1,721,009 research outputs found
Reversible solid oxide cells applications to the building sector
Full text linkHydrogen can manage intermittent Renewable Energy Sources (RES), especially in high-RES share systems. The energy transition calls for mature, low cost, low space solutions bringing the attention to unitized items such as the reversible Solid Oxide Cell (rSOC). This device, made of a single unit, can work as an electrolyzer and as fuel cell with high efficiency, fuel flexibility and producing combined heat. The objective of this review is to identify and classify rSOC applications to the building sector as an effective solution and to show how much this technology is near to its commercialisation. Research & Development projects were analysed and discussed for a comprehensive overview. Conclusions show an increasing interest in the reversible technology, although it is still at pre industrialisation stage with few real applications in the building sector, of which, the majority is reported, commented, and compared in this paper for the first time
The EPLANoptMAC model to plan the decarbonisation of the maritime transport sector of a small island
No full textIslands have been identified as living labs for implementing innovative solutions so as to boost the green energy transition. In this context, energy modelling and planning are key to optimally design the future energy system and identify the most appropriate technologies for both power generation and energy system management. In this research, a Marginal Abatement Cost curve method, by means of the EPLANoptMAC model, is applied to identify the optimal energy mix for the island of Favignana, Italy. The optimisation uses the carbon avoidance cost as objective function in order to consider both environmental and economic aspects. In addition to standard technologies such as photovoltaic and battery energy storage demand response technologies that include the maritime transport and heating sectors are optimised. Particularly, the decarbonisation of the maritime transport sector is of utmost importance since it represents the biggest energy consumption and source of carbon dioxide emissions for small islands. Results show that photovoltaic is the main priority, followed by battery energy storages. Electric ferries are preferrable to hydrogen ones when enough renewable energy from photovoltaic is produced. The decarbonisation of the maritime transportation is preferable to the heating sector and is required to reach decarbonisation targets higher than 40%
District Heating Deployment and Energy-Saving Measures to Decarbonise the Building Stock in 100% Renewable Energy Systems
Full text linkAchieving a zero-emission building heating sector requires numerous strategies and detailed energy planning, in order to identify the optimal decarbonisation pathway. This work aims to assess the impact of district heating expansion and the implementation of energy-saving measures on the decarbonisation of the Italian building stock by 2050, analysing their combined impact, reciprocal effects, and technical-economic implications on the entire national energy system. The scenarios have been implemented and simulated with the H2RES software, a long-term energy planning optimisation model, built for the Italian national energy system. Results indicate that it is possible to decarbonise the heating system in an efficient and cost-effective manner by the year 2040. Heat pumps represent the optimal technology at both centralised and decentralised levels. District heating expansion is a priority for the decarbonisation of the building stock, allowing us to reduce costs, exploit thermal storage systems and provide system flexibility. In the best scenario, 40% of the Italian heat demand can be supplied by fourth-generation district heating. Energy-saving measures can reduce heat demand and primary energy but at higher annual costs and with a significant increase in investment. The combined simulation of the strategies within an optimisation model of the entire energy system enables the accurate assessment of the real impact of the various measures, considering their reciprocal effects and technical-economic implications
Developing and testing a new tool to foster wind energy sector industrial skills
No full textThe wind energy sector has seen an increasing growth in the last decade and this is foreseen to continue in the next years. This has posed several challenges in terms of skilled and prepared professionals that have always to be up to date in an industry that is constantly changing. Thus, teaching tools have gained an increasing interest. The present research reviewed the state of the art in terms of digital interactive training tools pinpointing that the existing options do not feature the user involvement in the development of the training material. Hence, the main aim of this paper is to develop and test an innovative method based on gamification to increase wind energy sector industrial skills, providing a digital interactive environment in the form of a new user-friendly software that can allow its users to train and contribute to the teaching and learning contents. The first methodological step deals with the associated background studies that were required at strategy implementation and development stages, including market analysis and technology trade-offs, as well as the general structure and the implementation steps of the software design. Obtained results pinpointed that with minimal use of web-based database and network connectivity, a mobile phone application could work in the form of a time-scored quiz application that remotely located staff at wind energy farms could benefit from. The technological innovation brought by this research will substantially improve the service of training, allowing a more dynamic formative management contributing to an improvement in the competitiveness and a step towards excellence for the whole sector
Techno-economic analysis of biogas production and use scenarios in a small island energy system
No full textThis paper investigates the economic, energy and environmental benefits given by the installation of an anaerobic digester in a small island. Particularly, the island of Procida is chosen as a case study where the production of organic fraction of municipal solid waste is equal to 2477 t/year. Three scenarios are hypothesized for the use of the locally produced biogas, namely: (i) upgrading of biogas and injection into the gas grid for the residential sector (replacing 21% of natural gas consumption); (ii) upgrading and use in transport sector (covering waste trucks, non-organic waste ferry and shuttle buses consumptions); (iii) use of biogas in a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant (covering 4% of electricity consumptions). The scenarios are analysed and compared in economic, emissions and energy terms. Although the biogas covers just a small part of consumption, it can still provide a relevant contribution to the island energy system by diversifying the energy mix while increasing the renewable energy sources penetration and also increasing the independence. The results show advantageous payback time (4–5 years), and this is mainly due to the significant savings in the maritime transport and the partial avoidance of the waste disposal on the mainland the incentives
The EPLANopt model for Favignana island's energy transition
No full textEnergy costs, carbon dioxide emissions, security of supply and system stability are common challenges in small islands all over the world. The European Union identified islands as perfect sites to implement innovative solutions to boost the energy transition towards a sustainable, independent, secure and low carbon energy system. In this framework, energy planning is an indispensable tool to optimally design the future energy system selecting proper renewable energy sources as well as the optimal flexibility strategies such as electric energy storage or sector coupling solutions. Energy system modelling represents one of the most used method for energy planning; indeed, energy models enable to simulate the real energy system functioning as well as its operation costs. Nevertheless, not many researches using multi-objective optimisation have been applied to insular case studies. In this paper, the EPLANopt model is applied to the case study of the Favignana Island in order to investigate the optimal configurations of the island energy system in 2050 with a multi-objective analysis. In order to appropriately analyse the case study of a non-interconnected island, an additional constraint is analysed to preliminary consider the system stability. The model is used to evaluate different energy mix, based on high penetration of renewables, considering several solutions for handling the excess electricity production (namely, electricity energy storage, power to heat and power to transport solutions) and to improve the overall energy efficiency (i.e. solar collectors and heat pumps). Results show that sector coupling solutions would lead to much greater impact in terms of carbon avoidance and economic savings managing the non-dispatchable renewable generation and maintaining the critical excess electricity production within feasible values. Results show that Favignana should indeed bet on photovoltaic and if vehicle-to-grid strategies are largely adopted the need for electricity storages is strongly reduced
Socio-techno-economic-environmental investigation of scenarios-based combination sources of green energy system: a case study in Spain
Full text linkThe importance of development, generation, enhancement, and integration of renewable energy sources into the current energy network is excellent; however, the successful implementation of these technologies highly relies on the appropriate regulations, type of application, and the careful consideration of social-economic-technical-environmental analysis. In this research, the PRISMI Plus toolkit, which has been proven as a powerful toolkit in PRISMI projects for islands, the dataset provided by the municipality, and the update of the Sustainable Energy Action Plan were utilized for effective techno-economic analysis, comparing the flexibility of renewable energy systems including photovoltaic and wind turbines and planning of renewable energy scenarios of “Onda” town, in eastern Spain. The examined scenarios consist of a baseline scenario, a 50 % share scenario, and a 100 % share scenario. The baseline scenario entails no change in emissions or new installations of renewable energy resources. In contrast, the 50 % share and 100 % reduction in emissions are achieved through the installation of suitable-sized renewable energy sources, respectively. In scenarios 2 and 3, Electric Vehicles (EVs) are considered to be restricted to smart charging functionality only, and no Vehicle-To-Grid (V2G) is allowed. Based on the techno-socio-economic assessment, the second scenario has a more extensive technical capability to investment ratio compared to the other scenarios. Therefore, the 50 % share scenario is considered more worthwhile. This hypothetical situation has the potential to decrease energy costs by as much as 10 %, diminish relying on fossil fuels for electricity production, confine Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, generate employment opportunities at the local level, and guide the municipality towards the ideals of a sustainable and energy self-sufficient city. Although similar research has been done for other cities, the novelty of this research is in the health consideration
Bottom-up energy system models applied to sustainable islands
Full text linkThis paper reviews the existing bottom-up energy system models applied at island level. The aim of the paper is to answer the following research questions: i) which energy system models are mostly used at island level? ii) Are national scale models also used for island applications? If yes, which type of additional constraints or adaptations are implemented? iii) A classification of these constraints will be provided in the paper. iv) Which are the main challenges of energy system models applied at insular level? The mostly used bottom-up energy system models are EnergyPLAN, unit commitment models and HOMER. Almost 37% of the analysed studies present models specifically designed for insular applications. The remaining part utilizes models originally designed for Country (47%) or micro-grid (16%) level applications. The additional constraints required by insular applications have been identified to be: reliability and robustness of the power grid, water desalination, vehicle to grid, demand response and maritime transport. The results have shown that the identified additional constraints are more frequently implemented by models that are specifically designed for insular applications. In particular, unit commitment models are capable to take directly into account reliability and robustness of the power grid constraints while models such as EnergyPLAN, HOMER and H2RES have to use alternative simplified methods based on the use of indicators to account for them
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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