Energy use in residential buildings: Impact of building automation control systems on energy performance and flexibility

This work shows the results of a research activity aimed at characterizing the energy habits of Italian residential users. In detail, by the energy simulation of a buildings sample, the opportunity to implement a demand/response program (DR) has been investigated. Italian residential utilities are poorly electrified and flexible loads are low. The presence of an automation system is an essential requirement for participating in a DR program and, in addition, it can allow important reductions in energy consumption. In this work the characteristics of three control systems have been defined, based on the services incidence on energy consumptions along with a sensitivity analysis on some energy drivers. Using the procedure established by the European Standard EN 15232, the achievable energy and economic savings have been evaluated. Finally, a financial analysis of the investments has been carried out, considering also the incentives provided by the Italian regulations. The payback time is generally not very long: depending on the control system features it varies from 7 to 10 years; moreover, the automation system installation within dwellings is a relatively simple activity, which is characterized by a limited execution times and by an initial expenditure ranging in 1000 € to 4000 €, related to the three sample systems

Simulation and BIM in building design, commissioning and operation: a comparison with the microelectronics industry

Analogy between the Microelectronics and Building industries is explored with the focus on design, commissioning and operation processes. Some issues found in the realisation of low energy buildings are highlighted and techniques gleaned from microelectronics proposed as possible solutions. Opportunities identified include: adoption of a more integrated process, use of standard cells, inclusion of controls and operational code in the design, generation of building commissioning tests from simulation, generation of building operational control code (including self-test) from simulation, inclusion of variation and uncertainties in the design process, use of quality processes such as indices to represent design robustness and formal continuous improvement methods. The possible integration of these techniques within a building information model (BIM) flow is discussed and some examples of enabling technologies given

Implementation - More than Monitoring and Enforcement: Evidence from the Implementation of the 1989 Municipal Waste Incineration Directive (89/429/EEC) in Four Member States

Researchers and policy-makers accept that implementation decisively influences the effectiveness of European (EU) environmental policy. Some Member States lead the development of EU policy and implement Directives with little problem. Others follow a variety of compliance (or non-compliance) paths. Implementation gaps and policy failures are prevalent. Policy outcomes often differ radically between even neighbouring Member States. What are the reasons for these differences? Why do Member States follow different compliance paths? Why do implementation gaps and policy failures occur? What factors can explain the different policy outcomes achieved? Is it only 'classical' implementation variables i.e. the monitoring and enforcement actions of public authorities that count? What lessons can we draw for the future? This paper addresses these questions through a comparative analysis of the implementation of the European Directive on the reduction of air pollution from existing municipal waste incineration plants (89/429/EEC) in Germany, the Netherlands, France and the United Kingdom: four neighbouring Member States that exhibit quite divergent compliance paths and policy outcomes. Monitoring and enforcement are found to have only limited explanatory power. In practice national contextual variables, such as: public and political environmental awareness; interactions both with environmental and non-environmental policies; regulatory anticipation and uncertainty; the degree of autonomy and scope of regulatory agencies; and, industrial and market structure of the regulated industry, must also be considered

First- and second-generation valorisation of wastes and residues occurring in the food supply chain

Despite the high potential to increase sustainability of food systems, wastes and by-products occurring in the food supply chain are currently only partially valorised at different value-added levels. First-generation valorisation strategies that aim at utilisation of complete material streams for production of animal feed, energy, compost and/or specific consumer applications are already widely implemented and experience further dissemination and/or development (e.g. biohydrogen/biohythane production) – either in the form of single processes or as part of cascade utilisations. Second-generation valorisation strategies comprise various forms of fractionised utilisation of material streams. They rely on integration of adapted recovery and conversion procedures for specific components in order to obtain sequentially different classes of products, e.g. fine chemicals, commodity products and biofuels. Such advanced strategies are particularly suitable for wastes and by-products occurring during industrial food processing. Valorisation of food by-products for functional food is an emerging trend

Development and optimization of zeolite synthesis route from natural koalin for adsorption of dyes

Synthesis of zeolite using kaolin as the main source of alumina and silica has been identified as a novel zeolite production process, which could reduce the cost of using the synthetic reagents and the high energy consumption. A low grade kaolin was used for studying the most suitable synthesis route and operating parameters for producing a high yield and pure phase zeolite. The study adopted the alkaline activation and microwave assisted heating as modification techniques of the conventional hydrothermal synthesis process. Calcination and crystallization proceses were identified as the bottleneck operations within the process. Hence, this study employed 2k factorial design of experiment to study the relationship of metakaolinization temperature of 600 – 800 oC with calcination time of 1 – 5 hours. And that of crystallization time of 9 – 16 hours with aging treatment time of 12 – 36 hours. Central Composite Design (CCD) is used for optimization with axial and center point for factors evaluation towards the responses; yield percent (%) and crystallinity (%) for crystallization process. Based on the Response Surface Methodology (RSM), with desirability value of 98.67 %, the significant parametric aging condition is 27 hours and crystallization time is 9 hours were suggested to yield an optimum product for 80.47 yield percent and 76.92 crystallinity. Three confirmation runs were performed based on the suggested optimum parameter and the calculated error value was found to be below 10 %. The synthesized zeolite-A from the confirmation runs was characterized through XRD. The results were then corroborated with the analytical results from SEM, BET and FTIR. The activity of the synthesized zeolite A was confirmed by a structural refinement analysis, that identified the product as a member of the cubic crystalline systems, belonging to a Fm3c space group with lattice cubic structure values where

Frequency Restoration Reserve Control Scheme with Participation of Industrial Loads

In order to accommodate larger amounts of renewable energy resources, whose power output is inherently unpredictable, there is an increasing need for frequency control power reserves. Loads are already used to provide replacement reserves, i.e. the slowest kind of reserves, in several power systems. This paper proposes a control scheme for frequency restoration reserves with participation of industrial loads. Frequency restoration reserves are required to change their active power within a time frame of tens of seconds to tens of minutes in response to a regulation signal. Industrial loads in many cases already have the capacity and capability to participate in this service. A mapping of their process constraints to power and energy demand is proposed in order to integrate industrial loads in existing control schemes. The proposed control scheme has been implemented in a 74-bus test system. Dynamic simulations show that industrial loads can be successfully integrated into the power system as frequency restoration reserves. © 2013 IEEE