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Vehicles with hybrid drive systems, are increasingly more often being equipped with solutions that increase the drive systems efficiency. One of such solutions is to use an increased supply voltage for electric motors of such vehicles. The battery voltage is increased several times in the inverter system in order to increase the electrical power supplied to the electric motor. This article presents possible uses of such voltage amplification (called boost) in urban traffic conditions. The tests used the latest models of vehicles with hybrid drive systems equipped with the same drive units: Lexus NX 300h and Toyota RAV4 Hybrid. The study analyses the conditions of starting such a system and the characteristics of its operation. It has been shown that the amplification of the voltage powering the electrical machinery in both vehicles occurs at high torque values. The maximum voltage amplification–almost threefold (up to 650 V) allows a two-fold increase in the torque of the drive system.

Abstract Natural gas is an important source of energy in the global economy, hence understanding the drivers of its prices is of significant interest for economic agents. This paper investigates the role of structural shocks for the dynamics of the U.S. natural gas market within the Bayesian Structural Vector Autoregression framework applied by Baumeister and Hamilton (2019a, AER), to the crude oil market. This approach provides clear intuition for the identification strategy and allows us to correctly estimate the short-term price elasticity of natural gas supply and demand. Our results indicate that the former is low, whereas the latter is higher than the average estimate in the literature. We also show that market specific demand shocks explain a dominant fraction of natural gas prices variability, while the contribution of supply, aggregate economic activity and inventory shocks is important only during specific market events such as the recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, we illustrate how changes in supply in the era of shale gas revolution contributed to the dynamics of natural gas prices.

Reducing energy consumption, increasing energy efficiency technologies and solutions, decreasing emissions are very effective tools towards EU environmental policy. The constant demand for domestic hot water (DHW) throughout the year creates great benefits for drain water heat recovery (DWHR) systems in hotels, which is the most promising and significant feature of energy saving potential for the hotel sector in Poland. This paper determines the feasibility of heat recovery in a typical hotel in Poland. The energy analysis was carried out for the installed DWHR system (from washbasins and showers) at the hotel building. To evaluate the energy saving potentiality, daily, monthly and yearly calculation results were performed for an exemplary hotel in Poland. Two types of heat exchangers were adopted for further calculations: vertical (System 1) and horizontal (System 2), this intention aimed to find the most efficient type and relevant solution of energy saving and reduction of CO2 emissions in the analysed hotel. The analysis and calculations were repeated to enhance the saving potentiality of the proposed DWHR systems for various parameters like constant and variable temperature of supply cold water, daily hot water consumption profiles, the efficiency of heat recovery, reduction of annual carbon dioxide emission (CDE), facility standard of operating procedure, the impact of hotel size, etc. The obtained results of the conducted calculations ensure a significant potential of energy savings by implementing the proposed DWHR systems in analysed hotel, which allow to save energy demand and to reduce CO2 emission by 27.3% and improve the efficiency of the DHW preparation system.

The European Union is currently in the process of transformation toward a circular economy model in which different areas of activity should be integrated for more efficient management of raw materials and waste. The wastewater sector has a great potential in this regard and therefore is an important element of the transformation process to the circular economy model. The targets of the circular economy policy framework such as resource recovery are tightly connected with the wastewater treatment processes and sewage sludge management. With this in view, the present study aims to review existing indicators on resource recovery that can enable efficient monitoring of the sustainable and circular solutions implemented in the wastewater sector. Within the reviewed indicators, most of them were focused on technological aspects of resource recovery processes such as nutrient removal efficiency, sewage sludge processing methods and environmental aspects as the pollutant share in the sewage sludge or its ashes. Moreover, other wide-scope indicators such as the wastewater service coverage or the production of bio-based fertilizers and hydrochar within the wastewater sector were analyzed. The results were used for the development of recommendations for improving the resources recovery monitoring framework in the wastewater sector and a proposal of a circularity indicator for a wastewater treatment plant highlighting new challenges for further researches and wastewater professionals.

Abstract A conceptual model of BIM-based design and refurbishment, based on pre-built indicators and allowing the assessment of the building energy demand and eco-building parameters, is presented. The new approach presented in this model creates a knowledge-based decision-making environment for refurbishment strategies and quality control, in this way creating the preconditions to bridge the gap between expected and actual energy performance. The model with integration of new BIM-based optimization subsystems enables energy management and optimization processes. For a comprehensive evaluation of refurbishment measures, it is suggested to include energy efficiency, eco-efficiency, and economic parameters.

The article demonstrates the features and applicability of the πESA platform designed for optimization of the Poland's power sector considering air pollution and health effects. πESA is comprised of: a bottom-up energy-economic model TIMES-PL, an air quality modelling system Polyphemus and a module for assessment of environmental and health impacts MAEH. It has been designed as a web application employing computational resources of the ZEUS cluster of the PL-Grid infrastructure. The results show, that the impact of carbon prices on the fuel and technological power generation structure is much stronger as compared to impact of fuel prices. Future PM emissions from the centralized power and heat generation sector do not differ much irrespective of energy scenario considered. For analysed cases, the statistical life expectancy in Poland due to long-term exposure to PM2.5 air pollution is reduced on average by approx. 183 days. That gives over 12 million years lost for all cohorts included in the analysis. An optimization platform has been developed for the power sector in Poland.It allows for assessment of health impact of energy scenarios.Carbon prices have strong impact on fuel and technology transitions.Future PM emissions from power sector are comparable in all scenarios considered.

Water and energy conservation are indispensable commitments to achieve the sustainable development of the iron and steel industry. Hereby, this study established an evaluation framework to model the water and energy consumption in the iron and steel industry. This framework quantitatively assessed the energy and water saving with adoption of conventional and emerging technologies. Thirty mainstream technologies, among which 21 focused on energy saving and the remaining 9 focused on water saving, were selected for analysis. Five scenarios were developed to examine systematic water- and energy-saving potentials, including benchmark (BM) scenario, constrained product (CP) scenario, business as usual (BAU) scenario, and benefit/cost-driven (BD) scenario and strengthened policy (SP) scenario. The results show that the energy-saving potentials of BAU, BD and SP scenarios are 1.75 PJ, 1.21 PJ and 1.65 PJ, respectively. The water-saving potentials of BAU, BD and SP scenarios are 4.83 billion m3, 5.71 billion m3 and 9.15 billion m3, respectively. The specific energy consumption and water consumption decreased to 15.01-15.59 GJ/t and 54.13-58.77 m3/t, respectively. This study suggested to implement encouraging policies in prompt popularity rate of technologies, and promote energy-saving and water-saving technologies to achieve sustainable development of iron and steel industry.

AbstractEfficient allocation of resources and transition towards cleaner sources of energy are among the key factors in minimizing the negative externalities arising from the growing dependency on fossil fuels. Moreover, environmentally benign trade policies are crucial due to the rapid expansion in global trade and comparative advantage. To explore the relationship between global trade and Consumption‐Based Carbon Emissions (CBCE) in China in the context of renewable energy consumption and energy efficiency from 1990 Q1 to 2020 Q4, this paper employs the dynamic Autoregressive Distributed Lags (Dynamic ARDL) model to evaluate the connection between international trade, renewable energy usage, energy efficiency, and CBCE, with the Kernel‐Based Regularized Least Squares analysis being used to determine the causal association. The findings reveal that GDP and imports are directly linked with CBCE in the long run, while exports, energy efficiency, and renewable energy consumption have a negative significant long‐run and short‐run influence on CBCE. In addition, exports help in the reduction of CBCE by sharing and adapting environmentally friendly technologies adopted in, for example, renewable energy and ecological advancements. Renewable energy promotes the quality of the environment, which is attributable to the performance of renewable energy and environmentally friendly technologies that directly stimulate the reduction of CBCE emissions. By cutting CBCE, energy efficiency tends to boost environmental quality. The research findings have noteworthy policy implications; trade enhances the quality of environment by introducing lower energy intensive production methods and technology that support sustainable development. As a result, this study advocated quite stringent policies in terms of aligning international trade orientation with environmental quality policy in China. Furthermore, energy efficiency policies are required to lower CBCE by focusing on high‐energy‐using industries and providing alternative clean energy sources.

Green technologies presented in Polish power generation are based on biomass. Poland has considerable potential for biomass produced using forest, agricultural, and municipal waste. Currently, biomass is used in several hundred power stations, co-incineration of biomass with coal powers 39 CHP and power plants. The largest estab- lishments producing bioethanol are located in Starogard Gdanski, Oborniki, and Wroclaw. The largest producer of biodiesel is the Trzebinia Refinery S.A., located in the villages of Surochow, Tychy, and Malbork. Electricity and heat are produced through cogeneration of biogas in 76 water treatment biogas plants, 94 biogas plants on muni- cipal waste landfills, and 29 agricultural biogas plants. The Polish target share of energy produced from renewable sources in final gross energy consumption is projected to be 15 % in 2020.