• Energy Research
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This paper proposes an innovative system for monitoring domestic energy consumptions and for verifying the behavior of less-sufficient people during their everyday home life, on the basis of their interaction with surrounding environment and with household electrical appliances. It is composed by three different acquisition sections, a remote server for data storage and processing and an Android mobile application for remote data access. The remote application allows the user to check in almost real time the power absorptions of the monitored house, in addition to other environmental parameters acquired through different sensing technologies.

AbstractIn this paper, single roll melt spinning technique is used as a sustainable manufacturing process to reduce waste, time, energy, and cost. The non-conventional forming machine is manufacturing to produce very thin ribbon of 5052 and 5083 Al-Mg alloys in the range of micrometer. It is a tool for modifying the microstructure of alloy and improved their properties. The process has a direct impact for saving materials, machine, method, men, and money (5M) compared with conventional forming technology due to their ability to produce very thin ribbons directly from liquid state. The properties of the produced ribbons were investigated and the result indicating that there is a possibility to produce ribbons with micro thickness of 20 to 330μm and width of 0.97 to 7.4mm. Moreover, the hardness was improved to be more than twice of the original hardness of alloy. The corrosion resistance of alloy was improved and their rate was reduced.

This contribution departs from the question if there is right of access to sustainable energy. It places the idea of such a right in the context of the energy trilemma and sustainable development goals. With this placing comes the understanding of the right of access as a social/programmatic right, and the need to consider the different institutional legal environments in which it may be relevant and should be able to have its normative impact. In terms of the concept of energy justice (of recognition, procedure and substance), different institutional environments support different conceptualizations of justice and with that different interpretations and specifications of the right of access to sustainable energy. The contribution offers a focus on institutional governance settings regarding community energy initiatives as a mode of securing such right of access, correlating with the institutional setting in which such initiatives are regulated. This correlation connects institutional environments to justice conceptualisations, and to policy framing in terms of democratization of renewable energy provision.

Abstract Energy efficiency and short-term demand response are key issues in the decarbonization of power markets. However, their interaction and combined impact on market prices as well as on the supply side, is yet to be understood. We develop a framework to implement short-term demand response and investments in energy efficiency in detailed partial equilibrium power market models. We quantify our results using the EU-REGEN model for the European power market. Under an 80% emission reduction target, energy efficiency contributes only 11% of carbon emission reductions. Intermittent renewable energies such as wind and solar power account for the major share of 53%. In comparison to a scenario without short-term demand response and energy efficiency investments, 70 GW gas power is decommissioned immediately and 180 GW less gas capacity is needed in 2050, which underlines the need for immediate action by policy makers to avoid locking the EU power market into an inefficient path.

The shortage of worldwide resources, the discussion about the global warming as well as energy independence policies are driving forces for developing new alternative fuel technologies based on renewable sources. One possibility is the conversion of vegetable oil into cracked vegetable oil (CVO) by cracking and deoxygenating in small decentralized plants. This paper describes a study in the context of which the conversion has been investigated on laboratory scale under atmospheric pressure in the absence of catalysts at temperatures from 350 to 400 °C. Under these conditions different feedstocks have been tested such as refined rapeseed oil, crude rapeseed oil, palm oil and used frying oil. Resulting yield of CVO is about 70–80 wt.−%. The measured physical properties of CVO are well complying with the specifications of the diesel standard DIN EN 590. Due to chain length reduction by cracking viscosity is decreased and cold stability is improved in CVO. Even in case of palm oil the resulting CVO stays liquid at room temperature. The kinetics of the deoxygenation of the raw material can be described by the decrease of the oxygen content in the oil during reaction time. The oxygen content can be calculated by the net calorific value which has been confirmed by elemental analysis. In case of rapeseed oil, the oxygen content can be reduced from 11 wt.−% to a level of 3–5 wt.−% while the net calorific value is increased from 37 MJ/kg to a level above 40 MJ/kg. The results indicate a chance to produce alternative fuels from vegetable oils with improved properties compared to biodiesel.

Balconies could enhance natural ventilation (NV) and reduce reliance on mechanical ventilation in cooling dominant climates. Indoor environment and thermal comfort under NV mode are usually less predictable than Mechanical Ventilation (MV), and balcony geometry's impacts on these parameters have not yet been classified. This study aims to investigate the effects of balcony depth and door opening scale on the NV performance and thermal comfort of the attached Livingroom. The present article conducted a 3D – steady-state Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations using ANSYS Fluent. The simulation results were validated against measured data in a residential high-rise building in subtropical Brisbane, Australia. Five different openings and nine depth scenarios are defined as configuration tests. The simulation results reveal that both the opening and depth sizes affected the Indoor Air Distribution (IAD), mean Indoor Air Velocity (IAV) and temperature, while these effects are not identical in the defined scenarios and opening size had more significant effects. The smaller openings, including the case study, led to a better thermal comfort than other scenarios. Contrary, the smaller depth sizes (less than 2 m) led to a non-uniform and unstable IAD at the attached Livingroom. The best thermal comfort and the highest IAV also occurred, respectively, in the deeper balconies with 35 and 30% depth ratio. Finally, a comparison between the findings and literature reveals the balcony's depth scale effects on mean IAV significantly depends on the orientation of buildings.