Vuosaaren B-voimalaitoksen lauhduttimien merivesikanavaan sijoitettavan pienvesivoimalan kannavuusselvitys

Insinöörityön tavoitteena oli tehdä teknis-taloudellinen selvitystyö pienvesivoimasta Vuosaaren B-voimalaitokselle. Ensimmäiseksi täytyi selvittää laitoksen virtausolosuhteet, putouskorkeus, saavutettavissa oleva teho, konkreettinen sijoittumispaikka laitoksessa, tarvittavat rakenteet, laitteistot, sähköistys ja ohjausjärjestelmät sekä näiden kaikkien kustannukset. Työn alkuosassa käsitellään vesivoimaloiden teoriaa ja niihin liittyviä yleisiä asioita. Loppuosassa tarkastellaan Vuosaaren B-voimalaitosta sekä varsinaista teknis-taloudellista selvitystyötä. Työn teoriaosuuteen tietoja hankittiin kirjallisuudesta sekä Internetistä. Varsinaisessa selvitystyössä tietojen hankkimisessa auttoivat Helsingin Energian sekä muiden yritysten asiantuntijat. Selvitettyjen alkuarvojen ja muiden tietojen perusteella pystyttiin lopuksi tekemään yleisarvio kannattavuudesta sekä arvio investointien kannattavuudesta. Työssä käsiteltiin seuraavia toteutettavissa olleita vaihtoehtoja: yksi turbiini, kaksi turbiinia tai ei turbiinia ollenkaan. Yhdellä turbiinilla vuotuinen käyttöaika olisi ollut laitoksen käyttötietojen perusteella noin 7500 tuntia vuodessa. Kahden turbiinin vaihtoehdossa yhtä turbiinia olisi käytetty 6000 tuntia vuodessa ja kahden turbiinin yhteiskäyttöaika olisi jäänyt vain 1500 tuntiin vuodessa. Näistä syistä johtuen parhaaksi ratkaisuksi muodostui yhden turbiinin vaihtoehto, jossa turbiinin käyttöaika oli optimaalinen ja investointikustannukset pysyivät kohtuullisina. Turbiinin pois jättäminen ei myöskään olisi järkevää, koska turbiinin avulla laitoksen energia tehokkuus paranisi. Selvitystyön avulla Helsingin Energia voi tehdä päätöksen pienvesivoimalaan investoimisesta, mikä selvityksen perusteella vaikuttaisi kannattavalta.

Iowa Weatherization Assistance Program Fact Sheet, 2006

The Weatherization Assistance Program is a low-income energy efficiency program administered by the Department of Energy (DOE). Its purpose is to make the homes of low-income clients more energy efficient, thereby reducing the households’ energy bills. The program also improves the health and safety of low-income homes. The energy efficiency and health and safety work is done using the most advanced technologies and testing protocols available in the housing industry. States administer the program in accordance with DOE rules and regulations.

Charting Our Own Course: Today’s Challenges, Tomorrow’s Opportunities, December 2008

The Office of Energy Independence presents Iowa’s second annual energy independence plan, which highlights accomplishments achieved thus far and makes recommendations for the coming year. This plan shows that Iowa has made significant progress in building the foundation for reaching energy independence in just the past year. Continued investment and further efforts will enable Iowa to push toward even greater advances, while creating new jobs and diversifying local economies. With those aims in mind, the state has been investing extensively in the new energy economy. One important example is the Iowa Power Fund, an annual appropriation from the Iowa General Assembly administered by the Office of Energy Independence. In less than one year, the Office has received more than 160 project applications totaling more than $308 million in requests. The projects approved thus far will help advance Iowa’s wind and solar industries, foster new energy efficiency practices, and develop the bio fuels industry for a more economically and environmentally sustainable future. Iowa’s position as a leader in the new energy economy is dependent on the success of the Power Fund, and on the success of this plan. This plan clearly states that Iowa must boldly pursue a strong position in the emerging energy economy worldwide.

Eficiència energètica aplicada a les instal·lacions de la Universitat de Vic

En termes generals, es pot definir l’Eficiència Energètica com la reducció del consum d’energia mantenint els mateixos serveis energètics, sense disminuir el nostre confort i qualitat de vida, protegint el medi ambient, assegurant el proveïment i fomentant un comportament Sostenible al seu ús. L’objectiu principal d’aquest treball, és reduir el consum d’energia i terme de potència contractat a la Universitat de Vic, aplicant un programa d’estalvi amb mesures correctores en el funcionament de les seves instal·lacions o espais. Per tal de poder arribar a aquest objectiu marcat, prèviament s’ha realitzat un estudi acurat, obtenint tota la informació necessària per poder aplicar les mesures correctores a la bossa més important de consum. Un cop trobada, dur a terme l’estudi de la viabilitat de la inversió de les mesures correctores més eficients, optimitzant els recursos destinats. L’espai on s’ha dut a terme l’estudi, ha estat a l’edifici F del Campus Miramarges, seguint les indicacions d’Arnau Bardolet (Cap de Manteniment de la UVIC). Aquest edifici consta d’un entresol, baixos i quatre plantes. L’equip de mesura que s’ha fet servir per realitzar l’estudi, és de la marca Circutor sèrie AR5-L, aquests equips són programables que mesuren, calculen i emmagatzemen en memòria els principals paràmetres elèctrics en xarxes trifàsiques. Els projectes futurs complementaris que es podrien realitzar a part d’aquest són: instal·lar sensors, instal·lar mòduls convertidors TCP/IP, aprofitar la xarxa intranet i crear un escada amb un sinòptic de control i gestió des d’un punt de treball. Aquest aplicatiu permet visualitzar en una pantalla d’un PC tots els estats dels elements controlats mitjançant un sinòptic (encendre/parar manualment l’enllumenat i endolls de les aules, estat d’enllumenat i endolls de les aules, consums instantanis/acumulats energètics, estat dels passadissos entre altres) i explotar les dades recollides a la base de dades. Cada espai tindria la seva lògica de funcionament automàtic específic. Entre les conclusions més rellevants obtingudes en aquest treball s’observa: · Que és pot reduir la potència contractada a la factura a l’estar per sota de la realment consumida. · Que no hi ha penalitzacions a la factura per consum de reactiva, ja que el compensador funciona correctament. · Que es pot reduir l’horari de l’inici del consum d’energia, ja que no correspon a l’activitat docent. · Els valors de la tensió i freqüència estan dintre de la normalitat. · Els harmònics estan al llindar màxim. Analitzant aquestes conclusions, voldria destacar les mesures correctores més importants que es poden dur a terme: canvi tecnològic a LED, temporitzar automàticament l’encesa i apagada dels fluorescents i equips informàtics de les aules “seguint calendari docent”, instal·lar sensors de moviment amb detecció lumínica als passadissos. Totes les conclusions extretes d’aquest treball, es poden aplicar a tots els edificis de la facultat, prèviament realitzant l’estudi individual de cadascuna, seguint els mateixos criteris per tal d’optimitzar la inversió.

Memory-based scheduling of scientific computing clusters

This study looks at how increased memory utilisation affects throughput and energy consumption in scientific computing, especially in high-energy physics. Our aim is to minimise energy consumed by a set of jobs without increasing the processing time. The earlier tests indicated that, especially in data analysis, throughput can increase over 100% and energy consumption decrease 50% by processing multiple jobs in parallel per CPU core. Since jobs are heterogeneous, it is not possible to find an optimum value for the number of parallel jobs. A better solution is based on memory utilisation, but finding an optimum memory threshold is not straightforward. Therefore, a fuzzy logic-based algorithm was developed that can dynamically adapt the memory threshold based on the overall load. In this way, it is possible to keep memory consumption stable with different workloads while achieving significantly higher throughput and energy-efficiency than using a traditional fixed number of jobs or fixed memory threshold approaches.

Nitrogen metabolism in Zucker rats is affected by moderate reduction, but not by moderate incerase in dietary protein

Marked changes in the content of protein in the diet affects the rat"s pattern of growth, but there is not any data on the effects to moderate changes. Here we used a genetically obese rat strain (Zucker) to examine the metabolic modifications induced to moderate changes in the content of protein of diets, doubling (high-protein (HP): 30%) or halving (low-protein (LP): 8%) the content of protein of reference diet (RD: 16%). Nitrogen, energy balances, and amino acid levels were determined in lean (L) and obese (O) animals after 30 days on each diet. Lean HP (LHP) animals showed higher energy efficiency and amino acid catabolism but maintained similar amino acid accrual rates to the lean RD (LRD) group. Conversely, the lean LP (LLP) group showed a lower growth rate, which was compensated by a relative increase in fat mass. Furthermore, these animals showed greater efficiency accruing amino acids. Obesity increased amino acid catabolism as a result of massive amino acid intake; however, obese rats maintained protein accretion rates, which, in the OHP group, implied a normalization of energy efficiency. Nonetheless, the obese OLP group showed the same protein accretion pattern as in lean animals (LLP). In the base of our data, concluded that the Zucker rats accommodate their metabolism to support moderates increases in the content of protein in the diet, but do not adjust in the same way to a 50% decrease in content of protein, as shown by an index of growth reduced, both in lean and obese rats.

Secure Dynamic MANET On-demand (SEDYMO) Routing Protocol

This paper describes the state of the art of secure ad hoc routing protocols and presents SEDYMO, a mechanism to secure a dynamic multihop ad hoc routing protocol. The proposed solution defeats internal and external attacks usinga trustworthiness model based on a distributed certification authority. Digital signatures and hash chains are used to ensure the correctness of the protocol. The protocol is compared with other alternatives in terms of security strength, energy efficiency and time delay. Both computational and transmission costs are considered and it is shown that the secure protocol overhead is not a critical factor compared to the high network interface cost.