• Energy Research
• 11. Sustainability close
• IT close
• DE close
• RU close
• UA close

Project: Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) datasets - These data have been generated as part of the internationally-coordinated Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6; see also GMD Special Issue: http://www.geosci-model-dev.net/special_issue590.html). The simulation data provides a basis for climate research designed to answer fundamental science questions and serves as resource for authors of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR6). CMIP6 is a project coordinated by the Working Group on Coupled Modelling (WGCM) as part of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). Phase 6 builds on previous phases executed under the leadership of the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) and relies on the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) and the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) along with numerous related activities for implementation. The original data is hosted and partially replicated on a federated collection of data nodes, and most of the data relied on by the IPCC is being archived for long-term preservation at the IPCC Data Distribution Centre (IPCC DDC) hosted by the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ). The project includes simulations from about 120 global climate models and around 45 institutions and organizations worldwide. Summary: These data include the subset used by IPCC AR6 WGI authors of the datasets originally published in ESGF for 'CMIP6.ScenarioMIP.CMCC.CMCC-ESM2' with the full Data Reference Syntax following the template 'mip_era.activity_id.institution_id.source_id.experiment_id.member_id.table_id.variable_id.grid_label.version'. The CMCC-ESM2 climate model, released in 2017, includes the following components: aerosol: MAM3, atmos: CAM5.3 (1deg; 288 x 192 longitude/latitude; 30 levels; top at ~2 hPa), land: CLM4.5 (BGC mode), ocean: NEMO3.6 (ORCA1 tripolar primarly 1 deg lat/lon with meridional refinement down to 1/3 degree in the tropics; 362 x 292 longitude/latitude; 50 vertical levels; top grid cell 0-1 m), ocnBgchem: BFM5.2, seaIce: CICE4.0. The model was run by the Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, Lecce 73100, Italy (CMCC) in native nominal resolutions: aerosol: 100 km, atmos: 100 km, land: 100 km, ocean: 100 km, ocnBgchem: 100 km, seaIce: 100 km.

Improving access to safe drinking water can result in multi-dimensional impacts on people's livelihood. This has been aptly reflected in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) as one of the major objectives. Despite the availability of diverse and complex set of technologies for water purification, pragmatic and cost-effective use of the same is impeding the use of available sources of water. Hence, in country like India simple low-energy technologies such as solar still are likely to succeed. Solar stills would suffice the basic minimum drinking water requirements of man. Solar stills use sunlight, to kill or inactivate many, if not all, of the pathogens found in water. This paper provides an integrated assessment of the suitability of domestic solar still as a viable safe water technology for India. Also an attempt has been made to critically assess the operational feasibility and costs incurred for using this technology in rural India.

The present study provides an assessment of the climate variability at a subnational scale, focusing on the case of the Apulia region, in Southeastern Italy. The variables considered for the purpose of a trend analysis were the minimum, maximum, and mean temperatures, and reference evapotranspiration. These are very important in an urban–rural planning context. The study was based on 38 monitoring stations and consisted in the application of the nonparametric Mann–Kendall test and a progressive trend analysis, both used to detect the changes. The 1950–2003 period was investigated on seasonal and annual scales. The results generally showed a warming process and an acceleration of the atmospheric evaporative demand which took place especially since the mid-1970s. The latter had a significant positive trend, while the period before the break point of the 70s had a cooling effect. Finally, the warming effect was more pronounced for minimum temperatures.

Abstract A variety of novel, recyclable and reusable, construction materials has already been studied within literature during the past years, aiming at improving the overall energy efficiency ranking of the building envelope. However, several studies show that a delicate control of indoor climating elements can lead to a significant performance improvement by exploiting the building’s savings potential via smart adaptive HVAC regulation to exogenous uncertain disturbances (e.g. weather, occupancy). Building Optimization and Control (BOC) systems can be categorized into two different groups: centralized (requiring high data transmission rates at a central node from every corner of the overall system) and decentralized 1 (assuming an intercommunication among neighboring constituent systems). Moreover, both approaches can be further divided into two subcategories, respectively: model-assisted (usually introducing modeling oversimplifications) and model-free (typically presenting poor stability and very slow convergence rates). This paper presents the application of a novel, decentralized, agent-based , model-free BOC methodology (abbreviated as L4GPCAO) to a modern non-residential building (E.ON. Energy Research Center’s main building), equipped with controllable HVAC systems and renewable energy sources by utilizing the existing Building Management System (BES). The building testbed is located inside the RWTH Aachen University campus in Aachen, Germany. A combined rule criterion composed of the non-renewable energy consumption (NREC) and the thermal comfort index – aligned to international comfort standards – was adopted in all cases presented herein. Besides the limited availability of the specified building testbed, real-life experiments demonstrated operational effectiveness of the proposed approach in BOC applications with complex, emerging dynamics arising from the building’s occupancy and thermal characteristics. L4GPCAO outperformed the control strategy that was designed by the planers and system provider, in a conventional manner, requiring no more than five test days.

This research looked at the state of soils faced with urbanization processes in the Arctic region of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District (YANAO). Soils recently used in agriculture, which are now included in the infrastructure of the cities of Salekhard, Labytnangi, Kharsaim, and Aksarka in the form of various parks and public gardens were studied. Morphological, physico-chemical, and agrochemical studies of selected soils were conducted. Significant differences in fertility parameters between urbanized abandoned agricultural soils and mature soils of the region were revealed. The quality of soil resources was also evaluated in terms of their ecotoxicology condition, namely, the concentrations of trace metals in soils were determined and their current condition was assessed using calculations of various individual and complex soil quality indices.

Abstract Given the need to reduce the CO2 emissions coming from the manufacturing sector, it is important, for planning purposes, to know which countries and which manufacturing sub-sectors have the greatest potential for reducing energy use. Using data from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the authors estimate trends in global decoupling of energy use and manufacturing value added, compare energy-use intensity in six country groups and estimate the potential for reducing energy use and CO2 emissions under two scenarios and compare selected sub-sector energy intensity and estimate the potential for reducing energy use CO2 emissions. The comparison of energy intensities across country groups and among countries suggests that there still remains significant potential to reduce energy use and associated CO2 emissions. The analysis of four sub-sectors in developing and transition economies also shows similar but varied potential for reducing energy use and associated CO2 emissions.

Abstract Off-grid systems based on PV and batteries are becoming a solution of great interest for rural electrification. Nevertheless, sizing these systems is not straightforward since it means matching unpredictable energy sources with uncertain demands while providing the best reliability and costs. In our opinion, the effect of users’ energy consumptions uncertainty on the sizing of these systems has not been appropriately investigated. This paper addresses this issue and analyzes the effect of load profile uncertainty on the off-grid PV systems optimum design. Specifically a novel sizing methodology has been introduced based on: (i) an effective approach of modelling rural energy needs; (ii) an innovative stochastic method which formulates different possible realistic daily load profiles for un-electrified rural areas; (iii) a PV-battery techno-economic analysis via steady-state simulation; (iv) the evaluation of the optimum system sizing via a numerical method based on net present cost and loss of load probability. Finally, the proposed methodology has been applied to find the optimum size of an off-grid PV system for a peri-urban area of Uganda. The results show that the optimum system configurations are significantly affected by load profiles; consequently an approach to identify the robust solution with regards the assumed uncertainty is proposed.

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) brings together geoscientists from all over the world covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. This geoscientific interdisciplinarity is needed to tackle the challenges of the future. One major challenge for humankind is to provide adequate and reliable supplies of affordable energy and other resources in efficient and environmentally sustainable ways. This Energy Procedia issue provides an overview of the contributions of the Division on Energy, Resources & the Environment (ERE) at the EGU General Assembly 2017.