Energy Planning Paper

Energy Planning Paper

Write a paper that focuses on energy planning. In your paper, be sure to

• Describe four examples of key energy plans.
• Assess the main goals of the energy-planning efforts.
• Detail the actors involved in the energy planning.
• Explain the issues that must be overcome to ensure the effectiveness of the chosen energy plan.

Sample paper

Energy Planning Paper

Energy is one of the most important ingredients of industrial development of any country. Physicians defined energy as the property of objects that can be transferred to second party objects or be converted to various forms. Before any industrial or economic development, those in charge of admiration should ensure that a country has enough and adequate energy to support all its manufacturing and production activities. Energy planning is the art and skills of considering both the provision and energy supplies and the role of energy efficiency in reducing demand through the use of integrated approaches such as integrated resource planning. Energy planners have a sole aim of controlling and developing long-term policies in an attempt to guide the future of the local, national, regional and even worldwide energy system (Hiremath, 2007). Due to its importance to the government of various states and countries, energy planning is usually conducted by government agencies and organization or large energy companies. For appropriate and reliable energy planning, these governmental organizations have to conduct the planning with data input from various stakeholders such as households and companies.

Question 1

Describe four examples of key energy plans

Energy is one of the most treasured forms of the invention and is used on a daily basis both by industries and households to operate machines or conduct other household chores. Energy has changed the human way of life as most of his activities and action revolves around the availability of energy and how effectively and efficiently he uses it to his satisfaction. One of the most widely used forms of energy is electricity that is used in manufacturing and the transportation industry. Any government should be able to create and develop a viable energy plan to sustain the demand in their country. Below are examples of the key energy plans that have been adopted by various countries in the world today.

1. Solar energy plan – due to the increase in the demand for energy around the globe, most of the government in various countries are turning to renewable sources of energy one of them being solar energy plans. Solar energy is usually obtained from the sun radiations. However, there are two forms of solar energy, the active solar energy, and the passive solar energy. Some companies and households usually use the active solar energy which requires the use of equipment’s to convert the sun radiation into useful energy. The solar energy plan is important to a country or individual considering that the sun is a sustainable source of energy that can provide power to homes and businesses. Moreover, solar energy is environmental friendly.
2. Wind energy plan – for this plan to work, organizations, governmental agencies, and large companies have to be located in windy places. Wind energy plan involves the conversion of kinetic energy of the wind into mechanical or electrical energy through the use of wind turbines. Wind energy is one of the widely used forms of renewable energy in countries where they experience a lot of winds. Wind energy plan provides an alternative to burning fossil fuels and is widely spread and moreover, it is environmentally friendly. Usually, the electrical energy collected from the wind turbines is stored in batteries which can be used when there are low levels of the wind in an area (Loring, 2007).
3. Geothermal energy plan – geothermal energy plan is one of the recent revelations in the energy sectors where companies convert the heat of the earth into electrical or mechanical energy that can be used in both industries and households. The earth center is believed to be very hot to an extent that it is molten and on extreme days and condition it fires up to 5000 degrees centigrade. From time to time, heat is emanated from the center of the earth to the outer mantle where the earth is located. There are places in different countries in the globe where the earth produces boiling water which can be used to produce geothermal energy. The steam obtained from these places, can be used to turn turbines producing electricity. If the water produced in these areas is not hot enough to produce electricity, it can be used to heat homes and businesses thus saving on the energy cost.
4. Hydroelectric energy plan – hydroelectric energy is perhaps the most famous and known form of energy plan around the globe. This plan uses moving water to turn the turbines which in turn produces both mechanical and electric energy. Considering that water has mass, it flows downward due to gravity bringing with it a lot of forces to turn the turbines. Hydroelectric power plan produces the largest percentage of the earth’s energy and is usually harvested in dams, big rivers, and waterfalls. With hydroelectric energy, plants, industries, households and businesses are in a position to operate heavy machines in their daily operations (Lee, 2009).

Question 2

Assess the main goals of the energy-planning efforts

The primary goal of all energy plan efforts is to control the storage and use of the energy to mean the overall demand for energy in a country. Below are some of the key goals of energy plan efforts:

1. To describe and conduct an analysis of the trends and patterns of regional and country-wide energy usage so as to develop and insight into their relationships to technical and social-economic factors and variables.
2. To develop concepts, ideas and methodologies for environmental energy management to ensure that the sources of the energy exploited are environmentally friendly and have no adverse effects on the ecological system.
3. To appraise, create and compare all alternatives regarding regional, state and global energy and environmental forecasting and planning. For proper allocation, the energy planners, that is, the government agencies have to turn in and out all alternatives to produce a reliable forecast that can be used for planning.
4. To produce state and global energy plan models by decision support systems through the employment of both spatial and temporal analyses tools and methods. Such tools include spatial mapping and assessment of energy supply.

Question 3

Detail the actors involved in the energy planning

For the achievement of sustainable energy planning, it requires the support, commitment and involvement of both public and private stakeholders.  Some of the benefits associated with stakeholders participation include decisions made are based on a wide knowledge base and discussion with key stakeholders will open new windows and opportunities for collaboration and joint projects (Cellura, 2008). Below are some of the stakeholders in the energy planning process:

1. The government – the government, is one of the key stakeholders in this process since it provides the labor and skills to create a viable plan. Moreover, the government through its legislation arm; it creates and formulates laws, rules and regulations that help to guide the power collection, storage and supply across a region and the country at large. On another occasion, the government is forced to purchase and import energy power id the demand for power in a country exceeds the supply.
2. Petroleum and gas companies – petroleum and gas companies are key in creating an energy plan for a country or the globe in general since they are the source of one of the forms of energy that are widely used around the globe. By having these companies on the table, a government of a state can be able to arrange on how to meet extra demand if it arises in its country. Moreover, these companies can produce supply reliable data that is useful in projecting the demand for power in a country at the certain period.
3. The common citizen – without the citizen, companies, industries and households, the government cannot successfully create an energy plan. The end users of the power are crucial in generating and predicting the demand of statistics that shows the demand for the energy in that particular country. Moreover, the end users of the energy can also decide to save on power and thus decrease its power or use more power thus increasing its demand(Lee, 2009).

Question 4

Explain the issues that must be overcome to ensure the effectiveness of the chosen energy plan

Global energy needs are on the rise, but the global energy shortage and inadequate energy infrastructure continue to perpetuate global energy poverty. Below are some of the issues that must be overcome to have an efficient and effective power plan.

1. Energy poverty and inequality spreads – some of the energy plan adopted and advocated by some of the governments in the world today are not environment-friendly since they lead to pollution.as a result, you find that there is no enough energy supply or at times, the energy is unevenly distributed across a country.
2. Human settlements – some of the regions are densely populated and become hard to satisfy all the needs of the region while other areas are sparsely populated, and the industries and households in those regions have more than enough energy resources.
3. Energy use trends and patterns – there are no clear patterns of how energy is used in the globe, and this becomes difficult to create a projection that can be used to create a reliable energy plan(Loring, 2007).

In conclusion, we can say that an energy plan is crucial in determining the supply and demand of energy in each country. An energy planning process should incorporate all stakeholders to create a reliable product that will ensure there is no group that will go lacking

References

Cellura, M. A. (2008). Wind speed spatial estimation for energy planning in Sicily: Introduction and statistical analysis. Renewable energy, 33(6),, 1237-1250.

Hiremath, R. B. (2007). Decentralized energy planning;modeling and application—a review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 11(5), , 729-752.

Lee, S. C. (2009). Extended pinch targeting techniques for carbon-constrained energy sector planning. Applied Energy, 86(1),, 60-67.

Loring, J. M. (2007). Wind energy planning in England, Wales and Denmark: Factors influencing project success. Energy policy, 35(4), , 2648-2660.