An Assessment of PIER Electric Grid Research 2003-2014 White Paper

This white paper describes the circumstances in California around the turn of the 21st century that led the California Energy Commission (CEC) to direct additional Public Interest Energy Research funds to address critical electric grid issues, especially those arising from integrating high penetrations of variable renewable generation with the electric grid. It contains an assessment of the beneficial science and technology advances of the resultant portfolio of electric grid research projects administered under the direction of the CEC by a competitively selected contractor, the University of California’s California Institute for Energy and the Environment, from 2003-2014

Advances in Theoretical and Computational Energy Optimization Processes

Industry, construction and transport are the three sectors that traditionally lead to the highest energy requirements. This is why, over the past few years, all the involved stakeholders have widely expressed the necessity to introduce a new approach to the analysis and management of those energy processes characterizing the aforementioned sectors. The objective is to guide production and energy processes to an approach aimed at energy savings and a decrease in environmental impact. Indeed, all of the ecosystems are stressed by obsolete production schemes deriving from an unsustainable paradigm of constant growth and related to the hypothesis of an environment able to absorb and accept all of the anthropogenic changes

MOHRES, a Software Tool for Analysis and Multiobjective Optimisation of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems : An Overview of Capabilities

Postprin

iURBAN

iURBAN: Intelligent Urban Energy Tool introduces an urban energy tool integrating different ICT energy management systems (both hardware and software) in two European cities, providing useful data to a novel decision support system that makes available the necessary parameters for the generation and further operation of associated business models. The business models contribute at a global level to efficiently manage and distribute the energy produced and consumed at a local level (city or neighbourhood), incorporating behavioural aspects of the users into the software platform and in general prosumers. iURBAN integrates a smart Decision Support System (smartDSS) that collects real-time or near real-time data, aggregates, analyses and suggest actions of energy consumption and production from different buildings, renewable energy production resources, combined heat and power plants, electric vehicles (EV) charge stations, storage systems, sensors and actuators. The consumption and production data is collected via a heterogeneous data communication protocols and networks. The iURBAN smartDSS through a Local Decision Support System allows the citizens to analyse the consumptions and productions that they are generating, receive information about CO2 savings, advises in demand response and the possibility to participate actively in the energy market. Whilst, through a Centralised Decision Support System allow to utilities, ESCOs, municipalities or other authorised third parties to: Get a continuous snapshot of city energy consumption and productionManage energy consumption and productionForecasting of energy consumptionPlanning of new energy "producers" for the future needs of the cityVisualise, analyse and take decisions of all the end points that are consuming or producing energy in a city level, permitting them to forecast and planning renewable power generation available in the city

A Survey on Systems Integration in the Energy Automation Domain through OPC Interface

[Abstract] The Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control (OPC) interface provides an effective means to exchange data between automation-related entities, both hardware and software. Since its creation, it has been profusely used not only for industrial scenarios but also for other spheres, among which energy automation is an important scope. In order to portray the relevance of such protocol, this paper presents a survey of applications of OPC communication to manage systems integration in the context of energy automationJunta de Extremadura; GR1815

Cyber-Physical Co-Simulation Testbed for Real-Time Reactive Power Control in Smart Distribution Network

Existing electric power distribution systems are evolving and changing as a result of the high renewable energy sources integration. Hence, future smart distribution networks will involve various technical challenges; one of them is real-time monitoring and controlling the network to operate it effectively and efficiently. This paper develops and analyzes a cyber-physical co-simulation testbed for real-time reactive power control in the smart distribution network. The testbed is a two-layer system, with Typhoon HIL 604 representing the physical layer and the other layer as a cybernetic layer. The cybernetic layer is used to model a test system and control reactive power from smart inverters in real-time. The implementation of real-time reactive power control of smart inverters on a CIGRE MV distribution network is shown in this study. The proposed testbed's usefulness in real-time reactive power control is demonstrated through simulation results

Geo-SIV: a new free tool MATLAB-based for the preliminary technical, economic and environmental evaluation of small to medium shallow geothermal energy projects in Catalonia based on GIS datasets

Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

City Energy Demand Simulation (CEDS) Feasibility Study

CEDS - The City Energy Demand Simulation - provides cities and local authorities with the means to visualise future energy demand (including gas and electricity) for any geographic area ranging from a street, to a district, to the city itself, including both residential and industrial/commercial energy demand.CEDS allows planners and decision makers to easily visualise the impacts of alternative demand and supply side energy investment strategies on overall energy costs, emissions, and fuel poverty levels. This will be important for cities and planners because the innovative features of CEDS will enable planners to understand the impacts of new energy technology deployments on the energy demand of buildings. - CEDS can demonstrate the relative economic and environmental attractiveness of local energy supply schemes such as district heating combined with power versus importing electricity from the grid; - CEDS can illuminate the impacts of technology deployment by social geography within the city boundaries Therefore, CEDS will allow cities and local authorities to clearly identify how to deploy limited capital budgets to greatest effect when developing low carbon, cost effective local energy infrastructure. By modelling future demand, supply and cost scenarios, cities will be able to prioritise the development of local energy assets, such as district heating networks, energy from waste, retrofit and new build locations. CEDS will enable cities to understand how they can deliver on their priorities for ensuring there are cost effective locations for business and industry, with a secure supply, whilst also helping tackle fuel poverty and reducing carbon emissions and energy costs