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The constituent countries of the MENA region---defined in this thesis in conformity with the regional definition of the International Energy Agency and encompassing 17 Muslim countries in North Africa, in the Levant, on the Arabian Peninsula, and Iran---have developed very rapidly over the past decade. Two figures best exemplify the region's tremendous transformation: Total population has expanded by more than 20% and its aggregate economic output has more than doubled. As much as this development is desirable, said development trends have also dramatically reshaped the energy policy environment in the MENA region and began causing problems of their own---affecting the region's large oil exporters and its energy importers alike. Having traditionally enjoyed high energy security and handsome resource rents by virtue of their abundant and cheap fossil fuels, new realities in the domestic energy systems demand a new policy focus on domestic energy issues. Energy challenges have emerged which threaten security of supply, fiscal stability, and environmental integrity. The challenges differ in magnitude from country-to-country and reflect the specific national conditions and circumstances. However, given the similarity in the underlying drivers and the governing energy policies, the energy challenges resemble each other across borders. More specifically, ballooning domestic energy demand consumes a rising share of national energy production and thus increasingly imperils the constant flow of the much needed proceeds from oil and gas exports. In the MENA countries with less abundant hydrocarbon resources, domestic demand growth has heightened energy dependence and, to make matters worse, the tighter supply situation in the energy exporting neighbors may eventually also lead to a discontinuation of the preferential supply agreements which they have benefitted from in the past. As a further corollary of demand growth, massive capital-intensive infrastructure investments are necessary to keep pace with the growth on the demand side. The regional tradition to sell energy commodities domestically at prices non-competitive prices or even below cost, however, limits the national energy sectors' own capability of mustering the required capital. Finally, the universally observable heavily fossil fuel-dominated national energy mixes in the region render the study countries vulnerable to supply shocks. The virtually complete reliance on the regionally available hydrocarbons for meeting energy demand is also a principal contributor to environmental degradation and at the core of the large carbon footprint of energy consumption in MENA countries. Given current policies in combination with the emerging demographic and economic trends, these challenges must be expected to become more severe in the years to come. Rising living standards, especially in the region's expanding urban population, are likely to boost per capita energy consumption. The projected, continued demographic and economic growth will further drive commodity demand. And the supply side cannot be counted on to mitigate the challenges under given policies. On the contrary. Although no reliable production projections are available, it stands to reason that production from the region's most prolific oil and gas fields---some of which have been producing for several decades now---will increasingly require the use of costly secondary and tertiary recovery methods and that some will eventually [...]

In the recent years, some experimental forms of housing (cohousing and social housing) have developed in Italy, which also take on the features of real energy communities. These initiatives have been planned and implemented thanks to the active participation and investments of the people involved in the project. Their primary aim is to implement new form of shared housing, but by adopting renewable generation systems and sharing both energy production and consumption, they are contributing to foster the energy transition process. In this research, we studied the management of the energy resource and the social interactions among the cohousers. Moreover, we analysed the social impacts on the surrounding territory in order to know as they can widespread the clean energy technologies and social innovation processes. To do this, we compared two experiences of collaborative housing: the first one, active since some years in Northern Italy, is a bottom-up initiative set up by the voluntary action of some families and individuals. Its goal is to share common spaces and activities, but also to produce and use renewable energy with a view to economic and environmental sustainability. The second one is a social cohousing, established in Messina (Southern Italy) and implemented by the Fondazione di Comunità di Messina. The project involves people who live in socio-economic difficulties. Through the ESCO Solidarity & Energy, the Fondazione has designed and applied energy systems to allow the tenants to become prosumers and prosumagers.

Abstract In this study, we investigate the driving forces behind the changes in residential energy consumption (REC) in China’s urban and rural areas over the 2001–2012 period. Based on the logarithmic mean Divisia index method, the REC changes are decomposed into seven driving forces, which are climate change, energy price, energy expenditure mix, energy cost share (in total expenditure), expenditure share (in income), per capita income and population effects. According to the results, climate effect due to increasing days with abnormal temperature, energy cost share effect characterized by more expenditure to be paid for energy use, income effect describing constant income growth in the residential sector definitely increase REC in both urban and rural areas. In contrast, energy prices and energy expenditure mix effects negatively contribute to the REC increase, respectively because of the increase in energy prices and the transition from the low-priced energy to high-priced energy. Expenditure share and population effects play opposite roles in urban and rural areas, and the reasons and implications are analysed in depth.

Abstract This article gives an overview of the literature on clean technology diffusion, followed by suggestions for future analysis. Findings from diffusion analysis are presented in the form of 10 stylised facts, helping the reader to see the forest for the trees. The overall conclusion is that the diffusion of clean technology (same as the diffusion of normal innovations) is governed by endogenous mechanism (epidemic learning and learning economies) and by exogenous mechanisms. Policy is important for clean technology diffusion but other factors are important too: the characteristics of the clean technology, absorptive capacities of potential adopters and the age structure of capital. It is often overlooked that companies have a choice: they can choose between an end-of-pipe solution, a process change (adaptation) and a change of process (substitution). This means that the diffusion and evolution of one clean technology will be at the expense of the diffusion of another clean technology, something overlooked in studies on clean technology diffusion. Further research is needed on the influence of public policy on clean technology choice, expectations (about learning economies and prices), adjustment costs, network externalities and complementary innovations on clean technology adoption choices.

This thesis is motivated from the fundamental decision problem in today's manufacturing industry which could be summarized as one simple question: how is it possible to achieve economic growth by taking advantage of the latest technologies while protecting the environment? The machine tool has undergone a remarkable change in recent years and the classical concept of an independent, manually operated machine tool, specially dedicated to a particular machining process no longer belongs to the production environment. The increasing usage of computer control and measuring equipment as well as workpiece and tool handling devices has transformed the machine tool into a sophisticated hybrid production system having a lower demand for human supervision of the process. All these efforts are gathered together in order to achieve a high productivity system able to machine different parts respecting quality requirements at the lowest cost. In addition, increasing attention to the environmental and health impacts by governmental regulations and by growing awareness in society is forcing manufacturers to find environmentally friendly designs and machining strategies. The objective of this research is to propose a multicriteria decision aid methodology (MCDA) for evaluation of the use phase of a machine tool system by jointly considering economical, technical and environmental criteria which allows the decision maker to be in a better position to make sustainable decisions. The evaluation is carried out at two levels by addressing the process level with its local cutting area effects and the main activities of the machine tool system by giving full consideration to reduction/elimination of the cutting fluid and reduction of the overall energy consumption. After carefully reviewing previous research, a consistent hierarchical evaluation criteria structure and an entity relationship diagram characterizing the organizational scheme of a database, which stores the data to be used in the evaluation process, is proposed for each level. As a second step, this thesis proposes a model for estimation of the mechanical energy requirements of the cutting subsystem of a machine tool based on the cutter location data, the cutting parameters and the technical specifications of the spindle and feed axes. The MCDA methodology and the energy consumption model were implemented in a software tool using the VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) language and was validated through various tests consisting in the machining of different milling and drilling features of a prismatic part by employing different cutting parameters and cooling/lubrication alternatives. In addition to the cutting tests, an extensive monitoring of the power share amongst the main subsystems of a modern machining center was carried out and a power data collection framework was proposed. The acquisition, interpretation and storage of the experimental data were supported by a measurement platform developed in the LabVIEW environment.

Most households in sub-Saharan Africa rely on wood-based cooking fuels and their number is expected to rise. Despite this, national and subnational energy policies often neglect biomass cooking fuels. A Formative Scenario Analysis process is applied to show how the cooking fuel sector in Kilimanjaro Region (Tanzania) and Kitui County (Kenya) might evolve by 2030. In order to provide relevant knowledge for potential energy policies, this paper aims to identify the main drivers impacting the cooking fuel sector, and to assess and explore current and future demand and supply potential of biomass cooking fuels. Our results show that policies have the potential to substantially impact the future mix of cooking fuels and to foster or hamper the use of efficient cooking fuel technologies. Half of Kilimanjaro Region’s households could be supplied with biogas; in Kitui County, wood-based cooking fuels is likely to remain dominant but improving the efficiency of the technologies would reduce the demand for wood considerably. Hence, we argue that energy policies should explicitly consider biomass cooking fuels and endeavour to make this sector more sustainable and that priority should be given to increasing the sustainability of the biomass cooking fuel sector. Key leverage points to do so are improving the access to improved biomass technologies and capacity building.

Artículos en revistas The electricity consumption in the buildings sector has been steadily increasing during the last decade, up to the point that energy efficiency in this sector has become a major problem for governments, utilities, customers, and the environment. The foreseen high penetration of distributed micro-generation facilities based on renewables can help to reduce the environmental footprint of buildings and households, although the complexity of managing effectively the electric grid increases dramatically under these conditions. The IEEE 2030 standard for interoperability in the Smart Grid remarks upon the importance of well-defined data models in such complex scenarios and puts emphasis on the benefits of ontologies and OWL (Web Ontology Language) for this purpose. This paper presents an OWL-based ontology that formally defines the vocabulary and taxonomy and captures the engineering and business semantics of this domain of knowledge (i.e., energy efficiency in the so-called nZEN - nearly Zero-Energy Neighborhoods). This ontology has been defined under the scope of the EU (European Union) research project ENERsip. The paper also highlights the main benefits the ontology brought to all the phases of the project life cycle, as well as how future work can make the most out of it. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

This paper estimates the level of transient and persistent efficiency in the use of electricity in Swiss households using the newly developed generalized true random effects model (GTREM). An unbalanced panel dataset of 1994 Swiss households from 2010 to 2014 collected via a household survey is used to estimate an electricity demand frontier function. We further investigate whether energy and investment literacy have an influence on the household electricity consumption. The results show significant inefficiencies in the use of electricity among Swiss households, both transient (11%) and persistent (22%). We note that the high persistent inefficiency is indicative of structural problems faced by households and systematic behavioral shortcomings in residential electricity consumption. These results indicate a considerable potential for electricity savings and thus reaching the reduction targets defined by the Swiss federal council as part of the Energy Strategy 2050, wherein end-use efficiency improvement is one of the main pillars. The results support a positive role of energy and, in particular, investment literacy in reducing household electricity consumption. Policies targeting an improvement of these attributes could help to enhance efficiency in the use of energy within households.

Smart grids provide services at the basis of a number of application sectors, several of which are critical from the perspective of human life, environment or financials. It is therefore paramount to be assisted by technologies able to analyze the smart grid behavior in critical scenarios, e.g. where cyber malfunctions or grid disruptions occur. In this paper, we present a stochastic modelling framework to quantitatively assess representative indicators of the resilience and quality of service of the distribution grid, in presence of accidental faults and malicious attacks. The results from the performed analysis can be exploited to understand the dynamics of failures and to identify potential system vulnerabilities, against which appropriate countermeasures should be developed. The features of the proposed analysis framework are discussed, pointing out the strong non-linearity of the involved physics, the developed solutions to deal with control actions and the definition of indicators under analysis. A case study based on a real-world network is also presented.

Over the last decade, significant attention has been devoted to Closed-Loop Supply Chain (CLSC) design problems. As such, this review aims at assessing whether the current modelling approaches for CLSC problems can support the transition towards a Circular Economy at a supply chain level. The paper comprehensively assesses the extent to which existing modelling approaches evaluate the performance of supply chains across the complete spectrum of sustainability dimensions. Also, the capability of the current approaches of incorporating strategic, tactical, and operational decisions is considered, along with adopted solution methodologies. As a result, a comprehensive analysis was performed on 254 selected articles. This paper emphasises how most of the current literature in the field is affected by a disconnection between supply chain design and the founding principles of Circular Economy. Specifically, the CLSC literature exhibits a reductionist interpretation of the Circular Economy. CLSC studies focusing on all three dimensions of sustainability are relatively rare, and performance measurement approaches appear to be very much focused on monetary issues. While methodological contributions appear adequate to focus on the non-deterministic nature of CLSC design problems, there is paucity of empirically-grounded research. Coherently, a research agenda is proposed, in order to address the mentioned gaps and increase the relevance of this research field to practice.