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The aim of this paper is to present approaches to optimize stand-level, short-rotation coppice management planning, taking into account uncertainty in stand growth due to climate change. The focus is on addressing growth uncertainty through a range of climate scenarios so that an adaptive capacity may be possible and the vulnerability of the stand to climate change may be reduced. The optimization encompasses finding both the harvest age in each cycle and the number of coppice cycles within a full rotation that maximize net present revenue. The innovation lies in the combination of the process-based model (Glob3PG) with two dynamic programming (DP) approaches. The former is able to project growth of eucalypt stands under climate change scenarios. The innovative approaches are thus influential to define the management policy (e.g., stool thinning, number of coppice cycles, and cycle length) that maximizes net present revenue taking into account uncertainty in forest growth due to climate change. In both approaches, the state of the system is defined by the number of years since plantation, whereas DP stages are defined by the cumulative number of harvests. The first approach proposes the optimal policy under each climate change scenario at each state. The second approach addresses further situations when the climate scenario is unknown at the beginning of the planning horizon. Both help address uncertainty in an adaptive framework, as a set of readily available options is proposed for each scenario. Results of an application to a typical Eucalyptus globulus Labill. stand in central Portugal are discussed.

The aim of this paper is to present approaches to optimize stand-level, short-rotation coppice management planning, taking into account uncertainty in stand growth due to climate change. The focus is on addressing growth uncertainty through a range of climate scenarios so that an adaptive capacity may be possible and the vulnerability of the stand to climate change may be reduced. The optimization encompasses finding both the harvest age in each cycle and the number of coppice cycles within a full rotation that maximize net present revenue. The innovation lies in the combination of the process-based model (Glob3PG) with two dynamic programming (DP) approaches. The former is able to project growth of eucalypt stands under climate change scenarios. The innovative approaches are thus influential to define the management policy (e.g., stool thinning, number of coppice cycles, and cycle length) that maximizes net present revenue taking into account uncertainty in forest growth due to climate change. In both approaches, the state of the system is defined by the number of years since plantation, whereas DP stages are defined by the cumulative number of harvests. The first approach proposes the optimal policy under each climate change scenario at each state. The second approach addresses further situations when the climate scenario is unknown at the beginning of the planning horizon. Both help address uncertainty in an adaptive framework, as a set of readily available options is proposed for each scenario. Results of an application to a typical Eucalyptus globulus Labill. stand in central Portugal are discussed.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) the primary energy production was increased by 49% and CO2 emissions by 43% over the past 20 years. Furthermore, 30 - 40% of total energy consumption in developed countries comes from the private sector (housing and offices). Thermal energy storage (TES) is proposed as one way to improve the gap between energy consumption and energy supply. TES systems can store energy as sensible heat, latent heat or chemical reaction. Phase change materials (PCM) are extensively studied materials for thermal energy storage as latent heat because these materials have high phase change enthalpy in a wide variety of phase change temperature. Nowadays it is quite difficult to have all the reported information about PCM properties, not only the thermophysical ones but other relevant properties, even though there are different compilations. CES Selector is software used in material selection, besides being a materials database it permits to include new materials introducing their properties, as well as to classify them in several groups, to plot the data and combine graphs production with the material selection under the desired criteria. More than 300 substances used as PCM and reported in the literature were introduced in a new database created using CES Selector. Thermophysical properties as melting temperature (°C) and melting enthalpy (kJ·kg-1) have been plotted and PCM selections under different criteria were carried out. This database can be completed in the future with other relevant properties either than thermal such as chemical properties (durability in different media etc), reported density or viscosity at a given temperature or even cost of each material. Analyzing these plots it is observed that some PCM are represented occupying a wide range of a given thermophysical property. This is the case of CaCl2·6H2O: data came from 7 sources and the occupied area in the plot is the highest one from all the PCM reported. On the other hand, some other PCM are represented with smaller dots associated with a lower dispersion in the property values and this size may possibly be attributed to different reasons: scarce sources for experimental data or low dispersion among several experimental reported values. These results emphasize that there is a lack of standardization for the measurement of the PCM thermophysical properties. The work is partially funded by the Spanish government (ENE2011-28269-C03-02) and the European Union (NMP4-SL-2010-260056). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given their research group GREA (2009 SGR 534) and research group DIOPMA (2009 SGR 645).

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) the primary energy production was increased by 49% and CO2 emissions by 43% over the past 20 years. Furthermore, 30 - 40% of total energy consumption in developed countries comes from the private sector (housing and offices). Thermal energy storage (TES) is proposed as one way to improve the gap between energy consumption and energy supply. TES systems can store energy as sensible heat, latent heat or chemical reaction. Phase change materials (PCM) are extensively studied materials for thermal energy storage as latent heat because these materials have high phase change enthalpy in a wide variety of phase change temperature. Nowadays it is quite difficult to have all the reported information about PCM properties, not only the thermophysical ones but other relevant properties, even though there are different compilations. CES Selector is software used in material selection, besides being a materials database it permits to include new materials introducing their properties, as well as to classify them in several groups, to plot the data and combine graphs production with the material selection under the desired criteria. More than 300 substances used as PCM and reported in the literature were introduced in a new database created using CES Selector. Thermophysical properties as melting temperature (°C) and melting enthalpy (kJ·kg-1) have been plotted and PCM selections under different criteria were carried out. This database can be completed in the future with other relevant properties either than thermal such as chemical properties (durability in different media etc), reported density or viscosity at a given temperature or even cost of each material. Analyzing these plots it is observed that some PCM are represented occupying a wide range of a given thermophysical property. This is the case of CaCl2·6H2O: data came from 7 sources and the occupied area in the plot is the highest one from all the PCM reported. On the other hand, some other PCM are represented with smaller dots associated with a lower dispersion in the property values and this size may possibly be attributed to different reasons: scarce sources for experimental data or low dispersion among several experimental reported values. These results emphasize that there is a lack of standardization for the measurement of the PCM thermophysical properties. The work is partially funded by the Spanish government (ENE2011-28269-C03-02) and the European Union (NMP4-SL-2010-260056). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given their research group GREA (2009 SGR 534) and research group DIOPMA (2009 SGR 645).

2013 ISES Solar World Congress The new technologies of plants integration on buildings offer new possibilities from the sustainable construction point of view, especially in energy savings. In previous studies the great capacity of double-skin green facade or green screen to intercept solar radiation was confirmed, observing differences up to 18 °C in surface temperatures between sunny and shade areas on the wall of the building. The experiment presented here consists of two identical house-like cubicles (3 x 3 x 3 m) located in Puigverd de Lleida, Spain. The only difference between the two cubicles is the double-skin green facade installed in one of them. In a first step only the South wall was covered by a provisional green facade. As the results from first experiment were positive with interesting low electrical energy consumptions when only the 50% of the South wall was covered by plants, a new stable green facade was built covering the South, East and West facades by a deciduous specie well adapted to the Mediterranean Continental climate. With this study the confirmation of the good operation of green facades made with deciduous species as passive system for energy savings in buildings is expected to be characterized. The work was partially funded by the Spanish government (project ENE2011-28269-C03-02 and ULLE10-4E-1305). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group (2009 SGR 534), and to City Hall of Puigverd de Lleida.

2013 ISES Solar World Congress The new technologies of plants integration on buildings offer new possibilities from the sustainable construction point of view, especially in energy savings. In previous studies the great capacity of double-skin green facade or green screen to intercept solar radiation was confirmed, observing differences up to 18 °C in surface temperatures between sunny and shade areas on the wall of the building. The experiment presented here consists of two identical house-like cubicles (3 x 3 x 3 m) located in Puigverd de Lleida, Spain. The only difference between the two cubicles is the double-skin green facade installed in one of them. In a first step only the South wall was covered by a provisional green facade. As the results from first experiment were positive with interesting low electrical energy consumptions when only the 50% of the South wall was covered by plants, a new stable green facade was built covering the South, East and West facades by a deciduous specie well adapted to the Mediterranean Continental climate. With this study the confirmation of the good operation of green facades made with deciduous species as passive system for energy savings in buildings is expected to be characterized. The work was partially funded by the Spanish government (project ENE2011-28269-C03-02 and ULLE10-4E-1305). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group (2009 SGR 534), and to City Hall of Puigverd de Lleida.