Remuneration and tariffs in the context of virtual power players

Power systems have been through deep changes in recent years, namely with the operation of competitive electricity markets in the scope and the increasingly intensive use of renewable energy sources and distributed generation. This requires new business models able to cope with the new opportunities that have emerged. Virtual Power Players (VPPs) are a new player type which allows aggregating a diversity of players (Distributed Generation (DG), Storage Agents (SA), Electrical Vehicles, (V2G) and consumers), to facilitate their participation in the electricity markets and to provide a set of new services promoting generation and consumption efficiency, while improving players` benefits. A major task of VPPs is the remuneration of generation and services (maintenance, market operation costs and energy reserves), as well as charging energy consumption. This paper proposes a model to implement fair and strategic remuneration and tariff methodologies, able to allow efficient VPP operation and VPP goals accomplishment in the scope of electricity markets.

Application of wetland systems in the treatment of acid rock mine drainage

The presented work was conducted within the Dissertation / Internship, branch of Environmental Protection Technology, associated to the Master thesis in Chemical Engineering by the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto and it was developed in the Aquatest a.s, headquartered in Prague, in Czech Republic. The ore mining exploitation in the Czech Republic began in the thirteenth century, and has been extended until the twentieth century, being now evident the consequences of the intensive extraction which includes contamination of soil and sub-soil by high concentrations of heavy metals. The mountain region of Zlaté Hory was chosen for the implementation of the remediation project, which consisted in the construction of three cells (tanks), the first to raise the pH, the second for the sedimentation of the formed precipitates and a third to increase the process efficiency in order to reduce high concentrations of metals, with special emphasis on iron, manganese and sulfates. This project was initiated in 2005, being pioneer in this country and is still ongoing due to the complex chemical and biological phenomenon’s inherent to the system. At the site where the project was implemented, there is a natural lagoon, thereby enabling a comparative study of the two systems (natural and artificial) regarding the efficiency of both in the reduction/ removal of the referred pollutants. The study aimed to assist and cooperate in the ongoing investigation at the company Aquatest, in terms of field work conducted in Zlaté Hory and in terms of research methodologies used in it. Thereby, it was carried out a survey and analysis of available data from 2005 to 2008, being complemented by the treatment of new data from 2009 to 2010. Moreover, a theoretical study of the chemical and biological processes that occurs in both systems was performed. Regarding the field work, an active participation in the collection and in situ sample analyzing of water and soil from the natural pond has been attained, with the supervision of Engineer, Irena Šupiková. Laboratory analysis of water and soil were carried out by laboratory technicians. It was found that the natural lagoon is more efficient in reducing iron and manganese, being obtained removal percentages of 100%. The artificial lagoon had a removal percentage of 90% and 33% for iron and manganese respectively. Despite the minor efficiency of the constructed wetland, it must be pointed out that this system was designed for the treatment and consequent reduction of iron. In this context, it can conclude that the main goal has been achieved. In the case of sulphates, the removal optimization is yet a goal to be achieved not only in the Czech Republic but also in other places where this type of contamination persists. In fact, in the natural lagoon and in the constructed wetland, removal efficiencies of 45% and 7% were obtained respectively. It has been speculated that the water at the entrance of both systems has different sources. The analysis of the collected data shows at the entrance of the natural pond, a concentration of 4.6 mg/L of total iron, 14.6 mg/L of manganese and 951 mg/L of sulphates. In the artificial pond, the concentrations are 27.7 mg/L, 8.1 mg/L and 382 mg/L respectively for iron, manganese and sulphates. During 2010 the investigation has been expanded. The study of soil samples has started in order to observe and evaluate the contribution of bacteria in the removal of heavy metals being in its early phase. Summarizing, this technology has revealed to be an interesting solution, since in addition to substantially reduce the mentioned contaminants, mostly iron, it combines the low cost of implementation with an reduced maintenance, and it can also be installed in recreation parks, providing habitats for plants and birds.

Welcome to the new world disorder: conflict and transformation in Ian McEwan’s saturday

Ian McEwan‘s novel Saturday deals with the complex issues of conflict and transformation in the age of terrorism. The plot presents one internal dilemma and several interpersonal altercations that occur within a mere twenty-four hours: a) Perowne (the protagonist) vs. himself, in face of his ambivalent thoughts regarding British military participation in the war in the Middle East; b) The protagonist vs. Baxter, a ruffian from East End, in the context of a car accident; c) Perowne vs. a fellow anaesthetist, Jay Strauss, during a squash game; d) Perowne‘s daughter, Daisy vs. her grandfather, John Grammaticus, both poets and rivals; e) Perowne‘s family vs. Baxter, who intrudes the protagonist‘s house. In this paper, I exemplify, analyse and discuss how: a) Understanding the causes of what we call evil constitutes an important step towards mutual understanding; b) Both science and arts (which Perowne considers, at first, irrelevant) are important elements in the process of transformation; c) Both personal and interpersonal conflicts are intrinsic to human nature — but they also propitiate healthy changes in behaviour and opinion, through reflection. In order to do so, I resort to Saturday, and to the work of several specialists in the field of conflict management.

Consumers Performance Evaluation of the Participation in Demand Response Programs Using Baseline Methods

Demand response has gain increasing importance in the context of competitive electricity markets environment. The use of demand resources is also advantageous in the context of smart grid operation. In addition to the need of new business models for integrating demand response, adequate methods are necessary for an accurate determination of the consumers’ performance evaluation after the participation in a demand response event. The present paper makes a comparison between some of the existing baseline methods related to the consumers’ performance evaluation, comparing the results obtained with these methods and also with a method proposed by the authors of the paper. A case study demonstrates the application of the referred methods to real consumption data belonging to a consumer connected to a distribution network.

Consumption Management of Air Conditioning Devices for the Participation in Demand Response Programs

Demand Response has been taking over the years an extreme importance. There’s a lot of demand response programs, one of them proposed in this paper, using air conditioners that could increase the power quality and decrease the spent money in many ways like: infrastructures and customers energy bill reduction. This paper proposes a method and a study on how air conditioners could integrate demand response programs. The proposed method has been modelled as an energy resources management optimization problem. This paper presents two case studies, the first one with all costumers participating and second one with some of costumers. The results obtained for both case studies have been analyzed.

Virtual communities of practice: investigating motivations and constraints in the processes of knowledge creation and transfer

With accelerated market volatility, faster response times and increased globalization, business environments are going through a major transformation and firms have intensified their search for strategies which can give them competitive advantage. This requires that companies continuously innovate, to think of new ideas that can be transformed or implemented as products, processes or services, generating value for the firm. Innovative solutions and processes are usually developed by a group of people, working together. A grouping of people that share and create new knowledge can be considered as a Community of Practice (CoP). CoP’s are places which provide a sound basis for organizational learning and encourage knowledge creation and acquisition. Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoP's) can perform a central role in promoting communication and collaboration between members who are dispersed in both time and space. Nevertheless, it is known that not all CoP's and VCoP's share the same levels of performance or produce the same results. This means that there are factors that enable or constrain the process of knowledge creation. With this in mind, we developed a case study in order to identify both the motivations and the constraints that members of an organization experience when taking part in the knowledge creating processes of VCoP's. Results show that organizational culture and professional and personal development play an important role in these processes. No interviewee referred to direct financial rewards as a motivation factor for participation in VCoPs. Most identified the difficulty in aligning objectives established by the management with justification for the time spent in the VCoP. The interviewees also said that technology is not a constraint.

Creativity and digital spaces in the intercultural society

In Permanent Transit: Discourses and Maps of the Intercultural Experience builds interdisciplinary approaches to the study of migrations, traffics, globalization, communication, regulations, arts, literature, and other intercultural processes, in the context of past and present times. The book offers a convergence of perspectives, combining conceptual and empirical work by sociologists, anthropologists, historians, linguists, educators, lawyers, media, specialists, and literary studies writers, in their shared attempt to understand the many routes of the intercultural experience. In Permanent Transit: Discourses and Maps of the Intercultural Experience builds interdisciplinary approaches to the study of migrations, traffics, globalization, communication, regulations, arts, literature, and other intercultural processes, in the context of past and present times. The book offers a convergence of perspectives, combining conceptual and empirical work by sociologists, anthropologists, historians, linguists, educators, lawyers, media, specialists, and literary studies writers, in their shared attempt to understand the many routes of the intercultural experience.

Study of distribution network demand response events in the Portuguese system

In competitive electricity markets with deep concerns for the efficiency level, demand response programs gain considerable significance. As demand response levels have decreased after the introduction of competition in the power industry, new approaches are required to take full advantage of demand response opportunities. Grid operators and utilities are taking new initiatives, recognizing the value of demand response for grid reliability and for the enhancement of organized spot markets’ efficiency. This paper proposes a methodology for the selection of the consumers that participate in an event, which is the responsibility of the Portuguese transmission network operator. The proposed method is intended to be applied in the interruptibility service implemented in Portugal, in convergence with Spain, in the context of the Iberian electricity market. This method is based on the calculation of locational marginal prices (LMP) which are used to support the decision concerning the consumers to be schedule for participation. The proposed method has been computationally implemented and its application is illustrated in this paper using a 937 bus distribution network with more than 20,000 consumers.

Transtextualidade na tradução de "Der mann im fahrstuhl / The mann in the elevator"

In an age where Babel has turned into transcultural communication, an interlingual approach – i.e. in English and in French – to the translating process from German to Portuguese appeared pertinent. Aiming at a refinement of the translating competence, this process consists in contrasting different linguistic and literary strategies through an intercultural and multi-etymological perspective. Thus, we settled upon Heiner Müller‘s play Der Auftrag. Erinnerung an eine Revolution (1980), on which the composer Heiner Goebbels has based himself to textually and musically dramatize an excerpt, Der Mann im Farhstuhl / The Man in the Elevator. A transcription of such excerpt in its source language, German, as well as its translation into English (Carl Weber, 1984, Performing Arts Publications, New York) and French (Jean Jourdheuil, Heinz Schwarzinger, Editions Minuit, Paris) can be found in the booklet that accompanies the CD – edited in 1988 by ECD (München: Records GmbH). It should be emphasized that such a creation allows a framing of Müller‘s text into a musical scenography and, therefore, encourages an intersemiotic contrast. This experience enabled us to come up with a unique imagery of Müller‘s piece of writing, by means of its dramatic and musical conversion and, simultaneously, lead us to stretch our textual consciousness to a multitude of intra-, extra- and interlinguistic elements.

Using Baseline Methods to Identify Non-technical Losses in the Context of Smart Grids

Demand response has gained increasing importance in the context of competitive electricity markets and smart grid environments. In addition to the importance that has been given to the development of business models for integrating demand response, several methods have been developed to evaluate the consumers’ performance after the participation in a demand response event. The present paper uses those performance evaluation methods, namely customer baseline load calculation methods, to determine the expected consumption in each period of the consumer historic data. In the cases in which there is a certain difference between the actual consumption and the estimated consumption, the consumer is identified as a potential cause of non-technical losses. A case study demonstrates the application of the proposed method to real consumption data.