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The industrial sector accounts for 17% of end-use energy in the UK, and 54% globally. Therefore, there is substantial scope for simulating and assessing potential energy retrofit options for industrial buildings. Building Energy Modelling (BEM) applied to industrial buildings poses a complex but important opportunity for reducing global energy demand, due to years of renovation and expansion. Large and complex industrial buildings make modelling existing geometry for BEM difficult and time consuming. This paper presents a potential solution for quickly capturing and processing as-built geometry of a factory to be utilized in BEM. Laser scans were captured from the interior of an industrial facility to produce a Point Cloud. The existing capabilities of a Point Cloud processing software were assessed to identify the potential development opportunities to automate the conversion of Point Clouds to building geometry for BEM applications. In conclusion, scope exists for increasing the speed of 3D geometry creation of an existing industrial building for application in BEM and subsequent thermal simulation.

AbstractThe aim is to develop a catalysed water-based capture process, avoiding the energy intensive steam stripping steps necessary with amine solvents. The naturally occurring zinc metallo-enzyme carbonic anhydrase/hydratase (CAH) can concentrate CO2 using a reversible hydration/dehydration cycle at neutral pH and at ambient temperatures. Some tripodal complexes of zinc (II)–[zinc-itrilo-tris(2-benzimidazoyl-methyl-6-sulfonic acid, (zinc-L1S), and zinc-tris(2-benzimidazoylmethyl)-amine, (zinc-LI)], and also cadmium (II), cobalt (II) and other metals complexed to these tripodal ligands have been prepared, and show activity that mimics the CAH catalytic process–hydration of CO2 to bicarbonate followed by the reverse dehydration of the bicarbonate to regenerate CO2 in a pH dependent mechanism. The thermal stability of these complex catalysts has been demonstrated by Differential Thermo-Gravimetric (DTG) studies to above 200 °C. A process for fast absorption/desorption is proposed.

Abstract The need to increase energy system flexibility, alongside the need to lower fossil fuel use in the food sector, and the importance of refrigeration infrastructure presents an opportunity for Liquid Air Energy Storage (LAES) integrated with refrigerated warehouses. To quantify this opportunity in Europe we analyse energy scenarios and existing refrigeration infrastructure for four countries with diverse energy systems (UK, Spain, Bulgaria and Germany). We find that with growing levels of electricity generation from variable renewable sources and numerous refrigerated warehouses, LAES has the potential to provide value in many areas of the EU through the 2020s. However, LAES is still pre-commercial, and with the proportion of electricity from variable renewable sources still low in many countries it is likely that LAES will not be deployed widely alongside refrigerated warehouses under current market conditions. Countries such as the UK and Spain, which have the greatest need for additional energy system flexibility and the most refrigerated warehouses are likely to gain the most value initially.

Abstract Carbon dioxide (CO2) is becoming an important commercial and industrial working fluid as a potential replacement of the non-environmental friendly refrigerants. For refrigeration and power systems, the minichannel heat exchangers are becoming attractive for transcritical CO2 Rankine cycle and supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle, due to their highly compact construction, high heat transfer coefficient, high pressure capability and lower fluid inventory. This paper employs three-dimensional numerical models to investigate the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of supercritical CO2 in minichannels. The models consider real gas thermophysical properties and buoyancy effect and investigate the effect of cross-section geometry on the thermohydraulic characteristics. Six minichannel cross-section geometries with the same hydraulic diameter of 1.22 mm are considered. The geometries include circle, semicircle, square, equilateral triangle, rectangle (aspect ratio = 2) and ellipse (aspect ratio = 2). The inlet temperature, outlet pressure and wall heat flux are 35 °C/75 bar/100 kW/m2 and 35 °C/150 bar/300 kW/m2 for heating conditions and 120 °C/75 bar/-100 kW/m2 and 120 °C/150 bar/-300 kW/m2 for cooling conditions. Comparisons of local Nusselt number and friction factor with those employed empirical correlations are made and useful information and guidelines are provided for the design of compact heat exchangers for supercritical CO2 power system applications.

Passive cooling energy systems are significantly important in achieving efficient design and performative built environment. Encouragingly, there are many passive cooling energy systems at three spatial levels of macro, meso and micro. In this research study, these energy systems are identified and are assessed in a SWOT analysis evaluation. Apart from social and economic implications that are broad and effective for most of passive cooling energy systems, this study focuses on the energy systems’ implications across five indicators of practice, health, environment, energy and policy, which are significant for disciplines of sustainable energy systems and the built environment. This study aims to evaluate the interdependency of each indicator across three spatial levels and then argue for methods that can be considered for potential implementation of passive cooling energy systems. Furthermore, this study offers a holistic overview of all available passive cooling energy systems and argue based on interplay between five indicators across the three studied spatial levels. This study focuses on warmer climate zones (e.g. hot and dry; hot and humid), where passive cooling is expected to me more effective and obligatory. As a result, this study aims to help energy specialists, policy makers, planners and designers to evaluate how they can utilize passive cooling energy systems based on the key studied indicators. Finally, this paper gives an overview of gaps in policy and practice implementation of such systems in practice and their effectiveness at various spatial levels of the built environment.

AbstractThe National Solar Mission launched by the Government of India promotes the deployment of 20,000 GW of solar power by 2022. In this initiative CSP plays a significant role. Solar thermal power generation opportunities in India are huge. SunBorne Energy in partnership with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Government of India, is developing solar power tower technology within the framework of the R&D project CRISPTower (Collaborative Research Initiative in Solar Power Tower). The project is being carried out in cooperation with IMDEA Energy, Spain and the Clean Energy Research Center (CERC), University of South Florida (USA). A 1MWth solar power system is currently being installed at the Solar Energy Center at Delhi,India (28.425̊ Latitude). The project envisages the use of atmospheric air as the working fluid with an exit temperature from an open volumetric metallic porous receiver of about 600̊C. A new carousel-type heliostat design with 150m2 mirror surface area is incorporated in the system. The thermal storage system is based on a packed bed of rocks, primarily consisting of metallic oxides as sensible storage medium.

Abstract This paper investigates the technical feasibility of monitoring the Goldeneye storage site for containment with time-lapse Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) VSP and DAS microseismic. Specifically, the study examines if the expected seismic signals are measurable with DAS, i.e. whether it would be possible to detect unintended migration of CO 2 in a timely manner with sufficient resolution and spatial coverage. In the case of Goldeneye, the multiplicity of wells and diversity of their trajectories provide a favorable geometry that compensates for DAS broadside sensitivity limitations. A ray trace modelling exercise demonstrates that a multi-well DAS VSP survey with minimized source effort can provide a high fold image of the main storage site in an area of approximately 2 km 2 around the platform and injectors. The feasibility of monitoring induced seismicity with DAS is evaluated in terms of the spatial distribution of minimum detectable moment magnitudes and event location errors. Provided the noise floor of DAS interrogation units will be reduced and given the Goldeneye well geometry, DAS microseismic may be a possible containment monitoring technology subject to field trial, noise characterization and further processing developments. The economics for DAS seismic solutions are advantageous given that a fiber optic cable can generally be cost-effectively installed in multiple wells and its use can be combined with other in-well monitoring applications, like Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS). For the Goldeneye storage site, DAS VSP has been identified as a potential containment monitoring alternative to a much more costly surface seismic survey in the vicinity of the injector wells.