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AbstractBecause of its low level of energy consumption and the small scale of its industrial development, the Tibet Autonomous Region has historically been excluded from China's reported energy statistics, including those regarding CO2 emissions. In this paper, we estimate Tibet's energy consumption using limited online documents, and we calculate the 2014 energy‐related and process‐related CO2 emissions of Tibet and its seven prefecture‐level administrative divisions for the first time. Our results show that 5.52 million tons of CO2 were emitted in Tibet in 2014; 33% of these emissions are associated with cement production. Tibet's emissions per capita amounted to 1.74 tons in 2014, which is substantially lower than the national average, although Tibet's emission intensity is relatively high at 0.60 tons per thousand yuan in 2014. Among Tibet's seven prefecture‐level administrative divisions, Lhasa City and Shannan Region are the two largest CO2 contributors and have the highest per capita emissions and emission intensities. The Nagqu and Nyingchi regions emit little CO2 due to their farming/pasturing‐dominated economies. This quantitative measure of Tibet's regional CO2 emissions provides solid data support for Tibet's actions on climate change and emission reductions.

The production of synthetic methane using CO from flue gases and green hydrogen appears to be a promising way to combine the concepts of renewable energy, chemical storage, and utilization of CO. Recently, a new reactor configuration for catalytic methanation has been proposed, integrating sorption-enhanced methanation and chemical looping in interconnected fluidized bed systems. This configuration would ensure high methane yields while keeping good temperature control and low operating pressure. In this work, such novel system layout for the catalytic production of methane was combined with a calcium looping unit for CO capture from flue gases of a coal-fired power plant, and with a water electrolyzer sustained by renewable energy. The integrated layout offers a series of advantages deriving from the integration of different mass and energy flows of the different sections of the plant. The performance of this latter was assessed in terms of construction and production costs, as well as from an environmental point of view: a life cycle assessment was carried out to quantify the environmental impact of all process units. Results of the techno-economic analysis indicated that the production cost of methane is higher than that of natural gas (0.66 vs 0.17 EUR/Nm), but lower than that of biomethane (1 EUR/Nm). The largest impact on such costs comes from the PEM electrolyzer. The LCA analysis showed that the environmental performance is better in some categories and worse in others with respect to traditional scenarios. Again, the PEM electrolyzer appears to account for most of the environmental impacts of the process.

AbstractSmart meter roll-outs provide easy access to granular meter measurements, enabling advanced energy services, ranging from demand response measures, tailored energy feedback and smart home/building automation. To design such services, train and validate models, access to data that resembles what is expected of smart meters, collected in a real-world setting, is necessary. The REFIT electrical load measurements dataset described in this paper includes whole house aggregate loads and nine individual appliance measurements at 8-second intervals per house, collected continuously over a period of two years from 20 houses. During monitoring, the occupants were conducting their usual routines. At the time of publishing, the dataset has the largest number of houses monitored in the United Kingdom at less than 1-minute intervals over a period greater than one year. The dataset comprises 1,194,958,790 readings, that represent over 250,000 monitored appliance uses. The data is accessible in an easy-to-use comma-separated format, is time-stamped and cleaned to remove invalid measurements, correctly label appliance data and fill in small gaps of missing data.

Cities, the core of the global climate change mitigation and strategic low-carbon development, are shelters to more than half of the world population and responsible for three quarters of global energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG). This special volume (SV) provides a platform that promotes multi- and inter- disciplinary analyses and discussions on the climate change mitigation for cities. All papers are divided into four themes, including GHG emission inventory and accounting, climate change and urban sectors, climate change and sustainable development, and strategies and mitigation action plans. First, this SV provides methods for constructing emission inventory from both production and consumption perspectives. These methods are useful to improve the comprehensiveness and accuracy of carbon accounting for international cities. Second, the climate change affects urban sectors from various aspects; simultaneously, GHG emissions caused by activities in urban sectors affect the climate system. This SV focuses on mitigation policies and assessment of energy, transport, construction, and service sectors. Third, climate change mitigation of cities is closely connected to urban sustainable development. This SV explores the relationships between climate change mitigation with urbanization, ecosystems, air pollution, and extreme events. Fourth, climate change mitigation policies can be divided into two categories: quantity-based mechanism (e.g., carbon emission trading) and price-based mechanism (e.g., carbon tax). This SV provides experiences of local climate change mitigation all over the world and proposes the city-to-city cooperation on climate change mitigation.

Abstract To replace the traditional electric heating mode and increase methanol steam reforming reaction performance in hydrogen production, methanol catalytic combustion was proposed as heat-supply mode for methanol steam reforming microreactor. In this study, the methanol catalytic combustion microreactor and self-thermal methanol steam reforming microreactor for hydrogen production were developed. Furthermore, the catalytic combustion reaction supports with different structures were designed. It was found that the developed self-thermal methanol steam reforming microreactor had better reaction performance. Compared with A-type, the △Tmax of C-type porous reaction support was decreased by 24.4 °C under 1.3 mL/min methanol injection rate. Moreover, methanol conversion and H2 flow rate of the self-thermal methanol steam reforming microreactor with C-type porous reaction support were increased by 15.2% under 10 mL/h methanol-water mixture injection rate and 340 °C self-thermal temperature. Meanwhile, the CO selectivity was decreased by 4.1%. This work provides a new structural design of the self-thermal methanol steam reforming microreactor for hydrogen production for the fuel cell.

Abstract Accurate health estimation and lifetime prediction of lithium-ion batteries are crucial for durable electric vehicles. Early detection of inadequate performance facilitates timely maintenance of battery systems. This reduces operational costs and prevents accidents and malfunctions. Recent advancements in “Big Data” analytics and related statistical/computational tools raised interest in data-driven battery health estimation. Here, we will review these in view of their feasibility and cost-effectiveness in dealing with battery health in real-world applications. We categorise these methods according to their underlying models/algorithms and discuss their advantages and limitations. In the final section we focus on challenges of real-time battery health management and discuss potential next-generation techniques. We are confident that this review will inform commercial technology choices and academic research agendas alike, thus boosting progress in data-driven battery health estimation and prediction on all technology readiness levels.