• Energy Research
• engineering and technology close
• 11. Sustainability close
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Biogas production is a clean renewable energy source that can improve lives in developing countries. However, winter temperatures in some areas are too low to enable enough biogas production in small unheated digesters to meet the energy requirements of households. Low-cost, high yield reactors adapted to the local climate are needed in those situations. A decision-support model was developed to assist in the design of biogas reactors capable of meeting households’ year-round energy needs. Monthly biogas production relative to household energy needs was calculated for the scenario of suburban Hanoi, Vietnam. Calculations included pig number, slurry (manure water mixture) dilution, retention time and biogas/solar heating. Although using biogas to heat the digester increased biogas production, it did not lead to an energy surplus, particularly with the 1:9 slurry dilution rate commonly used on pig farms. However, at a 1:3 slurry dilution, the use of solar heating to provide 90% and biogas 10% of the heat required to heat the digester to 35 °C improved the biogas production by 50% compared to psychrophilic production. The energy needs of an average five-person family throughout the year required 17 fattening pigs. This model can establish the best solution for producing sufficient energy throughout the year.

AbstractWith the net zero energy balance for heating, domestic hot water, ventilation and auxiliary energy, the Swiss MINERGIE-A Standard is a major step towards standardized, economically feasible net zero energy buildings. Not only the zero energy balance but also the requirement for limited embodied energy is a new challenge for architects and designers. In the two years since the launching of the Standard and the writing of this paper, approx. 240 buildings have been certified or pre certified. The new standard is widely accepted and its challenges are appreciated in the building sector. A cross analysis shows that a wide range of different energy concepts and embodied energy strategies are possible in the scope of the Standard. The wide variety of options is one of the main findings of the rollout of this new zero-balanced standard.

Abstract In developed countries, buildings are involved in almost 50% of total energy use and 30% of global green-house gas emissions. Buildings' operational energy is highly dependent on various building physical, operational, and functional characteristics, as well as meteorological and temporal properties. Besides physics-based building energy modeling, machine learning techniques can provide faster and higher accuracy estimates, given buildings' historic energy consumption data. Looking beyond individual building levels, forecasting buildings’ energy performance helps city and community managers have a better understanding of their future energy needs, and plan for satisfying them more efficiently. Focusing on an urban-scale, this study systematically reviews 70 journal articles, published in the field of building energy performance forecasting between 2015 and 2018. The recent literature have been categorized according to five criteria: 1. Learning Method, 2. Building Type, 3. Energy Type, 4. Input Data, and 5. Time-scale. The scarcity of building energy performance forecasting studies in urban-scale versus individual level is considerable. There is no study incorporating building functionality in terms of space functionality share percentages, nor assessing the effects of climate change on urban buildings energy performance using machine learning approaches and future weather scenarios. There is no optimal criteria combination for achieving the most accurate machine learning-based forecast, as there is no universal measure able to provide such global comparison. Accuracy levels are highly correlated with the characteristics of forecasting problems. The goal is to provide a comprehensive status of machine learning applications in urban building energy performance forecasting, during 2015–2018.

This paper presents the procedures used to develop a strategy to mitigate flooding in the Bayou Henderson watershed in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. The Bayou Henderson Watershed includes the town of Galvez, Louisiana, and has an area of approximately 3600 hectare. A little more than one-third of the watershed is developed, while the remainder is open or forested areas. The watershed includes agriculture/pastureland, residential, open space and some commercial areas. A map of the Bayou Henderson watershed showing the stream network and land use are provided in Figure 1 . The main stem of Bayou Henderson is approximately 10 kilometers in length. It flows southeast until it crosses Henderson Bayou Road. From there, Bayou Henderson flows northeast until it discharges into the Amite River. Bayou Henderson has several major tributaries which drain the urbanized areas in the western part of the watershed. The elevation of the Bayou Henderson channel ranges from about one meter below sea level near its confluence with the Amite River to approximately 6 meters above sea level at the upstream most reaches on the Marty Burratt drainage ditch. The entire Bayou Henderson watershed is located within the Mississippi River 500-year floodplain. In additional, a large area of the Bayou Henderson Watershed is affected by backwater from the Amite River and is included within the Amite River 100-year floodplain. Two types of flooding affect residences and businesses in Henderson Bayou. The first of these is local flooding, which results from heavy rainfall in the immediate drainage area of the Bayou and its tributaries. This type of flooding has worsened in recent years because of increased paved area and floodplain encroachment. The second type of flooding is known as backwater flooding or tailwater flooding. It is caused by flood flow and high water in the Amite River, which then restricts the discharge of Bayou Henderson. These two types of flooding are generally considered to be independent, meaning the underlying causes are not correlated. Therefore, local flooding and backwater flooding can occur individually or jointly from time to time.

The agriculture and horticulture sector in the Netherlands is one of the most productive in the world. Although the sector is one of the most advanced and intense agricultural production systems worldwide, it faces challenges, such as climate change and environmental and social unsustainability of industrial production. To overcome these challenges, alternative food production initiatives have emerged, especially in large cities such as Amsterdam. Some initiatives involve producing food in the urban environment, supported by new technologies and practices, so-called high-tech urban agriculture (HTUA). These initiatives make cultivation of plants inside and on top of buildings possible and increase green spaces in urban areas. The emerging agricultural technologies are creating new business environments that are shape d by technology developers (e.g., suppliers of horticultural light emitting diodes (LED) and control environment systems) and developers of alternative food production practices (e.g., HTUA start-ups). However, research shows that the uptake of these technological innovations in urban planning processes is problematic. Therefore, this research analyzes the barriers that local government planners and HTUA developers are facing in the embedding of HTUA in urban planning processes, using the city of Amsterdam as a case study. This study draws on actor-network theory (ANT) to analyze the interactions between planners, technologies, technology developers and developers of alternative food production practices. Several concepts of ANT are integrated into a multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions (MLP) to create a new theoretical framework that can explain how interactions between technologies and planning actors transform the incumbent social–technical regime. The configuration of interactions between social and material entities in technology development and adoption processes in Amsterdam is analyzed through the lens of this theoretical framework. The data in this study were gathered by tracing actors and their connections by using ethnographic research methods. In the course of the integration of new technologies into urban planning practices, gaps between technologies, technology developers, and planning actors have been identified. The results of this study show a lacking connection between planning actors and technology developers, although planning actors do interact with developers of alternative food production practices. These interactions are influenced by agency of artefacts such as visualizations of the future projects. The paper concludes that for the utilization of emerging technologies for sustainability transition of cities, the existing gap between technology developers and planning actors needs to be bridged through the integration of technology development visions in urban agendas and planning processes.

Governments typically employ an indicator for energy intensity as their target to achieve national energy policies. By using all European Union member states as a sample and dividing them into Baltic Sea region (BSR) and non-Baltic Sea region (NBSR) countries in order to compare regional economic and energy matters, this study finds that the indicator of room for improvement in energy intensity (RIEI) correlates with energy efficiency (EE) and the energy technology gap ratio (ETGR). The research results show that introducing advanced energy technology and taking an energy management approach are ways in which BSR states can reduce their RIEI. As our study only considers NBSR countries, we see that they pay attention on improvements in energy technology, but ignore improvements in energy efficiency when their GDP per capita increases. Finally, we note that the inversed-U-shaped relationship between RIEI and GDP per capita is a better economic development type. Keywords: Room for improvement in energy intensity, Energy efficiency, Energy technology gap

Abstract Integration of solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery storage systems is an upward trend for residential sector to achieve major targets like minimizing the electricity bill, grid dependency, emission and so forth. In recent years, there has been a rapid deployment of PV and battery installation in residential sector. In this regard, optimal planning of PV-battery systems is a critical issue for the designers, consumers, and network operators due to high number of parameters that can affect the optimization problem. This paper aims to present a comprehensive and critical review on the effective parameters in optimal planning process of solar PV and battery storage system for grid-connected residential sector. The key parameters in process of optimal planning for PV-battery system are recognized and explained. These parameters are economic and technical data, objective functions, energy management systems, design constraints, optimization algorithms, and electricity pricing programs. A timely review on the state-of-the-art studies in PV-battery optimal planning is presented. The challenges, trends and latest developments in the topic are discussed. At the end, scopes for future studies are developed. It is found that new guidelines should be provided for the customers based on various electricity rates and demand response programs. Also, several design considerations like grid dependency and resiliency need further investigation in the optimal planning of PV-battery systems.