Clean Energy: Debtors and Creditors

• Researchers have examined how the energy transition is progressing in the country
  
• Energy consumption is as diverse as its production
  
• Up to 70% of counties are energy debtors
  
• Study results may guide authorities on which areas need support
  
• The authors of the publication are broadly engaged in sustainable development
  
• They also personally strive to implement the changes they advocate

The ecological crisis and recent events – the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and related fuel access issues – have highlighted the necessity of energy transition and the importance of local energy sources, independent of external supplies.

– Decentralized energy generation strengthens energy security and shortens the production chain. We decided to explore the extent to which entities in various countries are involved in creating sustainable energy systems. We examined the relationship between renewable energy consumption and production in local communities," says Prof. Jan Kazak from the Faculty of Spatial Economy and Landscape Architecture at UPWr. Together with Dr. Grzegorz Chrobak, they published a study in "The Anthropocene Review" on renewable energy generated by local government units, filling a research gap since, although analyses exist for renewable energy utilization at the national level, no studies were showing this at the local level.

Reality beyond major cities

The 2030 Agenda, adopted in 2015 by 193 United Nations member states, sets sustainable development goals, one of which is to ensure access for all to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy.

–This includes not just large cities but also smaller towns, even in peripheral areas. Yet, energy transition discussions often focus on major players, namely the largest cities – the authors say. – Rural areas seem sidelined in this discourse. While the benefits of cities are evident, as they concentrate many resources and have high potential on various fronts, the crucial functions of areas connected to the central city are underestimated. Although cities 'consume' the most energy, our research shows that from the perspective of energy system transformation, less populated areas are particularly important.

According to the scientists, there is a lack of detailed analysis of the potential of various country regions. There is no support system for renewable energy sources (RES) that focuses on the strengths of regions. Other studies they conducted show that the use of EU funds to support RES investments between 2004 and 2019 was not linked to the potential of the areas. However, the research published in "The Anthropocene Review" confirms that rural areas contribute significantly to the entire energy system.

– Residents of smaller towns or rural areas can play a key role in Poland's energy transition. These communities have the potential to create local and independent systems ensuring energy stability and security – believe the study's authors.

No single model

In their work, they used data from the Central Statistical Office (GUS) and the Energy Regulatory Office (URE). GUS provided data on energy consumption in various counties, while URE provided data on RES installations generating electricity, their locations, and capacities. The authors compared both datasets: capacity and consumption.

– Since we didn't have information on the amount of renewable energy produced, we limited our analysis to the theoretical capacity to generate it. In reality, energy production is even lower than these data suggest, as various factors must be considered. For instance, low water levels in rivers will reduce hydro-energy production, and variable wind won't allow for a consistent level of wind energy production – emphasizes Grzegorz Chrobak.

The scientists developed an "energy map" of Poland, showing the result of natural conditions and human investments. In terms of wind energy, the Baltic coast is privileged, where strong and, more importantly, consistent winds blow. Meanwhile, the mountains in southern Poland are favorable for installing hydroelectric power plants. Large cities and their agglomerations produce energy less related to natural conditions and more to human activity, in urban and suburban biomass and biogas power plants. However, this information only concerns completed RES installations, not an analysis of the potential of individual energy sources.

– Clear areas of shadow without large RES installations are evident on the map, especially in eastern and southern Poland. There, more small-scale installations, which cumulatively yield good results, operate. In the Lubelskie voivodeship, a national leader in photovoltaics, small installations scattered across counties contribute up to 11 percent of the country's installed photovoltaic capacity – the authors explain. – We hope that the implementation of new RES in Poland will accelerate and our map will quickly become outdated.

Energy consumption distribution is as diverse as production. Large cities consume the most energy, while peripheral areas consume the least. The lowest energy consumption is seen in three voivodeships: Lubelskie, Świętokrzyskie, and Podkarpackie. – This area is sparsely populated and affected by aging population issues, which is one of the key factors in lower energy consumption – explains Jan Kazak.

Lone islands of surplus

The scientists calculated the renewable energy balance for each county by subtracting energy consumption from the installed RES capacity. Simple arithmetic showed who is a creditor and who is a debtor.

These concepts, typically associated with finance, have also entered the world of ecology and energy. Energy creditors, or pioneers in renewable energy development, are communities that produce more clean energy than they consume and do not need to borrow. Debtors, on the contrary, produce less renewable energy than they consume and supplement the shortfall from other sources. The researchers from Wrocław use these concepts, just as they do with energy justice, which involves equitable distribution of costs and benefits. Every community consumes energy and should therefore also contribute to its production.

– However, fairness in local energy procurement is an ideal. In practice, energy distribution is uneven for various reasons: social, economic, cultural, and environmental – says Prof. Kazak.

Only 109 out of 380 counties are creditors, where the potential for renewable energy production exceeds demand.

– They are dispersed, so it's impossible to say that a particular region is definitively in surplus. Perhaps only Poland's coastal area is the most homogeneous in this respect. In other regions, these are lone islands, individual counties with energy surpluses – says Dr. Chrobak.

However, over 70% of counties are energy debtors. Among them, rural areas of eastern and southeastern Poland and cities, particularly in southern and southwestern Poland, stand out. In both cases, energy debt is associated with the lack of large and efficient RES installations. While the situation of urban debtors is improving thanks to noticeable investments in suburban areas, the situation in some rural areas is worsening. Small, limited-efficiency RES installations and significant variability in energy production dominate them.

– This peripheralization of the Polish countryside means continued dependence on external energy supplies. The energy deficit can lead to not only a lack of security but also exclusion and even energy poverty – say the scientists. –This particularly affects older and solitary individuals living in rural areas. In Poland, this concerns over five percent of the population.

Energy poverty occurs when a household must limit energy consumption to a degree negatively affecting the health and well-being of its residents. This can include, for instance, the inability to heat or light a home or use electrical appliances. Causes may include low material status, excessively high energy costs, and the low energy efficiency of buildings or household appliances.

Support needed from above and below

– Our research primarily showed the disparity between renewable energy production and consumption. We indicate various models of balance or its absence, depending on the part of the country. The study results confirm the role of areas that often seem non-essential in the main discourse but should not be overlooked for their potential to create a secure and stable energy system – believe the authors.

– We hope this will make policymakers aware that this is a system of interconnected vessels – they add.

This could signal to the government and local authorities which areas should receive greater support to balance the mismatch between the location of RES installations and clean energy production levels and local energy needs. Public funds should not only go to those most efficient in obtaining them but everywhere where there is too great a disparity between production and energy consumption.

– It's about sensible current consumption, after internal audits, which will ensure minimization or complete elimination of energy waste – say the scientists. They believe further research is needed to detail the current results.

– We have only shown the potential based on installed capacity. More precise information on the actual production of renewable energy in the counties would be useful – notes Prof. Kazak. – The next step is also to connect energy creditors and debtors to shorten the supply chain.

He believes the best direction is a hybrid approach: large energy installations managed at the national level and many smaller installations introduced locally to complement the entire energy system.

– The energy transition is a task for both the government and local administration – he adds. ć Recent years have not been very conducive to the development of RES, due to political decisions. Decades of coal-based economy still linger, which no longer have an economic justification, not to mention ecological concerns.

Cities as living organisms

Renewable energy sources, sustainable development, urbanization, environmental management, and the circular economy are just a few topics addressed by the Sustainable Cities and Regions research team, led by Prof. Kazak at the Faculty of Spatial Economy and Landscape Architecture.

– We need to respond to demographic and climatic changes, which are increasingly noticeable. They can no longer be ignored. Given the strong internal connections between these elements, they cannot be analyzed in isolation from the larger whole. Hence, scientific curiosity compelled us to enter the level of systemic research – say the scientists.

They are particularly interested in processes occurring in cities, their adaptation to the effects of climate change, and demographic challenges such as an aging society.

– Analyzing complex socio-environmental systems should bring us closer to reorganizing cities so that they are tailored to every individual. They should not be overloaded with stimuli and advanced technologies but well-adjusted. Such cities, in which it is simply good to live. Older people, along with children, are the most vulnerable individuals. If a city is adapted to the needs of older persons, it will be good for everyone – believes Jan Kazak, who focuses on urban aging. He emphasizes that in the EU, we have the lowest level of independent living among older people. Therefore, in a study on social housing for seniors, using the example of the intergenerational building at Nowe Żerniki realized by TBS Wrocław, he examines which solutions are worth wider dissemination and which flaws should be avoided in future investments.

Prof. Kazak is also involved in the City&Co: Older Adults Co-Creating a Sustainable Age-Friendly City project, leading a team of scientists from the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences. The project also involves the Jagiellonian University (Prof. Jolanta Perek-Białas leads the Polish team) and partners from the Netherlands and Romania.

– We hope that our research findings will help decision-makers create local senior policies based on the perspectives of the residents themselves. We should design homes, estates, green spaces, transport, and public places in a way that ensures safety and comfort for seniors, as well as independence, autonomy, and inclusion, without isolation – says Prof. Kazak.

– Scientists have long introduced the concept of urban metabolism, analogous to biological processes. Cities behave and evolve like living organisms, and we try to understand the nature of mutual relationships and learn to coexist in such complex systems. For example, what happens if rowan trees, elderberries, yews, or ponds disappear from a park? How will this affect biodiversity, which birds and amphibians will vanish from that space – says Dr. Chrobak, head of the Audiosphere and Environmental Acoustics Laboratory, and privately a bass player in the band Karabach. In collaboration with biologists and ornithologists, he compares the visual landscape with the acoustic one, created by biofonies (sounds made by living organisms), geofonies (e.g., wind), and technofonies emitted by devices and broadly defined technology. He also tries to describe sounds that have disappeared from Wrocław but were once part of everyday life, like the hiss of gas lamps, the cries of market callers, or the clatter of carriage wheels on cobblestones.

– In the past, Wrocław was in a healthier high-fidelity sound zone, where individual sounds in its acoustic landscape could be easily identified and named. Unfortunately, we now live in a low fidelity zone, surrounded by constant noise in which it's hard to distinguish individual sounds – says the musician.

Sound events represented graphically extend the research scope on the complexity of urban sonotope systems. Colors indicate sounds of different origins (e.g., red for anthropophony), while edges between them show the number and sequence of co-occurrences. This way, clusters of sounds creating a local soundscape are defined.

Development, or a step backward?

"Be the change you wish to see in the world," Mahatma Gandhi said. Both scientists and lecturers try to implement the changes they teach. They sell their cars, use private or city bikes, sometimes public transport, and in special cases, rental cars.

– These are good steps backward – they believe. – We try to be local in the best sense of the word. We narrow our functioning area to reduce mobility. We live in the city center and certainly don't drive across town for trendy buns – they laugh. They share things, lend each other suitcases, and try not to waste food. They participate in the university's Community Supported Agriculture program, receiving weekly boxes of vegetables and fruits from the research stations in Psary and Samotwór.

– Our role model is Dr. Małgorzata Świąder, our colleague, who leads the European FoodSHIFT2030 project. It focuses on supporting local agriculture and organic food, but that's the backdrop for a much bigger change, of which Gosia is the real face. She not only coordinates the project's implementation. She lives it. She advises on how to make preserves and eat seasonally and vegetarian without limiting oneself to three recipes. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm trying – says Prof. Kazak. He believes responsible consumption is as important as sustainable transformation. These are elements of the same puzzle related to caring for the environment and creating surroundings friendly to everyone. According to the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development report, "sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

– These are challenges science tries to meet. In a complex and changing world, innovation brokers, who move freely between different fields of science and business, see interdependencies, and can draw conclusions, are very much needed – adds Prof. Kazak.

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