Benefits from energy related building renovation beyond costs, energy and emissions

The relevance of the building sector in the global energy use as well as in the global carbon emissions, both in the developed and developing countries, makes the improvement of the overall energy performance of existing buildings an important part of the actions to mitigate climate changes. Regardless of this potential for energy and emissions saving, large scale building renovation has been found hard to trigger, mainly because present standards are mainly focused on new buildings, not responding effectively to the numerous technical, functional and economic constraints of the existing ones. One of the common problems in the assessment of building renovation scenarios is that only energy savings and costs are normally considered, despite the fact that it has been long recognized that investment on energy efficiency and low carbon technologies yield several benefits beyond the value of saved energy which can be as important as the energy cost savings process. Based on the analysis of significant literature and several case studies, the relevance of co-benefits achieved in the renovation process is highlighted. These benefits can be felt at the building level by the owner or user (like increased user comfort, fewer problems with building physics, improved aesthetics) and should therefore be considered in the definition of the renovation measures, but also at the level of the society as a whole (like health effects, job creation, energy security, impact on climate change), and from this perspective, policy makers must be aware of the possible crossed impacts among different areas of the society for the development of public policies.

Adsorption of energy-related organic pollutants : a literature review /

Mode of access: Internet.

Sorption properties of sediments and energy-related pollutants /

Mode of access: Internet.

Summary of awards in energy related general research, fiscal year 1975.

Mode of access: Internet.

Inventory of federal energy-related environment and safety research for ...

Vols. for <-1976/77> issued in 4 v.: v. 1. Executive summary; v. 2. Project listings; v. 3. Interactive terminal users guide; v. 4. Indices. ; 1977/78 issued in 3 v.; 1978/79 in 2 vols.: 1. Excutive summary.; v. 2. Project listings and indexes.

Energy related innovation, the missing link? : a revision and integration of the business cycle theories of Keynes and Schumpeter /

"To be presented at the Sixteenth International Atlantic Economic Conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 6-9, 1983."

Energy related inventions program : a joint program of the Department of Energy and the National Bureau of Standards : status report.

"October 1985."

Understanding air conditioning systems for better energy efficiency : operations and maintenance procedures for utility cost control /

"ILENR/BE-87/01."

Capacity Investment in Renewable and Conventional Energy Sources

This dissertation studies capacity investments in energy sources, with a focus on renewable technologies, such as solar and wind energy. We develop analytical models to provide insights for policymakers and use real data from the state of Texas to corroborate our findings.

We first take a strategic perspective and focus on electricity pricing policies. Specifically, we investigate the capacity investments of a utility firm in renewable and conventional energy sources under flat and peak pricing policies. We consider generation patterns and intermittency of solar and wind energy in relation to the electricity demand throughout a day. We find that flat pricing leads to a higher investment level for solar energy and it can still lead to more investments in wind energy if considerable amount of wind energy is generated throughout the day.

In the second essay, we complement the first one by focusing on the problem of matching supply with demand in every operating period (e.g., every five minutes) from the perspective of a utility firm. We study the interaction between renewable and conventional sources with different levels of operational flexibility, i.e., the possibility

of quickly ramping energy output up or down. We show that operational flexibility determines these interactions: renewable and inflexible sources (e.g., nuclear energy) are substitutes, whereas renewable and flexible sources (e.g., natural gas) are complements.

In the final essay, rather than the capacity investments of the utility firms, we focus on the capacity investments of households in rooftop solar panels. We investigate whether or not these investments may cause a utility death spiral effect, which is a vicious circle of increased solar adoption and higher electricity prices. We observe that the current rate-of-return regulation may lead to a death spiral for utility firms. We show that one way to reverse the spiral effect is to allow the utility firms to maximize their profits by determining electricity prices.

LIST STATUS REPORT FOR ENERGY RELATED LEGISLATION

This gives the status of bills in the General Assembly dealing with energy. It gives the title, the bill itself and where it stands in the process in the Senate and House.

LIST STATUS REPORT FOR ENERGY RELATED LEGISLATION

This gives the status of bills in the General Assembly dealing with energy. It gives the title, the bill itself and where it stands in the process in the Senate and House.

Clearing the cloudy crystal balls: Hybrid modelling for energy and climate change mitigation scenarios – A case study for Portugal

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Ambiente

Fuel switching

The present Master dissertation is a project whose main objective is to identify value creation opportunities through fuel switching in the Portuguese industry, services, agriculture and fishing sectors. Fuel switching opportunities are characterized by type of fuel transition, type of technology transition, economy subsectors prone to have fuel switching and value created through fuel shift. Results suggest tomato concentrate, dairy, beer manufacturing and sugar refining subsectors is where prevalence of fuel oil steam boilers is high, for such cases conversion to natural gas steam boilers should result in operations having a ratio of NPV over CAPEX larger than ten and a payback period just under one year. Results further suggest food, beverages, textile, chemicals and wood subsectors currently operate between ten and twenty cogeneration Diesel engines that can be either modified to operate with natural gas or replaced by new natural gas cogeneration systems. Financial modeling indicates that both options have great value creation potential. The current analysis aims to be used by natural gas suppliers and energy project promoters to identify new potential deals as well as by heavy energy consumers to mitigate their energy related costs.