• Energy Research
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• 11. Sustainability close
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Abstract Decision-making for sustainable design requires the evaluation of different options considering all sustainability dimensions simultaneously: economic, environmental and social. Each dimension has a specific relative importance, which depends on the process that is being assessed. The determination of the relative importance is not a simple task, principally, during early design stages when detailed information about the process is scarce, and when core decisions affecting the entire design are made. An example of this kind of decisions during early design stages is the selection of the chemical process route, which, once defined, provides the guidelines for the process design. The present study proposes a multi-criteria analysis based methodology to evaluate different chemical process route options under sustainability criteria and to guide the selection among them. The methodology uses normalized indicators to assess each sustainability dimension, and a multi-criteria analysis method (MCDA) to calculate the weights and influences between dimensions. Indicators, dimension weights and influences are integrated into the Sustainable Cumulative Index ( SCI ) that can be used to compare chemical process route options in sustainability terms and to support their selection. The proposed methodology is illustrated through the assessment and selection of a chemical process route to produce ethyl acetate.

As countries start to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in their national development agendas, reviews of the current policy environment are necessary to ensure that the goals are achievable by 2030. The present study assesses the effectiveness of energy policy in Indonesia in supporting progress towards universal energy access, a substantial increase in renewable energy deployment, and improvement in energy efficiency. Laws and regulations related to energy were reviewed, and their contribution to achieving the energy targets of the Sustainable Development Goals in Indonesia was evaluated in terms of policy effectiveness. Results show that providing electricity for the remaining 1.1 million households living in the outermost and least developed regions of the archipelago is very challenging. However, Indonesia is still on track to achieve 100% residential electrification by 2030 as long as enough budget is allocated annually. Indonesia may not be able to provide access to clean cooking fuels and technology for everyone by 2030. The current policy focusing mostly on gas for cooking will be less effective in reaching the remaining households that cook with solid biomass and usually live in poverty. Similarly, the current policy scenario is not sufficient to allow enough progress to achieve the renewable energy target. Finally, the assessment of energy efficiency policy suggests that sectoral energy use is shaped by variables and regulation not primarily intended to improve energy efficiency.

This paper formulates and develops a peak demand control tool for electric systems within the framework of direct load control plans. This tool allows defining a load dispatch centre for central air conditioning systems in commercial buildings, hence allowing a measured control of peak demand for such pieces of equipment, which are known for their important influence in the end customers' consumption and for the correlation their demand curve has with the system demand curve during summer months. Traditionally, this type of application has been developed in the field of demand management; however, the high energy consumption growth rates have taken electric firms to analyze their application on the system expansion planning, hence deferring, or even preventing, the need to invest in capacity to supply the demand during peak periods. The generic model presented herein is evaluated in an actual urban substation, characterized by a predominant commercial consumption, by the contribution of the air conditioning systems in the substation loads, and by the problems present in its capacity to expand; model that is solved through advanced genetic algorithm techniques.

The optimization of photovoltaic solar power plants location in Atacama Desert, Chile, is presented in this study. The study considers three objectives: (1) Find sites with the highest solar energy potential, (2) determine sites with the least impact on the environment, and (3) locate the areas which produce small social impact. To solve this task, multi-criteria decision analyses (MCDAs) such as analytical hierarchy process and ordered weighted averaging were applied in a GIS environment. In addition, survey results of social impacts were analyzed and included into the decision-making process, including landscape values. The most suitable sites for solar energy projects were found near roads and power lines throughout the study area. Large suitable areas were found also from central valley from Arica and Parinacota to the north edge of Atacama region. In Atacama region, most suitable sites were found in the Andes. On the contrary, Andes were also found to have high environmental values and scenically valuable landscapes. Moderate and low suitability were found on the coast, especially in Atacama region. Factors such as slope and distance to power lines and roads influenced largely the sensitivity analysis. Area of high suitability increased by 15% when distance to roads was excluded and 18% when distance to power lines or slope was removed. MCDA-GIS method was found to be useful and applicable to the optimization of solar power plant locations in northern Chile.

This paper presents a contingent valuation study concerning landscape impacts generated by the construction of one dam (Baker 1) of the HIDROAYSEN hydropower project located in the Chilean Patagonia. A survey was used to collect information about citizens’ opinions towards the hydropower project in four major cities in Chile. Specifically, a One-and-One-Half-Bound (OOHB) willingness to pay eliciting format was applied to capture citizens’ WTP. The economic loss, associated to the landscape impacts for people living in urban areas of the country, is found to be approximately US$ 205 million, which is nearly 28% of the total investment. Our results also show that the cities’ distance from the dam affects citizens’ willingness to pay.

Producción Científica Assessing carbon efficiency (CE) in the provision of drinking water services is essential to achieve a net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) urban water cycle. Previous studies evaluating the CE of water companies are very scarce and employed parametric and non-parametric. Both methodological approaches present limitations such as overfitting issues or require assumptions about the production technology which could lead to less reliable efficiency scores. To overcome these limitations, in this study, and for the first time, we estimated CE of English and Welsh water companies using the Efficiency Analysis Trees (EAT) approach. This technique brings together machine learning and non-linear programming techniques to estimate production frontier and efficiency scores. It also allowed us to quantify the optimal level of GHG emissions in the provision of water services and estimate potential GHG savings. Bootstrap truncated regression methods were employed to quantify the impact of operating characteristics on CE of water companies. The optimal level of GHG emissions was estimated to be between 0.062 and 133.03 tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2eq) per year and per connected property. The average CE was at the level of 0.632. This means that GHG emissions could reduce by 36.8% to maintain the same level of water services. Equivalently, this corresponds to a reduction of 488,321 tons of CO2eq per year. Water only companies exhibited a better performance than water and sewerage companies with an average CE of 0.785 and 0.540, respectively. The performance of the English and Welsh water companies decreased over time. In 2011 the average CE was 0.772 whereas it went down to 0.534 in 2020. It was also estimated that on average water companies could reduce 0.034 tons of CO2eq per cubic meter of drinking water supplied and 16.16 tons of CO2eq/ connected property per year. The regression results showed that topography and water treatment complexity had a significant impact on CE. The conclusions of this study are relevant for policy makers to define policies toward a low-carbon urban water cycle.

The urban microclimate plays an important role in building energy consumption and thermal comfort in outdoor spaces. Nowadays, cities need to increase energy efficiency, reduce pollutant emissions and mitigate the evident lack of sustainability. In light of this, attention has focused on the bioclimatic concepts use in the urban development. However, the speculative unsustainability of the growth model highlights the need to redirect the construction sector towards urban renovation using a bioclimatic approach. The public space plays a key role in improving the quality of today’s cities, especially in terms of providing places for citizens to meet and socialize in adequate thermal conditions. Thermal comfort affects perception of the environment, so microclimate conditions can be decisive for the success or failure of outdoor urban spaces and the activities held in them. For these reasons, the main focus of this work is on the definition of bioclimatic strategies for existing urban spaces, based on morpho-typological components, urban microclimate conditions and comfort requirements for all kinds of citizens. Two case studies were selected in Madrid, in a social housing neighbourhood constructed in the 1970s based on Rational Architecture style. Several renovation scenarios were performed using a computer simulation process based in ENVI-met and diverse microclimate conditions were compared. In addition, thermal comfort evaluation was carried out using the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) in order to investigate the relationship between microclimate conditions and thermal comfort perception. This paper introduces the microclimate computer simulation process as a valuable support for decision-making for neighbourhood renovation projects in order to provide new and better solutions according to the thermal quality of public spaces and reducing energy consumption by creating and selecting better microclimate areas.

To achieve sustainable development of hydroelectric resources, it is necessary to understand their availability, variability, and the expected impacts of climate change. Current research has mainly focused on estimating hydropower potential or determining the optimal locations for hydropower projects without considering the variability and historical trends of the resources. Herein, the hydropower potential variability from reconstructed streamflow series estimated with a non-parametric gap-filling method and geographic information systems (GIS) techniques are analyzed. The relationships between hydropower and large-scale climate variability, expressed by sea surface temperature, are explored. Finally, we project hydropower potential through 2050 using 15 global circulation models with representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5. We used four watersheds in central Chile as a case study. The results show significant interannual and inter-basin hydropower potential variability, with decreasing trends over time modulated by alternating positive and negative decadal trends; these modulations exhibit greater intensities than the general trends and are attributable to climatic oscillations such as El Niño. Future scenarios indicate high hydropower availability and a possible over-investment in hydroelectric plants in two of the four studied watersheds. Results show the need to improve the current policies that promote hydropower development including hydropower resource variability in order to achieve optimal, sustainable hydropower development worldwide.