The purpose of the article is to present perspectives for the development of offshore wind farms in the leading, in this respect, country in the EU and in the world – Great Britain. Wind power plays a remarkable role in the process of ensuring energy security for Europe since in 2016 the produced wind energy met 10.4% of the European electricity demand while in 2017 it was already around 11.6%. The article analyses the capacity of wind farms, support systems offered by this country and the criteria related to the location of offshore wind farms. The research has been based on the analysis of legal acts, regulations, literature on the subject, information from websites. The article shows that in recent years, the production of energy at sea has been developing very rapidly, and the leading, in this matter, British offshore energy sector is character-ised by strong governmental support.

The constant increase in the popularity of renewable energy systems allows residential building users to apply solutions leading to the diversification of the energy supply. The use of RES systems in residential buildings not only contributes to a higher level of environmental care, but also significantly and measurably improves the energy efficiency of the facility. Using hybrid systems allows the supply to be reduced or eliminated from conventional energy sources. The article presents common layouts of renewable energy systems, which are successfully used in residential buildings. It also shows the impact of such systems on the amount of savings achieved in the use of energy from external or conventional sources. In residential buildings, the possibility of energy generation in the form of electricity and heat is dependent on many factors that determine the type and size of the systems used to obtain energy from renewable sources. We should assume the further and continuous development of RES, which will increase the share of electricity and heat produced in households. Technological development, decreasing prices of equipment and components used for the installation of green electricity generation systems will be a conducive factor for increasing the popularity of RES systems, not only for residential buildings but also for other types of buildings. The article also points out the economic aspect of the RES systems application. It presents the positive impact of RES installations on the environment and estimates the average time of financial reimbursement. The economic analysis concerns individual systems of renewable energy systems used in residential buildings.

The paper presents an analysis of the influence of the energy generated from renewable sources on an improvement in the energy efficiency of public utility building and households. It also presents the current state of the technologies for the production of electricity from renewable sources, as well as their share in the national power supply system. The conducted analysis concerns both micro, as well as large systems generating electricity. Systems generating power from renewable sources are gaining in popularity. With an increasing awareness in the society of the beneficial influence that renewable power generating systems have on the environment, as well as the support in form of various programs offering subsidies for the construction of new systems, power generation from renewable sources is becoming increasingly popular and common. Although the renewable energy systems are still not widely considered to be a profitable solution, systems using renewable sources of energy are positively perceived and treated as a new trend in the construction of multi or single-family residential buildings. The increasing share of the renewable energy in the national power supply system significantly reduces the demand for energy produced from conventional sources. This obviously translates into a reduced consumption of primary energy, for example, fossil fuels, and, in turn, leads to the reduced exploitation of natural resources, thus contributing to the protection of the natural environment. A reduced consumption of fossil fuels also means a significant reduction in environmental pollution during their processing into electricity or heat. Actions aiming at improving energy efficiency and reducing final energy consumption are being undertaken by many countries all over the world, and by the European Union. In 2012, the European Parliament and the Council issued Directive 2012/27/EU obliging the Member States to initiate actions aiming at a reduction in the consumption of final energy by 1.5% a year. The paper presents the current status of generation of energy from renewable sources during the last 13 years. The ways for using energy from the renewable sources to improve the energy efficiency of facilities were also discussed.

The optimal energy management (OEM) in a stand-alone microgrid (SMG) is a challenging job because of uncertain and intermittent behavior of clean energy sources (CESs) such as a photovoltaic (PV), wind turbine (WT). This paper presents the effective role of battery energy storage (BES) in optimal scheduling of generation sources to fulfill the load demand in an SMG under the intermittency of theWT and PV power. The OEM is performed by minimizing the operational cost of the SMG for the chosen moderate weather profile using an artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) in four different cases, i.e. without the BES and with the BES having a various level of initial capacity. The results show the efficient role of the BES in keeping the reliability of the SMG with the reduction in carbon-emissions and uncertainty of the CES power. Also, prove that the ABC provides better cost values compared to particle swarm optimization (PSO) and a genetic algorithm (GA). Further, the robustness of system reliability using the BES is tested for the mean data of the considered weather profile.

The dynamics of economic development determines the need to develop technologies for waste recycling especially the acquisition of condensed fuels for the needs of the local diversification of energy sources. In a short time, Poland will probably lack its own produced electricity. To apply the process of diversification of energy sources, by developing methods of generating energy from waste, it becomes crucial to protect the environment. The use of cogeneration technology based on fuels derived from waste, in particular concentrated oil and gas fuels, is becoming more common and provides the basis for securing the energy supply in the preferred diversification process. Plastic waste processing in the controlled depolymerization process, which is the reverse of the polymerization process for hydrocarbon recovery – uses petroleum derivatives its production. At present, the greatest interest arises in the material recovery of plastics and rubber in the process of anaerobic thermal decomposition (thermolysis/pyrolysis), which is used on an industrial scale and consists in the degradation of polymer bonds into low molecular weight. The imperative of a modern economy is to obtain energy from fuels from waste treatment, including hazardous waste, preferably in the cogeneration process. The fuel obtained from waste may be used to obtain thermal or electric energy in order to diversify energy sources. The article presents innovative Polish technologies of obtaining fuel in processes of anaerobic thermal decomposition mainly of elastomeric and polymeric waste (including hazardous ones) for direct application in power generators of various power.

The energy efficiency of photovoltaic modules is one of the most important aspects in energetic and economic aspects of the project related to system installations. The efficiency of modules and the electricity produced by photovoltaic conversion in solar modules is affected by many factors, both internal, related to the module structure itself and its technical and external factors related to the energy infrastructure, which includes: cabling, inverters, climate conditions prevailing at the micro-installation location and the orientation and angle of inclination of the solar modules. The installation of photovoltaic modules should be preceded by an energy efficiency analysis, which will help to indicate the optimal solution adapted to the given conditions. The article presents a comparative analysis of the amount of energy produced under real and simulated conditions. Analyzes were made on the basis of research carried out in the Wind and Solar Energy Laboratory located at the AGH University of Science and Technology, data from solar irradiation data-bases and computer software for estimating energy resources. The study examined the correlation of the solar irradiation on the modules and the amount of electricity generated in the photovoltaic module. The electricity produced by the module was compared under real conditions and simulated based on two sources of data. The comparison and analysis of the amount of energy of the module were also made, taking simulated different angles of the module’s inclination into account.

The future and development of energy is one of the most important problems in both domestic and global politics. Limiting the use of fossil fuels in the energy sector results from new legal conditions related to the protection of the natural environment. These changes require the development of a new energy strategy, taking the limits of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union and the requirements of the Community energy policy into account. One of the documents affecting the structure of Poland’s energy mix is the Directive on renewable energy sources (2009/28/EC). Poland has committed to achieving the goal of a 15% share of energy from renewable sources (RES) in gross final energy consumption by 2020. Current changes in Polish RES support systems – in particular the transition from the system of green certificates to auctions for green energy – may threaten the achievement of the above-mentioned goal. The article analyzes whether Poland will meet renewable energy obligations by 2020 under the current conditions. In addition, the article presents current energy consumption in the world and in the country, legal conditions taken into account when creating the country’s energy mix and forecasts of renewable energy demand.

The condition of the Polish energy sector does not inspire any trust of its customers. Outdated machinery and the lack of investment in new technologies make it necessary to take action to ensure the stability and continuity of electricity supplies to the end-user. In Poland, the industrial power sector is based on the use of coal and despite the Government’s announcements to resign from this raw material, more and more power investments are being made to generate energy from coal (Ostrołęka power plant). The solution which compensates for the current state of the Polish power industry is the development of distributed generation. The article presents a description of dispersed sources, power market, its organization and problems arising from its implementation. Distributed energy sources in the form of micro installations, energy clusters and virtual power plants have been described and characterized as well. It also assesses the impact of power market introduction on the development of distributed energy sources. The impact of the power market on the development of distributed sources is very hard to predict and determine. The functioning and further development of the energy sector, including the capacity market, strongly depends on the laws, regulations, as well as the economic and political situation in Poland and Europe. The social factor will also play an important role as the introduction of the capacity market will burden the financial side of each energy consumer. On the basis of the data presented on particular sources and distributed systems, one can only make predictions related to the possible effects of introducing the capacity market for the development of distributed sources.

This paper presents the optimal sizing of PV/Wind/Fuel Cell/Battery Hybrid Energy System for energizing a Small Scale Industrial Application or a village domestic load of 200 kW. HOMER software is used for simulation of the complete system. The solar radiation data and wind speed data used in this paper are for the place of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India which is located 11.0183° N longitude and 76.9725° E latitude. The optimized sizes of components of Hybrid Power System (HPS) are found based on Levelised Cost of Energy (LCE) and total Net Present Cost (NPC). The results are presented and compared for five different combinations of HPS components. Suggestions are also presented to choose the low cost system which produces energy at low LCE.

The agrarian process includes many industrial phenomena and events. The goal of economics as a science is to precisely detect and describe the relationships between various market mechanisms. These phenomena can be presented as the desire “to describe reality in terms of systems, their components and relationships, both between components of the system and between different systems” (Jankowski 1997). The energy sector is a special field among many areas of the national economy, and the products of this sector have a major impact on the branches of the economy and the mechanisms of action occurring in them. The publication is devoted to the construction of a mathematical model used to support the energy policy of local government units. The aim of the study is to build a mathematical model of energy production, taking the development potential of renewable energy into account, as well as to propose the desired direction of energy policy development in the analyzed periods to the regional authorities and to offer a model for creating an energy policy in other local government units: poviats, communes. Until now, few authors have comprehensively dealt with this issue. To date, no detailed research has been published on issues related to renewable energy development and the use of mathematical methods in the construction of the energy production model in local government units. The undertaken research is a contribution to the development of knowledge about alternative energy sources in the energy margin.

The strategic goals of EU energy development have been clarified, based on efforts to increase and comply with environmental protection requirements, reducing energy consumption in the manufacturing and service sector, reduce dependence on energy imports, and increase the involvement of renewable resources in energy. The structure of the unified energy system of Ukraine was monitored. The volumes of electricity released by various power-generating enterprises in Ukraine, as well as the existing capacity of main and inter-state electric power grids for transmission of electricity, were analyzed. The volume of electricity exports and imports of the unified energy system of Ukraine and its possibilities to increase exports to the EU countries have been diagnosed. It has been proven that due to the change in the operating model of the electricity market the liberalization of the electricity market of Ukraine promotes the attraction of investment resources aimed at branching the possibilities of importing electricity generated in Ukraine into the ENTSO-E system. The structural tendencies of changes in generated electricity in final consumption at the expense of renewable energy sources of the European countries and Ukraine were studied. Options for increasing the efficiency of renewable energy sources are proposed The use of renewable energy sources on the basis of leveling out certain disadvantages is proposed. The directions improve the management of electricity enterprises in the conditions of the European integration choice of Ukraine including towards attracting investment resources through the use of public-private partnerships to improve the efficiency of the energy system of Ukraine are substantiated.

The large variability and unpredictability of energy production from photovoltaic power microinstallations results from the dependence on the current weather conditions. These conditions depend on a number of factors and are variable over the time. Despite this specificity, photovoltaic micro-installations are becoming more and more popular in the world and in Poland. This is mainly due to the fact that the generation of energy from renewable sources has numerous advantages, the energy is free, renewable in time and ecological, and its production on its own gives partial independence from energy supplies from the power grid. In addition, the observed significant prices decrease of solar modules has further accelerated the development of the use of this energy source. Concern for this method of energy production among households has increased significantly in Poland after introducing the prosumer in the legal framework and the use of administrative and financial support. The implemented prosumer mechanisms allowed, for example, the net balancing of the energy consumed and produced by the micro-installation through storage in the power grid. The article describes the problem of balancing sources using solar energy, based on micro-installation used in the household (the so-called prosumer installation). The conducted analyses compared the load profile of a typical household and the energy generation profile from a photovoltaic installation, determining the real balancing formation level of such a system.

The Polish energy sector is, to a large extent, based on fossil fuels used in conventional energy, which is not entirely consistent with the current energy policy of the European Union. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the use of renewable energy sources that guarantee the preservation of the value of the natural environment in rural areas. It should be emphasized that in addition to the economic effect, the environmental effect is very important, understood as the impact of renewable energy on the natural environment and the quality of life of rural residents. The intensive development of RES raises a lot of controversy among politicians, as well as among rural residents, who are also associated with the myths regarding renewable energy as harmful to the natural environment.

Rural development should be connected with the socio-economic situation, and even more so with the socio-cultural situation of its inhabitants, because it assumes that the development of rural areas in Poland is associated not only with agriculture, but also with historical and natural values and their durability.

The aim of this work is to determine the attitudes of the inhabitants of rural areas of the Podkarpackie Province on the impact of renewable energy sources on the natural environment. The work assumes that the durability of rural areas is largely connected with the ability to preserve their natural values, as well as ensuring a satisfactory quality of life for residents. The basic source of data was surveys carried out in 2017 among 282 inhabitants of the Podkarpackie Province .

The implementation of micro scale combined heat and power systems is one of the ways to improve the energy security of consumers. In fact, there are many available large and medium scale cogeneration units, which operate according to the Rankine Cycle. Due to European Union demands in the field of using renewable energy sources and increasing energy efficiency result in the importance of additionally developing systems dedicated for use in residential buildings, farms, schools and other facilities. This paper shows the concept of introducing thermoelectric generators into typical wood stoves: steel plate wood stoves and accumulative wood stoves. Electricity generated in thermoelectric generators (there were studies on both three market available units and a prototypical unit developed by the authors) may be firstly consumed by the system (to power controller, actuators, fans, pumps, etc.). Additional power (if available) may be stored in batteries and then used to power home appliances (light, small electronics and others). It should be noted that commercially available thermoelectric generators are not matched for domestic heating devices – the main problems are connected with an insufficient heat flux transmitted from the stove to the hot side of the generator (caused e.g. by the non -homogeneous temperature distribution of the surface and bad contact between the stove and the generator) and inefficient cooling. To ensure the high efficiency of micro cogeneration systems, developing a dedicated construction both of the generator and the heat source is necessary.