth noting that Sweden also produces solid biomass amounting to one third of its total production of renewable energies.
The third category consists of those countries that have no dominant form of renewable energy, thus showing a more balanced production pattern. Germany, Denmark and Poland belong to this category. The production of renewable energies for the generation of electricity and heating in Denmark originates from three, rather equal, sources: the combus-tion of municipal waste, the combustion of solid biomass and the conversion of wind energy; the first two are essentially for heating purposes, and the latter exclusively for electricity.
It is also worth highlighting the global significance of Denmark in respect of wind power generation as it is one of the top five worldwide producers along with Germany, Spain and the USA (EIA homepage, 2008). The Danish case is remarkable considering the size differences in relation to those countries in terms of population, area, economy, and other indicators. Never-theless, Den-mark has developed a long-standing capability in this technology class and a knowledge platform that can be taken as an example of good practice on the BSR scale.
In Germany, two sources of renewable energy constitute more than 60% of the total national production of RE: Wind energy and hydropower. In absolute terms, Germany is the largest producer of wind energy and has developed an extensive park of windmills, not least on its North Sea coast. The combustion of municipal waste is also a well developed source of energy production, constituting approximately 20% of the total national production of RE.
Finally, the Polish production of rene-wable energy originates, in the main, from hydropower (nearly 50%) and solid biomass. In absolute terms, the total Polish production of renewable energies is much lower than the German and Danish levels.
Future cooperation between BSR countries on the topic of renewable energies should not only focus on the differing potential levels for their production, but should also emphasise the diversity of needs relating to the consumption pattern by sector (transport, residential, industrial etc.,).
The future perspectives for the existing Baltic Sea Region Energy Co-operation (BASREC), a formal collaboration of energy ministries of the BSR countries, should underline the need for both infrastructure investment enabling the physical connection of the various national systems and regulatory improvements supporting the development of an integrated supply-and-demand energy market around the Baltic Sea. The Nordic cooperation process Nordel is, in that sense, a useful blueprint for BASREC.
Finally, the territorial dimension of the development of renewal energies could be seen as the necessity to better exploit the territorial energy capital of each region. The coasts of Poland and the Baltic States are still lacking major investment in wind power stations. In this regard, a closer partnership between these countries, Germany and Denmark, which are the European leaders in this field, is advisable.
The Baltic States currently do not effectively utilise the potential contained in the municipal and industrial waste sector to produce energy: developing such systems would ensure less energy dependency and better environmental conditions.
In Sweden and Finland, the development of further energy production schemes such as wind power and geothermal energy should be promoted, taking advantage of the large open spaces available in those countries.
By José Sterling