Dynamic Frequency Analysis of the Jordanian Power System with Significant Penetration of Renewables: Lessons Learnt from the COVID-19 Lockdowns

The increasing dependence on renewable energy particularly solar Photovoltaic (PV) to supply energy consumption needs in Jordan has placed operational challenges on the power system operator to cope with the significant drop in the system's net-demand and the reduction in synchronous inertia. These challenges were not expected to become critical until the penetration of renewables increases to meet future national energy targets in the forthcoming years. However, the adoption of lockdowns to restrict the outbreak of COVID-19 combined with PV injections reduced the system's net-demand particularly during daytime in spring 2020 like expected levels in the future with high PV penetration. Thus, the implications of future significant penetration of renewables on system security could be better understood based on the operating conditions during lockdowns. In particular, it is important to assess the system's frequency adequacy during emergency events that might be occurred whilst running a low-inertia power system. To do so, this paper provides a detailed dynamic frequency analysis of the Jordanian power system during lockdowns using Power Factory software. The results highlight the importance of energy curtailment of renewables to maintain adequate level of synchronous inertia to maintain security when the system is islanded without interconnections to neighboring countries. However, deciding the proper level of curtailment requires performing dynamic analysis to ensure that both the Rate of Change of Frequency (RoCoF) and the minimum frequency level during generation contingency events will not trigger the Under Frequency Load Shedding (UFLS) relays. © 2022 IEEE.

[Masterplan Raw Materials 2030-A Raw Materials Strategy for Austria]. / Masterplan Rohstoffe 2030 ­ Eine Rohstoffstrategie für Österreich.

The sufficient and responsible supply of mineral resources at fair market conditions is an essential basis for Austria's economic development. Although the geological availability of raw materials is relatively high, disruptions due to geopolitical, economic, or circumstances such as pandemics or natural disasters can lead to a shortage of mineral resources. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic relentlessly shows the vulnerability in a globalised world with complex dependencies and widely ramified value chains. It reveals questions about the security of supply not only for products of daily use but also for basic materials that are urgently needed for the processing industry. The transformation of energy systems, mobility, and the decarbonisation of industry is closely linked to the availability of mineral raw materials. The Master Plan Raw Materials 2030 proposes solutions to respond to the challenges of this decade and to ensure Austria's secure supply of primary and secondary mineral raw materials from Austria and abroad. With a comprehensive package of measures, the Master Plan lays the foundation for Austria's resilient development.

Towards Better Pharmaceutical Provision in Europe-Who Decides the Future?

Significant progress has been achieved in human health in the European Union in recent years. New medicines, vaccines, and treatments have been developed to tackle some of the leading causes of disease and life-threatening illnesses. It is clear that investment in research and development (R&D) for innovative medicines and treatments is essential for making progress in preventing and treating diseases. Ahead of the legislative process, which should begin by the end of 2022, discussions focus on how Europe can best promote the huge potential benefits of new science and technology within the regulatory framework. The challenges in European healthcare were spelled out by the panellists at the roundtable organised by European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM). Outcomes from panellists' discussions have been summarized and re-arranged in this paper under five headings: innovation, unmet medical need, access, security of supply, adapting to progress, and efficiency. Some of the conclusions that emerged from the panel are a call for a better overall holistic vision of the future of pharmaceuticals and health in Europe and a collaborative effort among all stakeholders, seeing the delivery of medicines as part of a broader picture of healthcare.

How Corona Crisis Affects Critical Flows-a Swedish Perspective

The functioning of modem societies is highly dependent on flows, relying on timely deliveries of goods and services. Criticalflows are those particularly important, e.g., electricity, food, and pharmaceuticals. Infrastructures upholding flows often transgress national borders, where a disruption can escalate into wide-spread crises. Continuity of critical flows is hence of outmost importance under stresses. A worldwide ongoing stress is the coronavirus pandemic, strongly characterizing 2020 and dominating media, resulting in closed borders, lock-downs, halted production, and altered demand patterns. The corona crisis is foremost a health crisis, with devastating consequences on people's life and health. Many studies have focused on the healthcare sector, with limited attention on critical flows in other sectors. This study aims to explore effects on critical flows within four societal sectors (transport, energy, info-com and food) in Sweden to date. A scoping study of Swedish printed press throughout 2020 was performed, investigating actual and potential flow impacts, flow interdependencies, and implications for preparedness and resilience. The media database Retriever Research was used to identify 4693 news and opinion articles, of which 145 relevant articles were subjected to content analysis. Concluding that limited critical flow disruptions occurred despite many prophecies and predictions. The disruptions that occurred were short-lived, non-severe, and mostly originating from secondary effects, indicating that Swedish critical flows in these sectors are resilient to this type of pandemics. © ESREL 2021. Published by Research Publishing, Singapore.

Security of supply, strategic storage and Covid19: Which lessons learnt for renewable and recycled carbon fuels, and their future role in decarbonizing transport?

The present work analyses the lessons learnt from the Covid19 (Coronavirus) pandemic that could possibly apply to the energy sector, with a special focus to decarbonizing transport. Distinguishing between short/medium- and medium/long-term options, the scope is to discuss how issues such energy security, energy storage and energy system resilience should deserve more attention. Today, fuel demand has fallen to unprecedented levels, with jet fuel demand being the most affected one. Oil price is at the lowest values recorded for many years while on 20 April it even reached a negative price in the US for the first time in history. While in the short-term low oil prices would be attractive, the long-term negative consequences could be very relevant, with significant associated costs for the EU economy and Member states (MS) related to the collapse of demand and to the socio-economic impacts. New measures should thus be considered in the post Covid19 strategy. In particular, while in a short- to medium-term view the oil sector will require specific support measures to overcome the economic and physical shock brought in by the pandemic, in a medium to long-term perspective domestic sources such as Renewable and Recycled Carbon Fuels (RRCF) should be regarded as a way to secure energy supply, leading to significant technical and economic advantages. Thus, EU should allocate adequate resources in the post-Covid recovery plans to definitely allow the transition to renewable energy sources and particularly to bio-based economy and stainable transport fuels. Decarbonisation of transport through RRCF and economic recovery do not compete, but rather represent a win-win solution in a well-designed and sustainable implementation strategy, especially when low or zero interest-rate investments are foreseen. The EU should take the opportunity to match the UN SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) and EU Green Deal goals with the need to inject economic and financial resources into the real economy improving the socio-economic conditions of EU populations. Both agroforestry and RRCF industry are ready to produce (biomass) or source (waste) the feedstocks as well as the technologies, systems and components needed by the industry along the whole value chain. The roadmap to cleaner transport fuels thus represent an evident opportunity to meet climate, economic and societal post-Covid19 goals, in a win-win-win approach.

From optimization to reinvention: High-quality development of supply chains in great changes

The recession of globalization brings about the layout adjustment of global value chains and seriously threatens the security of supply chains. The COVID-19 pandemic aggravates various uncertainties and greatly affects the operations of supply chains. Meanwhile, emerging technologies such as digitalization are propelling business innovations and providing new opportunities for the value creations of supply chains. Operations optimization is committed to facilitating efficient collaborations for achieving supply chain coordination. The interweaving of various variables in great changes further catalyzes the reinvention of supply chains towards platform-based ecosystems. The ecosystem promotes transboundary integrations of multi-entities by opening and sharing resources, builds ecological balances of the system by operations coordination and mutual benefit, energizes risk management and green operations by intelligentization, stimulates non-boundary innovations by structure reorganization and pattern transformation, and realizes the value co-creations of participators. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the philosophy of "community of interests", actuate resource sharing, risk sharing, mutual trust and benefit distribution through mechanism constructions, enhance ecological concept and value recognition, improve platform operations management, optimize ecosystem governance, create an open and innovative ecology, upgrade crisis management capability, and build ecosystems for enabling the high-quality development of supply chains. © 2022, Editorial Board of Journal of Systems Engineering Society of China. All right reserved.