• Energy Research

Energy consumption in buildings accounts for a significant percentage of total world energy utilization. Great efforts have been made in order to reduce fossil energy consumption and mitigate its depletion by means of energy efficiency directives. The national transposition of such directives generates regional regulations that might be counterproductive if it is not clear which one is more restrictive. The main goal of this paper is to evaluate the potential of energetic savings of the dwellings in Catalonia and its economic impact, according to different scenarios of efficiency that have been defined according to current regulations at state and autonomic level. To achieve this objective, thirteen typologies of dwellings have been defined in order to categorize the stock of buildings in Catalonia. Simulations with LIDER software have been carried out in order to obtain the heating and cooling demand for each typology of dwelling in different climatic zones and orientations. The economic impact of each scenario has been stated as well. We show that the best normative scenario is not the regional but the national one, and only when full limitations imposed by the state regulations are fulfilled. Following the latter 6.4% reduction in CO2 emissions would be achieved, whereas following the former gives us only 2.8% reduction for year 2015. These results have been obtained considering a base case scenario without any energetic measures implemented for the same time line Peer Reviewed

District energy systems, especially those integrating renewables or low exergy sources, have multiple elements for generating heating and cooling. Some of these elements might be used for both purposes: heating and cooling, either simultaneously or alternatively. This makes it more complex to separate the assessment and have a clear picture on performance of cooling service on one side, and heating services on the other, in terms of energy, environmental, and economic results. However, a correct comparison between different district energy configurations or among district energy and conventional solutions requires split assessment of each service. The paper presents a methodology for calculating different district heating and cooling system key performance indicators (KPIs), distinguishing between heating and cooling ones. A total of eleven indicators are organized under four categories: energy, environment, economy and socio-economy. Each KPI is defined for heating service and for cooling service. According to this, the methodology proposes a demand-based and an investment-based share factors that facilitate the heating and cooling KPI calculation.

In Europe, 239 million tons of organic wastes are produced per year by restaurants, hotels, markets, fisheries and other small to medium-size agri-food industries. The specific management of such wastes involves costly treatments and potential hygiene issues on-site. ORION aims at allowing most of these SMEs to manage their organic waste in situ in order to decrease the treatment costs and increase onsite hygiene conditions. Wastes will be valorized to produce bio-energy and a residue usable as a fertilizer. ORION relies on an interdisciplinary group of research centers in order to achieve the technical goals of the project, in particular the preparation and optimization of wastes to be treated as substrate for biomethanization, choice of appropriate captors and sensors for the bioprocess monitoring (digestate and gas), design of digester systems, digestion assays in bench-scale and pilot scale digesters, use of biogas energy, post-treatment and possible applications of the residues, e.g. as soil fertilizers. Proceedings of the 21st European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 3-7 June 2013, Copenhagen, Denmark, pp. 1271-1274