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Abstract: The internationally accepted goals of eliminating climate gas emissions implies substantial investments in renewable energy (RE) facilities. This will inevitably lead to major impacts on landscapes. Landscape concerns linked to RE facilities are already leading to controversies in many local communities. In this article, we focus on the question of landscape democracy related to the establishment of RE facilities. Based on recommendations from the European Landscape Convention, an analytical framework is presented identifying three main dimensions of landscape democracy, followed by an overview of arrangements, procedures and methods that are or may be used to encourage democracy. The procedures and methods are analysed based on examples from Denmark and Norway. This is followed by an analysis of decision levels with a special focus on the principle of subsidiarity. Finally, recommendations are presented to strengthen landscape democracy in relation to the installation of RE-facilities.

Gender considerations, such as the division of household labour and the coordination of everyday household practices, are important for the energy transition of households. Household labour involves everyday practices (e.g. cooking, laundry and caring for others) and practices of energy household labour ('e.g'. managing digital technologies and energy systems). Emerging smart energy technologies require energy flexibility and efficiency, thereby introducing new forms of household labour can have implications for the household which are not well understood. Through a literature review and some empirical insights from a European Horizon 2020 project, mental aspects of energy household labour are identified: practices of coordination and multitasking, remembering and anticipating, and powerful emotional labour which shapes the practices. Smart technologies and energy systems add more physical and mental labour to households due to the need for additional coordination and change of practices. This additional demand for coordination can exacerbate existing gender inequalities in the division of household labour: technological strategies and designs need to engage with this and reduce new burdens. Considerations for future research are proposed and a gender-sensitive framework for understanding the transition of energy household labour is outlined. 'Practice relevance' Despite the balancing of more stereotypical gender roles in everyday life at home, the mental load of household labour still overburdens women. Technology design and strategies for its domestication need to recognise this load and adopt more gender-sensitive ways of supporting the mental aspects of household labour performed for the organisation of home and provide appropriate digital literacy opportunities for those who use them, without undermining their contribution in the process. Technology-assisted support for the mental aspects of household labour should allow for better negotiations and distribution of household labour required for a successful energy transition, without at the same time adding extra work for both men and women. The initial empirical insights call for a gender-sensitive framework for investigating the emerging practices that this involves, for the energy transition of households.

Demand Response (DR) schemes are effective tools to maintain a dynamic balance in energy markets with higher integration of fluctuating renewable energy sources. DR schemes can be used to harness residential devices' flexibility and to utilize it to achieve social and financial objectives. However, existing DR schemes suffer from low user participation as they fail at taking into account the users' requirements. First, DR schemes are highly demanding for the users, as users need to provide direct information, e.g. via surveys, on their energy consumption preferences. Second, the user utility models based on these surveys are hard-coded and do not adapt over time. Third, the existing scheduling techniques require the users to input their energy requirements on a daily basis. As an alternative, this paper proposes a DR scheme for user-oriented direct load-control of residential appliances operations. Instead of relying on user surveys to evaluate the user utility, we propose an online data-driven approach for estimating user utility functions, purely based on available load consumption data, that adaptively models the users' preference over time. Our scheme is based on a day-ahead scheduling technique that transparently prescribes the users with optimal device operation schedules that take into account both financial benefits and user-perceived quality of service. To model day-ahead user energy demand and flexibility, we propose a probabilistic approach for generating flexibility models under uncertainty. Results on both real-world and simulated datasets show that our DR scheme can provide significant financial benefits while preserving the user-perceived quality of service. 10 pages plus 1 page references, 11 figures, conference: ACM e-Energy 2018

Accelerated local deployments of renewable energy sources and energy storage units, as well as increased overall flexibility in local demand and supply through active user involvement and smart energy solutions, open up new opportunities (e.g., self-sufficiency and CO2 neutrality through local renewables) and yet pose new challenges (e.g., how to maintain the security of supply and get the best yield) to market players in the lower parts of the energy system (including prosumers, energy communities, aggregators, and distribution system operators (DSOs)). One way to cope with the challenges requires "logical" reorganization of the energy system bottom-up as a number of nested (maximally) self-sufficient and interacting cells with their own local (i.e. within a cell) energy management and trading capabilities. This change necessitates effective IT-based solutions. Towards this goal, we propose a unified Flexibility Modeling, Management, and Trading System (FMTS) that generalizes flexibility modeling, management, and intra-cell trading in such cellular energy systems. Our system offers different flexibility provisioning options (Machine Learning based, and Model Predictive Control based), activation mechanisms (indirect and direct device-control), and trading schemes (e.g. flexibility contracts, market-based trading) and suits different cellular system use-cases. In this paper, we introduce the FMTS, overview its core functionality and components, and explain how it practically manages, prices, and trades flexibility from a diverse variety of loads. We then introduce the real-world FMTS instances developed in the GOFLEX project1 and present experimental results that demonstrate significantly increased flexibility capacities, user gains, and balance between demand and supply when an FMTS instance is used in the simulated cellular energy system setting.

This exploratory paper examines the relationship between Participatory Design (PD) and Sustainability as it emerges from the Participatory Design Conference (PDC). The reinvigorated political agenda of PD, together with the enlargements of its application domains and scopes of interest, calls for reinvigorating the early concerns of the field for long-term, durable, and positive change. The objective of this paper is to explore what "sustainability" means in and for the field. The study is based on a literature review of the PDC Proceedings and it provides both an outline of the structural aspects of the literature and a mapping of three use patterns of the concept: PD for Sustainability; Sustainability of PD Practice; and Sustainability of PD Results. Based on our interpretation of these patterns we also provide a general definition of sustainability. We believe the findings of this paper can support PD scholars in conceptualizing sustainability and to position their works in relation to it.

Background: Food wastes are an abundant resource that can be effectively valorised by hydrothermal liquefaction to produce bio-fuels. The objective of the European project WASTE2ROAD is to demonstrate the complete value chain from waste collection to engine tests. The principle of hydrothermal liquefaction is well known but there are still many factors that make the science very empirical. Most experiments in the literature are performed on batch reactors. Comparison of results from batch reactors with experiments with continuous reactors are rare in the literature. Methods: Various food wastes were transformed by hydrothermal liquefaction. The resources used and the products from the experiments have been extensively analysed. Two different experimental reactors have been used, a batch reactor and a continuous reactor. This paper presents a dataset of fully documented experiments performed in this project, on food wastes with different compositions, conditions and solvents. The data set is extended with data from the literature. The data was analysed using machine learning analysis and regression techniques. Results: This paper presents experimental results on various food wastes as well as modelling. Aqueous phase recycling allows the re-use of some of the solubilised organics, but this paper shows that after some recycles, the yield is principally in the char yield and not so much in the oil yield. The experimental results were further used to attempt to establish a link between batch and continuous experiments. The molecular weight of bio-oil from continuous experiments appear higher than that of batch experiments. This may be due to the configuration of our reactor. Conclusions: This paper shows how the use of regression models help with understanding the results, and the importance of process variables and resource composition. A novel data analysis technique gives an insight on the accuracy that can be obtained from these models.

Thanks to renewable energies the decentralized energy system model is becoming more relevant in the production and distribution of energy. The scenario is important in order to achieve a successful energy transition. This paper presents a reflection on the ongoing experience of infrastructuring a sociotechnical system in which local communities can manage renewable energies as a Common Pool Resources. We explore how to create a space for citizens' participation in a continuous process of design for energy management. Objectives of the paper are: i) to clarify how Participatory Design could support the sustainability and the effectiveness of an alternative, ii) to present an experimentation with renewable energy as CPR as an alternative model to the actual vision of the energy system. Preliminary results reported in this paper suggest that a Participatory Design process can be valuable for communities in order to establish new energy management models.