Emergy-based sustainability assessment of different energy options for green buildings

It is necessary to minimize the environmental impact and utilize natural resources in a sustainable and efficient manner in the early design stage of developing an environmentally-conscious design for a heating, ventilating and air-conditioning system. Energy supply options play a significant role in the total environmental load of heating, ventilating and air-conditioning systems. To assess the environmental impact of different energy options, a new method based on Emergy Analysis is proposed. Emergy Accounting, was first developed and widely used in the area of ecological engineering, but this is the first time it has been used in building service engineering. The environmental impacts due to the energy options are divided into four categories under the Emergy Framework: the depletion of natural resources, the greenhouse effect (carbon dioxide equivalents), the chemical rain effect (sulphur dioxide equivalents), and anthropogenic heat release. The depletion of non-renewable natural resources is indicated by the Environmental Load Ratio, and the environmental carrying capacity is developed to represent the environmental service to dilute the pollutants and anthropogenic heat released. This Emergy evaluation method provides a new way to integrate different environmental impacts under the same framework and thus facilitates better system choices. A case study of six different kinds of energy options consisting of renewable and non-renewable energy was performed by using Emergy Theory, and thus their relative environmental impacts were compared. The results show that the method of electricity generation in energy sources, especially for electricity-powered systems, is the most important factor to determine their overall environmental performance. The direct-fired lithium-bromide absorption type consumes more non-renewable energy, and contributes more to the urban heat island effect compared with other options having the same electricity supply. Using Emergy Analysis, designers and clients can make better-informed, environmentally-conscious selections of heating, ventilating and air-conditioning systems.

Energy Analysis within Industrial Hydraulics and Correspondent Solar PV System Design

Energy efficiency and renewable energy use are two main priorities leading to industrial sustainability nowadays according to European Steel Technology Platform (ESTP). Modernization efforts can be done by industries to improve energy consumptions of the production lines. These days, steel making industrial applications are energy and emission intensive. It was estimated that over the past years, energy consumption and corresponding CO2 generation has increased steadily reaching approximately 338.15 parts per million in august 2010 [1]. These kinds of facts and statistics have introduced a lot of room for improvement in energy efficiency for industrial applications through modernization and use of renewable energy sources such as solar Photovoltaic Systems (PV).The purpose of this thesis work is to make a preliminary design and simulation of the solar photovoltaic system which would attempt to cover the energy demand of the initial part of the pickling line hydraulic system at the SSAB steel plant. For this purpose, the energy consumptions of this hydraulic system would be studied and evaluated and a general analysis of the hydraulic and control components performance would be done which would yield a proper set of guidelines contributing towards future energy savings. The results of the energy efficiency analysis showed that the initial part of the pickling line hydraulic system worked with a low efficiency of 3.3%. Results of general analysis showed that hydraulic accumulators of 650 liter size should be used by the initial part pickling line system in combination with a one pump delivery of 100 l/min. Based on this, one PV system can deliver energy to an AC motor-pump set covering 17.6% of total energy and another PV system can supply a DC hydraulic pump substituting 26.7% of the demand. The first system used 290 m2 area of the roof and was sized as 40 kWp, the second used 109 m2 and was sized as 15.2 kWp. It was concluded that the reason for the low efficiency was the oversized design of the system. Incremental modernization efforts could help to improve the hydraulic system energy efficiency and make the design of the solar photovoltaic system realistically possible. Two types of PV systems where analyzed in the thesis work. A method was found calculating the load simulation sequence based on the energy efficiency studies to help in the PV system simulations. Hydraulic accumulators integrated into the pickling line worked as energy storage when being charged by the PV system as well.

Solar energy exhibits at the popular science park Teknoland

The new Popular Science Park TEKNOLAND in Falun contains a number of interactive solar energy exhibits, including The Solar Heated Chess Board, The Solar Electric Playhouse, The Sudanese Solar Oven, and Solar Collector Optics. The TeknoTrix tutored children activities include solar thermal activities. Some related interactive exhibits are planned to be included during the summer and during coming years.

Energy Efficient Buildings with Functional Steel Cladding

The aim of the study is to develop a model for the energy balance of buildings that includes the effect from the radiation properties of interior and exterior surfaces of the building envelope. As a first step we have used ice arenas as case study objects to investigate the importance of interior low emissivity surfaces. Measurements have been done in two ice arenas in the north part of Sweden, one with lower and one with higher ceiling emissivity. The results show that the low emissivity ceiling gives a much lower radiation temperature interacting with the ice under similar conditions. The dynamic modelling of the roof in ice arenas shows a similar dependence of the roof-to-ice heat flux and the ceiling emissivity.A second part of the study focus on how to realise paints with very low thermal emissivity to be used on interior building surfaces.

Energy Efficiency through Thermal Energy Storage : Possibilities for the Swedish Building Stock

The need for heating and cooling in buildings constitutes a considerable part of the total energy use in a country and reducing this need is of outmost importance in order to reach national and international goals for reducing energy use and emissions. One important way of reaching these goals is to increase the proportion of renewable energy used for heating and cooling of buildings. Perhaps the largest obstacle with this is the often occurring mismatch between the availability of renewable energy and the need for heating or cooling, hindering this energy to be used directly. This is one of the problems that can be solved by using thermal energy storage (TES) in order to save the heat or cold from when it is available to when it is needed. This thesis is focusing on the combination of TES techniques and buildings to achieve increased energy efficiency for heating and cooling. Various techniques used for TES as well as the combination of TES in buildings have been investigated and summarized through an extensive literature review. A survey of the Swedish building stock was also performed in order to define building types common in Sweden. Within the scope of this thesis, the survey resulted in the selection of three building types, two single family houses and one office building, out of which the two residential buildings were used in a simulation case study of passive TES with increased thermal mass (both sensible and latent). The second case study presented in the thesis is an evaluation of an existing seasonal borehole storage of solar heat for a residential community. In this case, real measurement data was used in the evaluation and in comparisons with earlier evaluations. The literature reviews showed that using TES opens up potential for reduced energy demand and reduced peak heating and cooling loads as well as possibilities for an increased share of renewable energy to cover the energy demand. By using passive storage through increased thermal mass of a building it is also possible to reduce variations in the indoor temperature and especially reduce excess temperatures during warm periods, which could result in avoiding active cooling in a building that would otherwise need it. The analysis of the combination of TES and building types confirmed that TES has a significant potential for increased energy efficiency in buildings but also highlighted the fact that there is still much research required before some of the technologies can become commercially available. In the simulation case study it was concluded that only a small reduction in heating demand is possible with increased thermal mass, but that the time with indoor temperatures above 24 °C can be reduced by up to 20%. The case study of the borehole storage system showed that although the storage system worked as planned, heat losses in the rest of the system as well as some problems with the system operation resulted in a lower solar fraction than projected. The work presented within this thesis has shown that TES is already used successfully for many building applications (e.g. domestic hot water stores and water tanks for storing solar heat) but that there still is much potential in further use of TES. There are, however, barriers such as a need for more research for some storage technologies as well as storage materials, especially phase change material storage and thermochemical storage.

Solar Energy assessment based on weather station data for direct site monitoring in Indonesia

This thesis evaluates different sites for a weather measurement system and a suitable PV- simulation for University of Surabaya (UBAYA) in Indonesia/Java. The weather station is able to monitor all common weather phenomena including solar insolation. It is planned to use the data for scientific and educational purposes in the renewable energy studies. During evaluation and installation it falls into place that official specifications from global meteorological organizations could not be meet for some sensors caused by the conditions of UBAYA campus. After arranging the hardware the weather at the site was monitored for period of time. A comparison with different official sources from ground based and satellite bases measurements showed differences in wind and solar radiation. In some cases the monthly average solar insolation was deviating 42 % for satellite-based measurements. For the ground based it was less than 10 %. The average wind speed has a difference of 33 % compared to a source, which evaluated the wind power in Surabaya. The wind direction shows instabilities towards east compared with data from local weather station at the airport. PSET has the chance to get some investments to investigate photovoltaic on there own roof. With several simulations a suitable roof direction and the yearly and monthly outputs are shown. With a 7.7 kWpeak PV installation with the latest crystalline technology on the market 8.82 MWh/year could be achieved with weather data from 2012. Thin film technology could increase the value up to 9.13 MWh/year. However, the roofs have enough area to install PV. Finally the low price of electricity in Indonesia makes it not worth to feed in the energy into the public grid.

Hydropower Energy Simulation Using Mike 11 Model; A Case Study In South Germany's Small Run-Of-River Hydropower Plants

Renewable energy production is a basic supplement to stabilize rapidly increasing global energy demand and skyrocketing energy price as well as to balance the fluctuation of supply from non-renewable energy sources at electrical grid hubs. The European energy traders, government and private company energy providers and other stakeholders have been, since recently, a major beneficiary, customer and clients of Hydropower simulation solutions. The relationship between rainfall-runoff model outputs and energy productions of hydropower plants has not been clearly studied. In this research, association of rainfall, catchment characteristics, river network and runoff with energy production of a particular hydropower station is examined. The essence of this study is to justify the correspondence between runoff extracted from calibrated catchment and energy production of hydropower plant located at a catchment outlet; to employ a unique technique to convert runoff to energy based on statistical and graphical trend analysis of the two, and to provide environment for energy forecast. For rainfall-runoff model setup and calibration, MIKE 11 NAM model is applied, meanwhile MIKE 11 SO model is used to track, adopt and set a control strategy at hydropower location for runoff-energy correlation. The model is tested at two selected micro run-of-river hydropower plants located in South Germany. Two consecutive calibration is compromised to test the model; one for rainfall-runoff model and other for energy simulation. Calibration results and supporting verification plots of two case studies indicated that simulated discharge and energy production is comparable with the measured discharge and energy production respectively.

Simulation of the energy performance of maize production integrated to pig farming

Foi avaliado o desempenho energético da suinocultura integrada à produção de milho em grão em sistema de plantio direto mecanizado. Nesta concepção de integração proposta, os dejetos suínos são utilizados como fertilizantes na produção de milho. O sistema foi delimitado envolvendo as atividades associadas ao manejo dos suínos e de produção do milho (manejo do solo, cultivo e colheita). O período de análise considerado foi de um ano, o que possibilita a produção de três lotes de suínos e duas safras de milho. Para avaliar o desempenho energético, foram criados três indicadores: eficiência energética, eficiência de uso de fontes não renováveis e o custo de energia não renovável para a produção de proteína. As entradas energéticas são compostas pelos insumos e pela infraestrutura, utilizados na criação dos suínos e na produção de milho, e pela radiação solar incidente no agrossistema. Já as saídas são representadas pelos seus produtos (suínos terminados e o milho). Os resultados obtidos nas simulações apontam que a integração melhora o desempenho energético das granjas suinícolas, aumentando a eficiência energética (186%) e a eficiência não renovável (352%), além de reduzir o custo de energia não renovável para a produção de proteína (‑58%).

Energy efficiency potential in Jamaica: challenges, opportunities and strategies for implementation

Incluye Bibliografía

Renewable energies potential in Jamaica

Includes bibliography

A comparative study of MPPT strategies and a novel singlephase integrated buck-boost inverter for small wind energy conversion systems

This paper presents the analysis of some usual MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) strategies intended for small wind energy conversion (up to 1kW) based on permanent magnet synchronous generators (PMSG), considering the stand-alone application for a novel buck-boost integrated inverter. Each MPPT method is analytically introduced and then it is simulated using MatLab/Simulink considering standard conditions of wind and also commercially available turbines and generators. The extracted power in each case is compared with the maximum available power, so the tracking factor is calculated for each method. Thus, the focus is on the application to improve the efficiency of stand-alone wind energy conversion systems (WECS) with battery chargers and AC load supplied by inverter. Therefore, for this purpose a novel single phase buck-boost integrated inverter is introduced. Finally, the main experimental results for the introduced inverter are presented. © 2011 IEEE.

The need of subsidy for the implementation of photovoltaic solar energy as supporting of decentralized electrical power generation in Brazil

The growing demand for electrical power and the limited capital invested to provide this power is forcing countries like Brazil to search for new alternatives for electrical power generation. The purpose of this paper is to present a technical and economic study on a 15 kW solar plant installed in an isolated community, highlighting the importance of the need for financial subsidy from the government. It evaluates the importance of parameters such as the annual interest rate, specific investment, the marginal cost of expanding the electrical power supply and the government subsidy on amortization time of capital invested. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

An assessment of the economic and social impacts of climate change on the energy sector in the Caribbean

The present report assesses the economic and social impacts of climate change on the energy sector in Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. In the study, the Artificial Neural Network methodology was employed to model the relationship between climate change and energy demand. The viability of the actions proposed were assessed using cost benefit analyses based on models from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of the United States of America.

An assessment of the economic impact of climate change on the Agriculture, Energy and Health sectors in Trinidad and Tobago

This report analyses the agriculture, energy, and health sectors in Trinidad and Tobago to assess the potential economic impacts of climate change on the sectors. The fundamental aim of this report is to assist with the development of strategies to deal with the potential impact of climate change on Trinidad and Tobago. It also has the potential to provide essential input for identifying and preparing policies and strategies to help advance the Caribbean subregion closer to solving problems associated with climate change and attaining individual and regional sustainable development goals. Some of the key anticipated impacts of climate change for the Caribbean include elevated air and sea-surface temperatures, sea-level rise, possible changes in extreme events and a reduction in freshwater resources. The economic impact of climate change on the three sectors was estimated for the A2 and B2 IPCC scenarios until 2050. An exploration of various adaptation strategies was also undertaken for each sector using standard evaluation techniques. The study of the impact of climate change on the agriculture sector focused on root crops, green vegetables and fisheries. For these sectors combined, the cumulative loss under the A2 scenario is calculated as approximately B$2.24 and approximately B$1.72 under the B2 scenario by 2050. This is equivalent to 1.37% and 1.05% of the 2008 GDP under the A2 and B2 scenarios, respectively. Given the potential for significant damage to the agriculture sector a large number of potential adaptation measures were considered. Out of these a short-list of 10 potential options were selected by applying 10 evaluation criteria. All of the adaptation strategies showed positive benefits. The analysis indicate that the options with the highest net benefits are: (1) Building on-farm water storage, (2) Mainstreaming climate change issues into agricultural management and (3) Using drip irrigation. Other attractive options include water harvesting. The policy decisions by governments should include these assessments, the omitted intangible benefits, as well as the provision of other social goals such as employment. The analysis of the energy sector has shown that the economic impact of climate change during 2011-2050 is similar under the A2 (US$142.88 million) and B2 (US$134.83 million) scenarios with A2 scenario having a slightly higher cost (0.737% of 2009 GDP) than the B2 scenario (0.695% of 2009 GDP) for the period. On the supply side, analyses indicate that Trinidad and Tobago’s energy sector will be susceptible to the climate change policies of major energy-importing countries (the United States of America and China), and especially to their renewable energy strategies. Implementation of foreign oil substitution policy by the United States of America will result in a decline in Trinidad and Tobago’s Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) export (equivalent to 2.2% reduction in 2009 GDP) unless an alternative market is secured for the lost United States of America market. China, with its rapid economic growth and the highest population in the world, offers a potential replacement market for Trinidad and Tobago’s LNG export. In this context the A2 scenario will offer the best option for Trinidad and Tobago’s energy sector. The cost-benefit analysis undertaken on selected adaptation strategies reveal that the benefit-cost ratio of replacing electric water heaters with solar water heaters is the most cost-effective. It was also found that the introduction of Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) and Variable Refrigerant Volume (VRV) air conditioners surpasses the projected cost of increased electricity consumption due to climate change, and provides an economic rationale for the adoption of these adaptation options even in a situation of increased electricity consumption occasioned by climate change. Finally, the conversion of motor fleets to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) is a cost-effective adaptation option for the transport sector, although it has a high initial cost of implementation and the highest per capita among the four adaptation options evaluated. To investigate the effect of climate change on the health sector dengue fever, leptospirosis, food borne illnesses, and gastroenteritis were examined. The total number of new dengue cases for the period 2008 to 2050 was 204,786 for BAU, 153,725 for A2 and 131,890 for the B2 scenario. With regard to the results for leptospirosis, A2 and B2 seem to be following a similar path with total number of new cases in the A2 scenario being 9,727 and 9,218 cases under the B2 scenario. Although incidence levels in the BAU scenario coincided with those of A2 and B2 prior to 2020, they are somewhat lower post 2020. A similar picture emerges for the scenarios as they relate to food-borne illnesses and to gastroenteritis. Specifically for food-borne illnesses, the BAU scenario recorded 27,537 cases, the A2 recorded 28,568 cases and the B2 recorded 28,679 cases. The focus on the selected sources of morbidity in the health sector has highlighted the fact that the vulnerability of the country’s health sector to climate change does not depend solely on exogenously derived impacts, but also on the behaviour and practices among the population. It is clear that the vulnerability which became evident in the analysis of the impacts on dengue fever, leptospirosis and food-borne illnesses is not restricted solely to climate or other external factors. The most important adaptation strategy being recommended targets lifestyle, behaviour and attitude changes. The population needs to be encouraged to alter their behaviours and practices so as to minimise their exposure to harmful outcomes as it relates to the incidence of these diseases.

A study on energy issues in the Caribbean: potential for mitigating climate change

The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) is seeking to provide support to the Governments of Guyana, Jamaica and Barbados in researching the potential for employing renewable energy technologies to mitigate climate change. This exercise involves the study of different types of renewable technologies and mitigative strategies, with the aim of making recommendations to the governments on the development of their renewable energy sector. The recommendations may also assist in achieving their long-term objectives of reducing poverty and promoting healthy economies and sustainable livelihoods in keeping with the Millennium Development Goals. Guyana, Jamaica and Barbados each face common and specific challenges in their efforts to adequately define and implement their energy and climate policies, in a way that allows them to contribute to the mitigation effort against climate change, while promoting sustainable development within their countries. Each country has demonstrated an understanding of the global and national challenges pertaining to climate change. They have attempted to address these challenges through policies and various programmes implemented by local and international agencies. Documented and undocumented policies have sought to outline the directions to be taken by each territory as they seek to deploy new technologies to address issues related to energy and the environment. While all territories have sought to deploy multiple alternate and renewable technologies simultaneously, it is clear that, given their sizes and resource limitations, no one territory can achieve excellence in all these areas. Guyana has demonstrated the greatest potential for hydro energy and should pursue it as their main area of expertise. The country also has an additional major strategy that includes forest credits and the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) programme. This approach will be brought to the negotiation table in the upcoming climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009. Of the three countries, Jamaica has the only active significant wind farm deployment, while Barbados has a long tradition in solar energy. Each country might then supplement their energy and fuel mix with other energy and fuel sources and draw from the experience of other countries. Given the synergies that might accrue from adopting a regional approach, the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) might be well positioned to play a coordinating role. This focus on renewable energy and biofuels should yield good, long-term results as it relates to mitigation against climate change, and good, short- and medium-term results as it relates to the development of sustainable economies. Each country might also achieve energy security, reduced oil dependence, significant reduction in harmful emissions and better foreign exchange management if they pursue good policies and implementation practices. Human and financial resources are critical to the success of planned interventions, and it will be necessary to successfully mobilize these resources in order to be effective in executing key plans.