Energy management for user’s thermal and power needs:A survey

The increasing world energy consumption, the diversity in energy sources, and the pressing environmental goals have made the energy supply–demand balance a major challenge. Additionally, as reducing energy costs is a crucial target in the short term, while sustainability is essential in the long term, the challenge is twofold and contains clashing goals. A more sustainable system and end-users’ behavior can be promoted by offering economic incentives to manage energy use, while saving on energy bills. In this paper, we survey the state-of-the-art in energy management systems for operation scheduling of distributed energy resources and satisfying end-user’s electrical and thermal demands. We address questions such as: how can the energy management problem be formulated? Which are the most common optimization methods and how to deal with forecast uncertainties? Quantitatively, what kind of improvements can be obtained? We provide a novel overview of concepts, models, techniques, and potential economic and emission savings to enhance energy management systems design

Loss or gain? The role of message framing in hotel guests’ recycling behaviour

One of the major challenges for the tourism sector is enacting sustainable behaviours. A key strategy for hoteliers is developing persuasive messages, with the goal of encouraging guests\u2019 voluntary participation in green programmes. Through the lens of prospect theory and construal level theory, the present study investigates to what extent a loss or gain-framed message influences recycling of hotel guests via a field and a laboratory experiment. The field experiment tests the moderating effect of message construal level (concrete or abstract) on the message frame that activate pro-environmental behaviour, while the laboratory study delves further into the mechanism by showing that perceived self-efficacy is the mechanism behind the activation of these behaviours. The findings from both studies suggest that hotel guests are more likely to engage in recycling behaviour when a concrete message is paired with a loss-framed message, because of a greater perceived self-efficacy. These results help to understand the theoretical psychological mechanisms and offer managerial implications for operators on how to engage guests to be active partners in sustainable tourism behaviours

Electric vehicles as distribution grid batteries:a reality check

Abstract The current transition towards electric mobility implies that a significant portion of electricity is drawn by and stored in the electric vehicle’s (EV) batteries. Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technologies can potentially give distribution system operators access to such energy to provide ancillary services, while remunerating the vehicle owners for their availability to participate. Although the benefits of stabilization and grid efficiency improvements are clear, is it appealing and lucrative for the vehicle owners to participate in such services? In this work, we answer this question by modelling the V2G system and performing economic projections of the possible benefits for EV owners. In particular, we present a novel way of parametrizing the electric vehicle driving profile and the V2G energy transfer to compute battery degradation costs. A profit model is developed to evaluate the profit earned by the vehicle owners offering their batteries. The profit is estimated on the basis of the owner’s inclination to buy and sell energy from the grid based on the electricity price. Using data of the German electricity market, we estimate a profit of 662 €/EV/Year for a vehicle with 100 kWh capacity, 95% battery round trip efficiency and driving 52 km per day. The remuneration is meaningful and can have the potential to encourage EV owners to participate in V2G service

Household CO₂-efficient energy management

Abstract Residential and commercial buildings are responsible for one third of the total (CO2) emissions in the European Union, which are the main cause of global warming. Although the thermal load has long been considered the primary reason of domestic energy consumptions, the increasing demand for electricity has a non-negligible environmental impact, given that about 40% of electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels. Moreover, the amount of CO2 emitted to produce one kWh can greatly vary in time, depending on the sources used to generate it. For instance, the German electricity emissions intensity factor varied in 2017 between 113 and 533 gCO2eq/kWh. This paper proposes a novel CO2-efficient energy management approach to schedule household appliances while minimizing carbon dioxide emissions, given the possibility to change energy carriers (i.e., natural gas and electricity) and to shift loads in time. Several common loads are considered, and their operation is scheduled according to the emission factor of the German power grid. The results show that switching energy carriers can successfully enable up to 40% emissions reductions while indicating that shifting loads in time has little impact

La narración de la biografía escolar como recurso formativo

Esta ponencia tiene la intención de comunicar algunos fundamentos que orientan nuestras prácticas docentes en Teoría Educativa, materia que se dicta para los estudiantes de los distintos profesorados de la Universidad Nacional del Sur. En particular, nos centramos en el análisis de una actividad de aprendizaje diseñada e implementada para promover la reflexión pedagógica. Quienes conformamos la cátedra, enfrentamos cada año el desafío de poner en contacto con un objeto social complejo el fenómeno educativo a un alumnado caracterizado por la diversidad y la heterogeneidad, desde sus disciplinas formativas de origen, edades y trayectorias escolares y socio culturales previas. Para buena parte de los estudiantes, es ésta la primera vez que se relacionan con ideas pedagógicas. Para ellos, se hace necesario abrir espacios académicos que, a partir de la contrastación de sus preconcepciones y mediante la reflexión crítica y la construcción creativa de saberes y experiencias, favorezcan el cambio conceptual. En ese contexto, la propuesta de actividades que se les presenta a los alumnos en uno de los primeros encuentros de trabajos prácticos incluye una breve redacción de su propia biografía escolar. Es claro advertir que esta actividad forma parte de un proyecto pedagógico más amplio, con el cual intentamos generar oportunidades de aprendizaje estimulantes y cuestionadoras para la formación de profesionales de la educación. ¿Por qué recurrimos a la narración de la biografía escolar en Teoría Educativa? En respuesta a este interrogante y como breve sustento conceptual, sostenemos que las personas se constituyen desde las experiencias cotidianas protagonizadas a lo largo de su trayecto vital. Entre éstas, el paso por la escuela emerge como uno de los sucesos de mayor continuidad y permanencia. Pero, las múltiples vivencias no son inocuas, sino que imprimen huellas sutiles, frecuentemente implícitas, que se manifiestan a modo de ideas, creencias, valoraciones sobre la realidad (social, educativa, entre otras dimensiones) en la que se insertan, condicionando la mirada. La propuesta de escribir su biografía escolar insta a los alumnos a actualizar viejos recuerdos, a traer al presente momentos significativos. Esta recuperación de imágenes acerca de la escuela, sus actores, sus prácticas habituales da lugar a desandar los caminos transitados y habilita la relectura de las marcas inscriptas en sus subjetividades desde los planteos teóricos abordados. Estamos convencidas del valor formativo de la problematización de sus biografías escolares, en cuanto favorece la puesta en tensión de concepciones de sentido común con un pensamiento crítico reflexivo.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació