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Abstract Two office layouts with high and low levels of thermal control were compared, respectively traditional cellular and contemporary open plan offices. The traditional Norwegian practice provided every user with control over a window, blinds, door, and the ability to adjust heating and cooling. Occupants were expected to control their thermal environment to find their own comfort, while air conditioning was operating in the background to ensure the indoor air quality. In contrast, in the British open plan office, limited thermal control was provided through openable windows and blinds only for occupants seated around the perimeter of the building. Centrally operated displacement ventilation was the main thermal control system. Users’ perception of thermal environment was recorded through survey questionnaires, empirical building performance through environmental measurements and thermal control through semi-structured interviews. The Norwegian office had 35% higher user satisfaction and 20% higher user comfort compared to the British open plan office. However, the energy consumption in the British practice was within the benchmark and much lower than the Norwegian office. Overall, a balance between thermal comfort and energy efficiency is required, as either extreme poses difficulties for the other.

Cogeneration of heat and electricity is an important pillar of energy and climate policy. To plan the production and distribution system of combined heat and power (CHP) systems for residential heating, suitable methods for decision support are needed. For a comprehensive feasibility analysis, the integration of the location and capacity planning of the power plants, the choice of customers, and the network planning of the heating network into one optimization model are necessary. Thus, we develop an optimization model for electricity generation and heat supply. This mixed integer linear program (MILP) is based on graph theory for network flow problems. We apply the network location model for the optimization of district heating systems in the City of Osorno in Chile, which exhibits the “checkerboard layout” typically found in many South American cities. The network location model can support the strategic planning of investments in renewable energy projects because it permits the analysis of changing energy prices, calculation of break-even prices for heat and electricity, and estimation of greenhouse gas emission savings.

Abstract The housing growth programme could offer an opportunity for accelerating the deployment of decentralised renewable energy systems (DRES) in the UK. The Government hopes to leverage private sector investment into DRES as part of new housing projects. The aim of this paper is to assess whether current regulatory and funding frameworks are sufficient to achieve this. The question is explored by drawing on the experience of developers, local authorities, energy utilities and service companies operating in the largest housing growth region in the UK–Thames Gateway. Their experience suggests that the current low intervention approach will be insufficient to generate the shift required in both industries. In order to be more successful economic and regulatory instruments should focus on producers (house-builders and energy providers) rather than consumers (households). Tighter regulation is needed to ensure that producers have a responsibility to install DRES as part of new developments, to enable connection to the grid, to ensure a sustained financial return from investment and revenue is spent on the expansion of new renewable energy infrastructure. This regulatory framework must be under-pinned by substantial funds focused on producers. Greater intervention is needed if DRES is to be included in new housing development.

Abstract Decentralised energy in the UK is rare. Cities in the north of England however lead the UK in terms of sustainable, low-carbon, local/district heating, through the implementation of combined-heat-and-power (CHP) facilities; substantial schemes are installed in several cities, including Barnsley and Sheffield. This paper presents the results from extensive experimental and theoretical feasibility studies, in which the merits of these were explored. Barnsley has a number of biomass-fuelled community energy generators, where pollutant monitoring and mathematical modelling were conducted to assess combustion characteristics and overall system performance. Measured pollutant levels were within the relative emission limits, though emission concentrations (CO, CO2, NO and particles) in the flue gas from the coal boiler were higher than the wood pellet boiler. Sheffield already has a citywide district energy network, centred around a sustainably-sourced waste-to-energy facility; an expansion of this scheme was investigated here. This focuses mainly on the link to a 30 MW wood-fired CHP plant, which could be a significant provider of additional thermal capacity (low-grade heat) to an expanded network. Through identifying heat sources and sinks – potential suppliers and end-users – key areas were identified where a connection to the heat network would be feasible.

Biomethane is a flexible energy vector that can be used as a renewable fuel for both the heat and transport sectors. Recent EU legislation encourages the production and use of advanced, third generation biofuels with improved sustainability for future energy systems. The integration of technologies such as anaerobic digestion, gasification, and power to gas, along with advanced feedstocks such as algae will be at the forefront in meeting future sustainability criteria and achieving a green gas supply for the gas grid. This paper explores the relevant pathways in which an integrated biomethane industry could potentially materialise and identifies and discusses the latest biotechnological advances in the production of renewable gas. Three scenarios of cascading biomethane systems are developed.

As presented in the first companion paper, distributed mixed-integer fuzzy hierarchical programming (DMIFHP) was developed for municipal solid waste management (MSWM) under complexities of heterogeneities, hierarchy, discreteness, and interactions. Beijing was selected as a representative case. This paper focuses on presenting the obtained schemes and the revealed mechanisms of the Beijing MSWM system. The optimal MSWM schemes for Beijing under various solid waste treatment policies and their differences are deliberated. The impacts of facility expansion, hierarchy, and spatial heterogeneities and potential extensions of DMIFHP are also discussed. A few of findings are revealed from the results and a series of comparisons and analyses. For instance, DMIFHP is capable of robustly reflecting these complexities in MSWM systems, especially for Beijing. The optimal MSWM schemes are of fragmented patterns due to the dominant role of the proximity principle in allocating solid waste treatment resources, and they are closely related to regulated ratios of landfilling, incineration, and composting. Communities without significant differences among distances to different types of treatment facilities are more sensitive to these ratios than others. The complexities of hierarchy and heterogeneities pose significant impacts on MSWM practices. Spatial dislocation of MSW generation rates and facility capacities caused by unreasonable planning in the past may result in insufficient utilization of treatment capacities under substantial influences of transportation costs. The problems of unreasonable MSWM planning, e.g., severe imbalance among different technologies and complete vacancy of ten facilities, should be gained deliberation of the public and the municipal or local governments in Beijing. These findings are helpful for gaining insights into MSWM systems under these complexities, mitigating key challenges in the planning of these systems, improving the related management practices, and eliminating potential socio-economic and eco-environmental issues resulting from unreasonable management.

Buildings in private and domestic use are responsible for about 30% of the global greenhouse gas emissions attributable mainly to their need for heating and cooling energy. This corresponds to about 40% of the global final energy consumption. Therefore, a viable implementation of building energy efficiency policies is inevitable to realize a transformation of the energy system to mitigate climate change. Within the building sector lies a huge potential for emission reduction consisting in the renovation of the existing building stock and climate-friendly building guidelines applicable to new constructions, both adapting CO2-neutral technology solutions. However, as there are several different pathways leading to a decarbonized energy system, there is always the question which political and technological solutions are most efficient, effective, and feasible. This paper aims to analyze building efficiency policy measures and instruments and the related technological solutions in two front-runner countries of the energy transition, possessing different structural conditions: Germany and Norway. We hence apply a comparative approach which allows us to present and assess the policies in place. The paper answers three research questions: (1) Which policies prevail in Germany and Norway to foster the deployment of energy efficient and decarbonized solutions for residential buildings? (2) How do these policies respond to country-specific barriers to the energy transition in the building sector, and (3) What effects do they have on the actual implementation of technological and societal solutions? This research provides a new insight to the highly relevant topic of energy efficiency in buildings in the context of international Intended Nationally Determined Contribution benchmarking and discusses some unsolved trade-offs in the translation of the global climate governance into the national building sector.

The importance of LCEM (life cycle energy management) has been recognized from the view of life cycle energy savings for sustainable buildings. The purposes of this research are the proposal of an LCEM framework and development of prototype HVAC system simulation tools for LCEM. In this paper, the necessity of energy simulation tools for LCEM is discussed, and the outline and solution method of the simulation tool are shown.

Common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia L.) is a highly allergenic annual ruderal plant and native to Northern America, but now also spreading across Europe. Air pollution and climate change will not only affect plant growth, pollen production and duration of the whole pollen season, but also the amount of allergenic encoding transcripts and proteins of the pollen. The objective of this study was to get a better understanding of transcriptional changes in ragweed pollen upon NO2 and O3 fumigation. This will also contribute to a systems biology approach to understand the reaction of the allergenic pollen to air pollution and climate change. Ragweed plants were grown in climate chambers under controlled conditions and fumigated with enhanced levels of NO2 and O3. Illumina sequencing and de novo assembly revealed significant differentially expressed transcripts, belonging to different gene ontology (GO) terms that were grouped into biological process and molecular function. Transcript levels of the known Amb a ragweed encoding allergens were clearly up-regulated under elevated NO2, whereas the amount of allergen encoding transcripts was more variable under elevated O3 conditions. Moreover transcripts encoding allergen known from other plants could be identified. The transcriptional changes in ragweed pollen upon elevated NO2 fumigation indicates that air pollution will alter the transcriptome of the pollen. The changed levels of allergenic encoding transcripts may have an influence on the total allergenic potential of ragweed pollen.