What Is Our Point of View on “Energy Independence and Research for Economic and Environmental Sustainability”?

The scope of this contribution is to stimulate critical debate on what are the implication of “energy independence” and “energy research” on the sustainable development of society. We point out how energy independence is strongly related to the penetration of renewable energy sources; and how the country's energy independence is not expected to be achieved in a short-medium period. Moreover, the trends of low found to the research on energy topics are not consistent with the pursuit of sustainable development of society. With these observations, we want to contribute to the debate on what policies that will have an impact on the sustainable development of society, suggesting to focus on the point of view of those actors that will play the main role in the next future

Improved angular discretization and error analysis of the lattice boltzmann method for solving radiative heat transfer in a participating medium

In this paper, some improvements to the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for solving radiative heat transfer in a participating medium are presented and validated. Validation of the model is performed by investigating the effects of spatial and angular discretizations and extinction coefficient on the solution. The error analysis and the order of convergence of the scheme are also reporte

Multiscale analysis of tunnel ventilation flows and fires

Presentazione a 11èmes journées du GDR Incendie, CSTB - Champs sur Marne, Paris (Fr), 17th -18th June 201

Supporting decarbonization strategies of local energy systems by de-risking investments in renewables: a case study on Pantelleria island

Nowadays, energy policymakers are asked to develop strategies to ensure an affordable clean energy supply while minimizing investment risks. Also, the rise of several community engagement schemes, and the uptake of user-scale technologies introduce uncertainties that may result in a disruptive factor for energy systems evolution. Energy planning and data-driven decision tools are required to support policymakers in delivering reliable long-term energy roadmaps that address future uncertainties. This paper introduces a novel scenario analysis approach for local energy planning that supports policymakers and investors in prioritizing new renewable power plant investments, addressing the risks deriving from citizens’ choices. Specifically, we perform a combined analysis on the adoption trends of distributed photovoltaic systems and electric vehicles, that are expected to heavily influence the evolution of energy systems. To this end, we develop an energy model for Pantelleria island and investigate its transition from an oil-based energy supply to a renewable one up to 2050. We explore different optimal energy systems introducing photovoltaic, onshore wind, floating offshore wind, wave energy, biomass power plants, and electrochemical storage in the island energy mix. The analyzed scenarios disclose the recommended investments in each renewable technology, considering their learning curves and the unpredictability of user-scale technology adoption. We find that the diffusion of distributed photovoltaic systems plays a major role for the achievement of high decarbonization targets and cost-effective energy supply. Consolidated renewable technologies are always cornerstones in future energy mix, while the needed capacity from novel technologies largely varies between scenarios. Also, a high diffusion of electric vehicles requires very large installed renewable energy capacity and leads to an increase of overall costs. Consequently, we stress the need for prioritizing the realization of renewable power plants, starting with the most resilient to future uncertainties, as well as promoting specific incentive measures for citizens’ commitment at a local scale

Forensic investigation techniques contribution in the occupational safety & health risk assessment and management

Occupational Safety and Health –OS&H- Risks Assessment and Management is a particularly demanding task: the European Directives - and the derived Italian laws and regulations - stress the importance of a pro-active approach, the one able to reach effective results. To simply focus on localized situations, and carry out a bird’s-eye survey cannot ensure a systematic evaluation of the operating contexts in complex settlements such as the Large Public Facilities, where the most serious criticalities are not of direct identification. The paper –developed within The General Safety Issues and Goals in Turin Universities research program, funded by Politecnico di Torino, discusses a special sub-part of the well-tested Guideline set up, for Large Public Facilities, in cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and Università degli Studi di Torino, aimed to grant a sufficient detail in the aforesaid situations. The approach is based on an original development for OS&H Risk Assessment and Management of some Forensic Investigations techniques for a thorough Hazard Identification on shell, services and interior spaces of settlements containing workplaces, and on their not-operative content. The analysis of some case histories confirms the effectiveness of the approach in terms of completeness and repeatability, and makes possible to draw suggestions on the selection of the better investigation technique in different scenarios

Modelling and techno-economic analysis of Peer-to-Peer electricity trading systems in the context of Energy Communities

The increasing penetration of Renewable Energy Resources (RES) is an opportunity to empower citizens to actively participate in energy markets through energy communities. At the local level, the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) trade and exchange of renewable energy represents a valid solution to fulfil the energy demand of the members, increase self-consumption and obtain economic benefits. However, a proper evaluation of the benefits for the community would require new considerations in designing typologies, composition, sharing and pricing mechanisms. Based on these premises, this paper explores the possible influences of different community-based P2P trading systems by examining several categories, ranging from aggregation structures, market mechanisms, sharing policies and pricing mechanisms internal to the local market. Furthermore, a flexible Mixed Integer Linear Programming model was formulated to optimise the day-ahead scheduling of community members participating in the P2P energy market. In this way, different community types, sharing policies, and pricing mechanisms were tested. Finally, the optimisation results were evaluated based on several key parameters

Load Profiles Clustering and Knowledge Extraction to Assess Actual Usage of Telecommunication Sites

Deep awareness of a particular industry sector represents a fundamental starting point for its energy efficiency enhancement. In this perspective, a huge amount of industrial facilities' energy measurements are collected thanks to the widespread usage of monitoring systems and Internet-of-Things infrastructures. In this context, data mining techniques allows an effective exploitation of data for knowledge extraction to automatically analyse such enormous amount of data. This paper investigates a large data set including real telecommunication sites' aggregate electrical demand provided by the largest telecommunication service provider in Italy. The goal is the assessment of the actual usage category of telecommunication sites, aiming at supporting the facility management of the company and the energy knowledge discovery of each site category. A novel methodology is proposed that includes i) a proper normalisation method focused on energy Key Performance Indicators for telecommunication network energy management, ii) a time series decomposition tool to extract trends and periodical fluctuation of telecommunication sites' aggregated electric demand, and iii) the application of a k-Means clustering algorithm to assess sites' actual usage. The proposed methodology results in accurate outcomes, which witness the potential for practical application and discloses opportunities for further developments

Constructal thermodynamics combined with infrared experiments to evaluate temperature differences in cells

The aim of this work was to evaluate differences in energy flows between normal and immortalized cells when these distinct biological systems are exposed to environmental stimulation. These differences were considered using a constructal thermodynamic approach, and were subsequently verified experimentally. The application of constructal law to cell analysis led to the conclusion that temperature differences between cells with distinct behaviour can be amplified by interaction between cells and external fields. Experimental validation of the principle was carried out on two cellular models exposed to electromagnetic fields. By infrared thermography we were able to assess small changes in heat dissipation measured as a variation in cell internal energy. The experimental data thus obtained are in agreement with the theoretical calculation, because they show a different thermal dispersion pattern when normal and immortalized cells are exposed to electromagnetic fields. By using two methods that support and validate each other, we have demonstrated that the cell/environment interaction can be exploited to enhance cell behavior differences, in particular heat dissipation. We propose infrared thermography as a technique effective in discriminating distinct patterns of thermal dispersion and therefore able to distinguish a normal phenotype from a transformed one