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Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are a key component of the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution. WSN nodes are in general battery-powered, thereby and efficient usage of their energy budget is of paramount importance to avoid performance degradation in IoT applications. To this end, this chapter proposes techniques to manage the WSN nodes’ power consumption. The aim of the first technique is to minimize the transmitted power for a given quality of service requirement at the receiver side. To this end, a power control is considered at each WSN node as well as the use of multiple distributed access points at the receiver side. The second technique to reduce the WSN energy consumption is energy harvesting (EH). Namely, the use of artificial light EH is considered to extend the WSN lifetime. Thus, an experimental setup based on a photovoltaic cell, a boost converter and a commercial WSN node is presented. It is shown that under certain settings it is possible to extend the WSN node’s lifetime without bound, when the transmission time period is above a certain threshold.

This report describes the results of the demonstration activities carried out for the Automotive Manufacturing use case both in Body Welding and Powertrain areas. For each pilot the environment is introduced, then in different subprojects specific developments carried out are presented. Each section includes a description of the most relevant achievements obtained.

Three feedstocks – road side grass, wheat straw and miscanthus – were studied in a preliminary techno- economic analysis to evaluate the feasibility of the biomass upgrading routes. Depending on the moisture content of the original materials two lines were explored. Washing followed by torrefaction (prewash) was chosen when the moisture content of the available raw biomass stream was higher than 30 wt%. This was the case of road side grass, which has about 75 wt% of moisture content. When the moisture content was lower than 30 wt.%, torrefaction followed by washing (postwash) was also explored as an option. This was the case for the straw and miscanthus (both with about 15 wt% moisture). To support the decision criteria and to validate the best route to follow, the prewash option was compared with the postwash option for the case of straw. Mass and energy balances were performed and are presented in flowcharts for each material, supported by the lab and pilot scale test results. Based on this, a preliminary economic analysis was performed to generate decision criteria, based on calculated internal rates of return (IRR), total annuities and payback times (PB) and sensitivity analysis based on the most critical input parameters for profitability. All the tested materials could be technically upgraded on large scale to commodity fuels, with some limitations on the quality, due to still significant alkali content in case of the road side grass. However, since a gate fee of about 20 € can be charged, the price at which the upgraded road side grass can be offered (4.7 €/GJ) is very attractive leading to IRR in the range of 14%, which can be further increased to 18% if sludge disposal costs could be reduced from 60 to 40 €/t. Apart from the fuel costs, capital costs, consumables and sludge disposal were the most critical parameters for the economics profitability. Postwash was the most profitable option in the case of dried biomasses upgrading (straw and miscanthus). Wheat straw upgrading is not profitable unless, a gate fee can be charged as well. This can be the case of residual straws from rice and sugar cane crops, upgrading the material locally and exporting it. A competitive price of 6.2 €/GJ can be applied for the upgraded straw giving a IRR of 7%. Proceedings of the 27th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 27-30 May 2019, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 1110-1121

The food and drink industry is the largest and most dynamic manufacturing sector of the European Union. With its 286,000 companies (mostly SMEs) and turnover share of 15%, it provides jobs for over 4 million people. There is an acute need to replace energy-intensive processes in this sector by new efficient ones. The major energy consumption originates from heating, cooling and drying processes, refrigeration, electrical drive systems, among others. Refrigeration of food products can account more than 50% of the energy consumption. This chapter identifies energy-saving opportunities (technological, organisational or behavioural) and describes tailored energy-saving measures. Best practices and measures for energy efficiency improvement are disclosure, which can be applied to infrastructures, cooling chambers, vapour compression refrigeration systems, compressed air systems, steam generator/hot water systems, among others. Additionally, the use of renewable energies and procedures for analysis of the electricity consumption and power management are discussed. These best practices and energy conservation measures may substantially improve the energy efficiency and competitiveness of agrifood companies and will ultimately benefit the consumers and society by reducing food price, food waste and carbon emissions. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

There is plenty of research on the energy-growth nexus for individual countries and panels of countries, but none at a global level. For this reason, this paper aims to provide important information for energy policymakers. The global energy consumption and economic growth nexus was analyzed by using an annual time series from 1965 to 2013. An auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach was followed in the presence of permanent shocks (structural breaks). The ARDL bounds test, as well as both short- and long-run elasticities, was performed. Performing the Johansen co-integration and the Toda and Yamamoto causality testing procedure gives robustness to the results. The results suggest that there is bi-directional causality between energy consumption and growth, both in the short- and long-run. High and positive long-run elasticities were found. Accordingly, conservation policies on energy could reduce economic growth on a worldwide scale. In addition, policies could begin to have a cyclical effect, given that there is bidirectional causality between energy consumption and economic growth. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Within the BECOOL project, value chains based on lignocellulosic biomass are developed and investigated including biomass growth, harvest, transport, thermochemical conversion and finally catalytic synthesis of liquid biofuels. Pyrolysis is included in the thermochemical conversion as it can provide a valuable feedstock upgrading step prior to gasification. Slow oxidative pyrolysis can provide both high quality charcoal and heat for the drying of biomass, ideal for decentralized upgrading of biomass before shipment to a centralized conversion plant. Char combined with fast pyrolysis bio-oil can provide a high-density fuel in the form of char/bio-oil slurries. This paper reports on the preparation and characterization of the char/bio-oil as intermediate energy carrier (IBC). The char concentration was varied from 0 to 20 wt% using ground char with a particle size of <100 and 100-250 micron. The increased energy density, low ash content and the rheological properties indicated an optimal weight ratio of 10/90 char/bio-oil for application as feedstock in gasification. Initial gasification experiments of the 10/90 slurry proofed challenging on lab scale due to blockages in the feeding system. However, fluidized bed gasification of the bio-oil at 770°C proofed successful and provided a producer gas at a cold gas efficiency of 81% with 18 g/nm3 of tar at an ER of 0.3 and a H2O/C of 0.85. Proceedings of the 27th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 27-30 May 2019, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 544-550

Eneplan Project. This deliverable updates the information provided by its first version, D3.1. The main goal is to collect and organize process models developed in WP2, integrated with the corresponding production machines, to estimate the energy consumption and, more generally, the environmental impact in the Business cases described in WP1.