Mitigating energy poverty: Potential contributions of combining PV and building thermal mass storage in low-income households

The issue of energy poverty has devastating implications for the society, and it has been aggravated in the past years due to the economic crisis and the increase of energy prices. Among the most affected are those with low incomes and living in inefficient buildings. Unfortunately, the bitter reality is that sometimes this part of the population are facing the next question: Heating, or eating? The declining prices of distributed energy technologies such as photovoltaics provides an opportunity for positive social change. Although their use does not address energy poverty directly, substantial contributions may be made. Measurements of indoor temperatures in a social housing district of southern Spain in 2017 have revealed the unbearable temperatures that the occupants have to endure, both in summer and winter. Using this district as a case study, the present work aims to evaluate the benefits of exploiting its rooftop PV potential to cover part of the electricity consumption of the district (reducing the energy bills), and use the surplus electricity to supply power for the heat pumps in the district. Optimal alternatives regarding maximum PV production, maximum self-sufficiency ratio and minimum investment costs have been found, considering as well different options when sharing the available electricity surplus to improve the thermal comfort of the occupants. As far as the authors know, no previous study has followed an approach aimed at energy poverty alleviation such as the one presented in this work. The results show that using the surplus electricity to heat or cool the whole dwellings would improve the thermal comfort of the occupants in average up to 11% in winter and 26% in summer. If all the PV generation was used or more buildings in the area were employed to install PV modules, improvements up to 33% in winter and 67% in summer could be obtained, reducing at the same time the thermal comfort differences among the dwellings of the district

Solar Self-Sufficient Households as a Driving Factor for Sustainability Transformation

We present a model to estimate the technical requirements, including the photovoltaic area and battery capacity, along with the costs, for a four-person household to be 100% electrically self-sufficient in Germany. We model the hourly electricity consumption of private households with quasi-Fourier series and an autoregressive statistical model based on data from Berlin in 2010. Combining the consumption model and remote-sensed hourly solar irradiance data from the ERA5 data set, we find the optimal photovoltaic area and battery capacity that would have been necessary to be self-sufficient in electricity from July 2002 to June 2022. We show that it is possible to build a self-sufficient household with today’s storage technology for private households and estimate the costs expected to do so

Analysis, sizing and control of a micro-grid with photovoltaic generation and batteries, for residential applications in the city of Cúcuta, Norte de Santander (Colombia)

Currently, the Colombian electricity sector presents great opportunities for the implementation of electric power generation systems from unconventional energy sources such as photovoltaic solar energy, these opportunities arise from the need to strengthen the national energy matrix to be able to supply the increasing demand for electrical energy of the country, at the same time as the generation system, mainly dominated by generation of hydroelectric energy, is strengthened in front of environmental crises such as those experienced in the past. With this as a reference, the present work carries out a study for the implementation of micro-grid with photovoltaic generation systems and batteries for residential use, within the context of the actual Colombian electricity market, focused on the city of Cúcuta, Norte de Santander. Developing for this purpose a model of the microgrid in Simulink from MathWorks, and evaluating its performance for two particular case studies

HopScotch - a low-power renewable energy base station network for rural broadband access

The provision of adequate broadband access to communities in sparsely populated rural areas has in the past been severely restricted. In this paper, we present a wireless broadband access test bed running in the Scottish Highlands and Islands which is based on a relay network of low-power base stations. Base stations are powered by a combination of renewable sources creating a low cost and scalable solution suitable for community ownership. The use of the 5~GHz bands allows the network to offer large data rates and the testing of ultra high frequency ``white space'' bands allow expansive coverage whilst reducing the number of base stations or required transmission power. We argue that the reliance on renewable power and the intelligent use of frequency bands makes this approach an economic green radio technology which can address the problem of rural broadband access

Estimation of PV Systems Power Production Efficiency іn the Dense Urban Development Conditions

The paper describes the preconditions for planning and building an intelligent community of Energy Smart Community. The state of RES sector development, namely, PV stations in the energy structure of the United Energy System of Ukraine, has been characterized. The features of building an Energy Smart Community architecture include an analysis of the possibilities of joining their own generating capacities as an energy component in this system. The energy and economic criteria for such type of intelligent community are described. The article analyzes the foreign experience in building and implementing Energy Smart Community in power systems on the basis as pilot projects NYSEG and SCA for its further scientific research and testing. Using the software module in the Matlab Simulink environment, we have constructed and described the work on the example of an arbitrary PV module, with its principal dependencies being distinguished from the generalized solar insolation index. The obtained data point to all the prerequisites for the possibility of widespread participation of private PV systems of power supply as the main asset of the Energy Smart Community.В роботі описані передумови для планування та побудови розумного співтовариства Energy Smart Community. Охарактеризовано стан розвитку сектора ВДЕ, а саме PV станцій в енергетичній структурі Об’єднаної енергетичної системи України. Особливості побудови архітектури Energy Smart Community передбачає аналіз можливостей приєднання власних генеруючих потужностей в якості енергетичної складової цієї системи. Описані енергетичні та економічні критерії такого приєднання. Проаналізовано наведено іноземний досвід побудови та впровадження Energy Smart Community в енергетичні системи на основі пілотних проектів NYSEG та SCA для подальшого його наукового дослідження та випробування. Звикористанням програмного модуля в середовищі Matlab Simulink побудовано та описано роботу на прикладі довільного PV модуля з виділенням його основних залежностей від узагальненого показника сонячної інсоляції. Отримані дані вказують на всі передумови можливості широкої участі приватних PV систем забезпечення електроенергією в якості основного активу функціонування Energy Smart Communit

Impactos del Cambio Climático en la Generación de Energía Renovable y Evaluación de Escenarios de Generación Energética

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, leída el 26-04-2022This Thesis was titled Climate Change Impacts on Renewable Energy Generation and Energy Generation Scenarios.Climate change is attributed, among other factors, to greenhouse gas emissions produced by the energy sector (including the transport). At the same time, climate change is expected to affect this sector by changing the availability of resources, altering its enabling conditions and transforming demand patterns. This thesis addresses climate change impacts on renewable generation and electricity demand by providing an overview of the most relevant transformations projected in literature and by developing methodologies and quantitative analysis to ascertain the specific infuence in three case studies.The first and second chapters are focus on estimating climate change impacts in wind and photovoltaic generation in specific plants. Both provide physical and economic projections of expected changes, along with conclusions for the development of energy policies. The last chapter delves into how climate change and the scenarios proposed to curb it, can affect the demand for electricity in a region, due to the expected changes in the generation infrastructure and changes on the demand side such as a high penetration of electric vehicles...Esta Tesis se tituló Impactos del Cambio Climático en la Generación de Energía Renovable y Escenarios de Generación de Energía. El cambio climático se atribuye, entre otras variables, a las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero producidas por el sector energético (incluyendo el transporte). Al mismo tiempo, el cambio climático se espera que pueda afectar a este sector cambiando la disponibilidad de sus recursos, alterando sus condiciones habilitantes y transformando los patrones de la demanda. Esta Tesis aborda los impactos del cambio climático en la generación renovable y cambios en el comportamiento de la demanda de electricidad, proporcionando una introducción a las transformaciones más relevantes proyectadas por la literatura y desarrollando metodologías y análisis cuantitativos que determinan el impacto específico en tres casos de estudio. El primer y el segundo capítulo se centran en determinar los cambios esperados en la generación eólica y fotovoltaica en plantas específicas, con especial atención en el calentamiento global. Ambos proporcionan proyecciones físicas y económicas de los cambios esperados, junto con conclusiones para el desarrollo de políticas energéticas. El último capítulo profundiza en cómo el cambio climático y los escenarios propuestos para frenarlo, pueden afectar a la demanda de electricidad de una región, debido a los cambios esperados en las infraestructuras de generación y en cambios por el lado de la demanda como sería una elevada penetración de los vehículos eléctricos...Fac. de Ciencias Económicas y EmpresarialesTRUEunpu

Mathematical modelling of operation modes and performance evaluation of an innovative small-scale concentrated solar organic Rankine cycle plant

In this paper an innovative small-scale concentrated solar 2 kWe organic Rankine cycle plant coupled with a phase change material storage tank equipped with reversible heat pipes is investigated using a simulation analysis. The plant, intended for residential applications, is going to be built and tested under the European funded H2020 Innova MicroSolar project executed by the consortium of several Universities and industrial organizations, led by Northumbria University. The authors of this work used the design of the integrated system, developed by the consortium, to preliminary estimate the overall performance of the system in order to provide useful information for its forthcoming real operation. In particular, according to the varying ambient conditions, the influence of different operation modes of the prototype plant are evaluated. The dynamic simulation analysis has shown an interesting performance of the system in terms of annual operating hours, power production and conversion efficiencies. More precisely, the organic Rankine cycle unit is able to operate for more than 3100 h/year, achieving the design performance when solar power is sufficiently high, producing about 5100 kWhe/year. For the considered operating set-point temperatures of the thermal energy storage, the plant is able to reach high conversion efficiency also when the organic Rankine cycle unit is supplied by discharging the energy stored in the storage tank, for about 800 h/year. Hence, the work has provided some useful insights into the best working conditions of such micro combined heat and power system to be integrated in residential buildings. Moreover, the analysis could serve as a general guide for the design and optimization of the mutual interactions of the different subsystems in small-scale concentrated solar organic Rankine cycle plants

Long-term optimal capacity expansion planning for an operating off-grid PV mini-grid in rural Africa under different demand evolution scenarios

Using real-time load data and HOMER Pro\u27s ‘multi-year’ optimization tool, this paper investigates the long-term cost optimal capacity expansion planning (CEP) for an overloaded photovoltaic (PV) mini-grid (MG) with storage batteries in off-grid rural Ethiopia over a 20-year planning horizon. Three distinct annual energy demand growth scenarios were considered: 0 % (fulfils the minimum load requirement), 5 %, and a 15 % from productive users only. In all scenarios, the generation mix consists of only solar energy and the maximum allowable capacity shortage (MACS) is limited to 10 %. The findings reveal that, in all scenarios, the largest capacity expansion is performed on the battery and PV systems, covering up to 73 % and 35 % of the total expansion costs, respectively. The annual unmet load fraction of the expanded MG system ranges from 5.9 % in scenario-3 to 9.4 % in scenario-1, and the cost of electricity (LCOE) ranges from $0.404/kWh in scenario-3 to$0.887/kWh in scenario-1. The results indicate that the scenario-3 expansion path is comparatively cost-effective and has the highest reliability; but it still falls short of fully satisfying the required load demand and is not financially viable. Surprisingly, increasing the reliability of the scenario-3 capacity expansion from 94 % to 100 % raises the MG\u27s Net Present Cost by 37 %. The sensitivity analysis shows that the MACS, ambient temperature, and battery\u27s depth of discharge significantly affect the cost and performance of the capacity expansion. The study demonstrates (a) there are significant trade-offs between minimizing MG expansion costs and maximizing reliability levels; (b) capacity expansion based solely on cost-minimization without considering key constraints and uncertainties (demand, cost, PV, and battery degradations) may not provide a practical and robust solution to severe reliability issues, (c) capacity expansion that supports demand from productive users increases the cost-effectiveness and bankability of isolated MGs