Robert Harmsen

• Professor (Assistant) at Utrecht University

This study addresses the oversight in the climate change impacts on power system planning for carbon neutrality. We enhance the China's Climate Change Integrated Assessment/National Energy Technology (C3IAM/NET) Power model with meteorological big data, and model climate change impacts on power demand and supply. The regional power technology pathw...

Background While energy communities working on electricity provision have been extensively studied, thermal energy communities (TECs) focusing on bringing district heating (DH) systems to decarbonise heat systems in buildings have been relatively under-researched. This study addresses this gap by presenting the first comprehensive examination of ke...

Introduction Cities are taking up services of social importance under the (re)municipalisation movement. The Dutch government embarked on an ambitious heat transition and proposed in 2022 to make all district heating projects public or semi-public, with a majority public share. This proposal has sparked intense debates among groups in favour of and...

To meet the European Union's 2050 climate neutrality target, future electricity generation is expected to largely rely on variable renewable energy (VRE). VRE supply, being dependent on weather, is susceptible to changing climate conditions. Based on spatiotemporally explicit climate data under a Paris-proof climate scenario and a comprehensive ene...

Municipalities are key actors in planning and enabling the transition in the built environment to sustainable heat systems. Literature on the municipal experiences in the early phases of the heat transition is scarce. This paper addresses this gap by depicting the approaches of twenty-eight municipalities in the Netherlands. It aims to assess the m...

Efficiency assessments of marine ingredient use in aquaculture are required to fully understand their con- tribution to global seafood supply and their impacts on all UN Sustainable Development Goals. Fish In: Fish Out (FIFO) ratios have become the principal metric used to ensure aquaculture does not negatively impact wild fish stocks. However, sev...

Space heating in buildings represents nearly half of the final heat demand in Europe. The potential to save emissions from existing fossil-based heating supply systems is substantial. The Netherlands announced in 2018 its decision to phase out natural gas by 2050 and to supply buildings from 2021 with sustainable heating. Models with a high level o...

In many countries the role of combined heat & power (CHP) generation in the power & heat sector is significant. However, in decomposition analyses of the power & heat sector the contribution of CHP to observed changes in primary energy use or CO2 emissions is generally not made explicit. In this paper, the contribution of CHP is shown for eight cou...

Heat pump technology has the potential to substantially increase the efficiency of domestic space heating which is currently based on boiler technology. Although the heat pump has reached technological maturity, its implementation remains hampered by numerous non-technological barriers in many countries. This paper presents an assessment of the bar...

This study aimed to explore the constraining and facilitating factors impacting the emergence and consolidation of different types of alternative food networks (AFNs) in different countries. Drawing on the expertise of organizers of seventeen AFNs, we investigated the conditions and actors that hinder and promote the development of different types...

Germany's Market Incentive Program (MAP) and the UK's Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) are economic instruments promoting the uptake of small-scale renewable heat, yet to date, a technology-specific evaluation comparing their impact on the uptake of biomass boilers in existing residential dwellings is lacking. The comparison yielded insights...

Efficiency assessments of marine ingredient use in aquaculture are required to fully understand their contribution to global seafood supply and their impacts on all UN Sustainable Development Goals. Fish In: Fish Out (FIFO) ratios have become the principal metric used to ensure aquaculture does not negatively impact wild fish stocks. However, sever...

This paper analyzes the logics that underlie two distinct approaches to energy-efficiency retrofits in the Netherlands. It is explained how these logics lead to differing viewpoints on problems and solutions on the road to scale-up of such retrofits. For this, the paper makes use of the institutional logics approach. The institutional logics approa...

The large-scale deployment of wind and solar, which are variable renewable electricity (VRE) technologies, is indispensable to decarbonise China’s power sector. However, variability in VRE outputs poses challenges in power system operation in terms of increased demand for backup and reserve capacity. These challenges can be effectively mitigated by...

This paper investigates food waste dynamics in a retail alternative food network (AFN). We provide a first contribution to assess food waste in an AFN in terms of 1) food waste levels, 2) food waste causes, and 3) food waste management practices (i.e. food waste reduction and handling). We use an exploratory case-study to investigate food waste in...

Sound evaluation needs sound numbers. But measuring energy savings is measuring something that is not used and can meet unexpected difficulties. The European Commission has made strong efforts to harmonize methods to measure energy efficiency and energy savings and to monitor the progress towards the goals of the Energy Efficiency Directive. Howeve...

This report (in Dutch) analyses for the Dutch built environment the link between policy goals on circularity, climate and energy.

The Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) approach provides a conceptual framework to find ways to stimulate technological innovation. It prescribes that interventions should be focused on alleviating systemic problems that cause unsatisfactory system performance. Although literature provides guidelines to identify systemic problems and formulate...

Consumption of goods and services is a complex phenomenon at the root of environmental problems, but it is still often framed in terms of individual behaviour, which can be related to a lack of wide cross-disciplinary explanations for consumption. To contribute to filling this gap, we conducted a literature review across ten disciplines. We provide...

The discussion on urban metabolism has been long dominated by natural scientists focussing on natural forces shaping the energy and material flows in urban systems. However, in the anthropocene human forces such as industrialization and urbanization are mobilizing people, goods and information at an increasing pace and as such have a large impact o...

In Europe, there is a clear long-term objective to decarbonise the energy system, but it is currently unclear how this will be achieved in the heating and cooling (H&C) sector. The Heat Roadmap Europe 4 (HRE4) project will enable new policies and prepare the ground for new investments by creating more certainty regarding the changes that are requir...

To effectively mitigate climate change, variable renewable electricity (VRE) is expected to substitute a great share of current fossil-fired electricity generation. However, VRE investments can be obstructed by many barriers, endangering the amount of investments needed in order to be consistent with the Paris 2°C target. To help policy-makers bett...

For reaching the 2°C climate target, the robust growth of electricity generation from variable renewable energy sources (VRE) in the power sector is expected to continue. Accommodation of the power system to the variable, uncertain and locational-dependent outputs of VRE causes integration costs. Integrating VRE into a well-functioning electricity...

Decentralized generation is often connected to the distribution grid and consumed by end-users in geographical proximity. Compared to large centralized power plants supplying electricity that flows down the voltage chain in a top-down manner, decentralized generation can avoid grid losses and save primary energy (PE). This paper developed and demon...

This study focused on the effects of variable renewable electricity (VRE) on full load hours and energy efficiency of fossil-fired power generation in the European Union from 1990-2014. Member states were aggregated into three groups based on the level of VRE penetration. Average full load hours are found to be decreasing since 2006 for all groups....

The brochure provides a detailed breakdown of the energy demand for heating and cooling in 2015 with figures ranging from the share of energy carriers, end-uses, subsectors to types of process heat by temperature level. As such, it presents selected results of forthcoming publications of the Heat Roadmap Europe project. The brochure was designed by...

The innovation systems approach offers a framework to identify what inhibits the generation, diffusion and implementation of innovations. It prescribes that interventions should target systemic problems that inhibit the system from functioning well. In current literature, systemic problems are typically identified independent from each other, after...

The objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of the use of different metrics in the EU renewable energy target definition. The analysis, using a case study of the Dutch renewable energy support for illustration, reveals that a target based on primary energy would have led to a ranking in which renewable electricity options would predominant...

In 2008, the Dutch voluntary agreements on industrial energy efficiency faced fundamental changes to their monitoring methodology. Where the old method was based on measuring the improvement of energy use per unit of production, the new method focuses on the energy savings from projects implemented by participating companies. Advocates of the new m...

Companies participating in the Dutch voluntary agreements on energy efficiency are required to announce the energy-saving projects that they have planned for a specified reporting period in an Energy Efficiency Plan (EEP). All projects with a payback period less than 5 years should be implemented. The aim of this paper is to provide insight into th...

The EU building sector is widely acknowledged as a primary source of anthropogenic emissions, contributing directly to climate change. Recent studies estimate the sector to account for approximately 40% of primary energy use and 50% of extracted materials within the European Union. The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2010/31/EU requires e...

As Europe is not on track in meeting its 2020 energy savings target, there has been quite some debate to make the energy savings target binding instead of indicative. Although the final draft text of the Energy Efficiency Directive left the option of a binding target explicitly open for the period beyond 2014, this statement has watered down in the...

Dutch voluntary agreements monitor all energy saving project by participants. More than 20 000 energy saving projects have been implemented. The reported saving effect seems to be fairly accurate. Energy price is unlikely to be an important driver for savings. Participation in ETS does not lead to higher investments in energy saving techniques. a b...

Energy efficiency is considered one of the most cost effective ways to enhance security of energy supply and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to Europe's Energy Efficiency Plan, the biggest energy savings potential in the EU lies in the built environment. However, the many barriers to energy efficiency have prevented the implementation of...

In this paper we evaluate two approaches for estimating CO2 emission reduction from electricity savings: one based on average CO2 intensities of electricity generation and another that relies on marginal CO2 intensities.It is found that the average CO2 intensity approach has a significant shortcoming when it comes to scenario-based approaches for C...

This paper discusses systemic problems hindering the large-scale European diffusion of offshore wind technology using the Technological Innovation System perspective. The most urgent identified problems include: cost of technology, lack of common vision on grid improvement, fragmented European electricity market, reliability and availability of tec...

This paper considers which design of a binding energy savings target for the EU is the most feasible to both make it work and to ensure it can be evaluated in an efficient and transparent manner. We look at four possible design options. We conclude that a binding target at Member State level applied to end-users is the most feasible. Such design op...

Due to the current pressures of climate change and resource depletion, a great demand is rising for sustainable sources of energy, especially in densely populated areas such as cities. As many authors have already acknowledged (Frijns et al., 2008; Mol et al., 2010; van der Hoek, 2012; Blom et al., 2010; etc.) the watercycle offers much potential i...

Europe's 2020 greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target consists of two sub-targets: one for the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) sectors and one for the non-ETS sectors. The non-ETS target covers CO2 emissions in buildings, transport and non-ETS industry and non-CO2 GHG emissions. The non-ETS target is known as Europe's Effort Sharing Decision. This art...

In the past five years, the European Union (EU) has considerably strengthened its climate and renewable energy policies. The EU’s three ‘20 %’ targets for 2020 on greenhouse gases (GHGs), renewables and energy savings are implemented through a remarkable package of regulatory EU policies: • the EU Emissions Trading Scheme;1 • the Renewables Direct...

The impact of EU energy savings policy must triple to achieve the bloc’s 2020 energy savings goal. But such efforts could get a much better foundation if European leaders set a binding energy consumption target, rather than the current indicative savings target. The evidence for such conclusion is provided in our recent study, which forms part of t...

Realizing a 20% energy efficiency improvement in Europe by 2020 requires the introduction of good new energy efficiency policies as well as strengthening and enforcing the existing policies. This raises the question: what characterizes good and effective energy efficiency policies and their implementation? Systematic ex post evaluation of energy ef...

In this paper, we apply the functions of innovation systems theory to explain the successful diffusion of cogeneration technology in The Netherlands. We show that the technological innovation system for cogeneration functioned very well and that this explains for a major part the successful diffusion. We also show that the innovation system was pos...

De afgelopen 35 jaar heeft ondergrondse warmte- en koudeopslag (WKO) zich ontwikkeld tot een bewezen techniek, die vrijwel overal in Nederland toegepast kan worden. Met een terugverdientijd van drie tot acht jaar is WKO inmiddels de eerste optie voor het verwarmen van de middelgrote en grotere kantoren. Ook in de glastuinbouw en in de nieuwbouw en...

Na een korte schets van de technieken voor het winnen van diepe aardwarmte, wordt ingegaan op de voorgeschiedenis in Nederland sinds medio jaren zeventig. In de daaropvolgende paragrafen worden de potentie van diepe aardwarmte in Nederland besproken en de mogelijke belemmeringen. In de slotparagraaf worden de conclusies op een rijtje gezet.

Verantwoording Dit project is uitgevoerd in opdracht van het programmateam R3 onder ECN-projectnummer 7.7550 in de periode juli 2003 tot en met september 2003. Dit rapport is geschreven ten behoeve van het programma R3 dat beoogt een visie te vormen over de ontwikkeling van het energiege-bruik in het Rotterdamse Haven en Industrieel Complex (HIC)....

Verantwoording Deze rapportage is onderdeel van het project 'Monitor van WKK in Nederland 2003 -2005' in opdracht van het Ministerie van Economische Zaken, onder ECN-projectnummer 7.7570. Abstract This report, part of the CHP monitoring in the Netherlands, analyses the impact of the Dutch subsidy scheme MEP on the cost-effectiveness of CHP investme...