Power boosting for railway power systems with flywheel energy storage system

The concept of energy storage is emerging as a solution to energy management, energy savings and performance improvement for power systems. From different technologies available, Flywheel Energy Storage Systems (FESS) are gaining importance because of high energy density, large number of discharge cycles, long lifetime, future potential advances and reduced costs for few minutes discharge time. In this thesis to integrate FESS in the railway power systems as a solution to overcome line voltage drop and irregular peak power loads is motivated by an economic evaluation of the installation. Three different cases are studied in order to retrofit to current Swedish network with the aiming of: improving energy transmission by delivering power on time between two traction stations; absorbing regenerative braking energy and delivering it when a train is moving from a valley to uphill; and reducing the peak power requested in current traction stations.Outgoin

Analysis through smart meters of the effects of energy poverty in the consumption of households

Spain is Pioneer in implementing Smart meters in Europe, having spread them in almost all territory. Presumably, this allows to increase the knowledge in the energy consumption of households, providing information to contract the most suitable power and tariff and to adjust consumption habits. Consequently, Smart meters are said to be useful to mitigate energy poverty. As a result of this presumption, Barcelona’s pilot site in the H2020 EmpowerMed Project developed a tool for diagnosis and energy audits that, from data collected through Smart meters, provides recommendations and knowledge for future decisions. The study presents the common difficulties found to get access to remote data from commercial smart meters, focusing on the particularities that affect vulnerable collectives. Moreover, the study characterizes and compares the energy consumption of energy poverty affected and nonaffected households to contrast the stereotypes this collective is subjected to and to put in evidence that their consumption is lesser and that they generally contract a power and tariff more suitable to their reality than those of non-affected households.Peer ReviewedObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::5 - Igualtat de GènereObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::7 - Energia Assequible i No ContaminantPostprint (published version

Power boosting for railway power systems with flywheel energy storage system

The concept of energy storage is emerging as a solution to energy management, energy savings and performance improvement for power systems. From different technologies available, Flywheel Energy Storage Systems (FESS) are gaining importance because of high energy density, large number of discharge cycles, long lifetime, future potential advances and reduced costs for few minutes discharge time. In this thesis to integrate FESS in the railway power systems as a solution to overcome line voltage drop and irregular peak power loads is motivated by an economic evaluation of the installation. Three different cases are studied in order to retrofit to current Swedish network with the aiming of: improving energy transmission by delivering power on time between two traction stations; absorbing regenerative braking energy and delivering it when a train is moving from a valley to uphill; and reducing the peak power requested in current traction stations.Outgoin

Adaptive Volt-Var Control Algorithm to Grid Strength and PV Inverter Characteristics

The high-penetration of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) in low voltage distribution grids, mainly photovoltaics (PV), might lead to overvoltage in the point of common coupling, thus, limiting the entrance of renewable sources to fulfill the requirements from the network operator. Volt-var is a common control function for DER power converters that is used to enhance the stability and reliability of the voltage in the distribution system. In this study, a centralized algorithm provides local volt-var control parameters to each PV inverter, which are based on the electrical grid characteristics. Because accurate information of grid characteristics is typically not available, the parametrization of the electrical grid is done using a local power meter data and a voltage sensitivity matrix. The algorithm has different optimization modes that take into account the minimization of voltage deviation and line current. To validate the effectiveness of the algorithm and its deployment in a real infrastructure, the solution has been tested in an experimental setup with PV emulators under laboratory conditions. The volt-var control algorithm successfully adapted its parameters based on grid topology and PV inverter characteristics, achieving a voltage reduction of up to 25% of the allowed voltage deviation.Peer ReviewedObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::7 - Energia Assequible i No ContaminantObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::7 - Energia Assequible i No Contaminant::7.2 - Per a 2030, augmentar substancialment el percentatge d’energia renovable en el con­junt de fonts d’energiaObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::11 - Ciutats i Comunitats SosteniblesObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::11 - Ciutats i Comunitats Sostenibles::11.6 - Per a 2030, reduir l’impacte ambiental negatiu per capita de les ciutats, amb especial atenció a la qualitat de l’aire, així com a la gestió dels residus municipals i d’altre tipusPostprint (published version

ERS International Congress 2022: highlights from the Respiratory Intensive Care Assembly

Early Career Members of Assembly 2 (Respiratory Intensive Care) attended the 2022 European Respiratory Society (ERS) International Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The conference covered acute and chronic respiratory failure. Sessions of interest to our Assembly members and to those interested in respiratory critical care included the state-of-the-art session on respiratory critical care, the journal session (ERS/Lancet) on acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) phenotyping into precision medicine, and sessions on specificity of coronavirus disease 2019 ARDS and its post-critical care. A symposium on treatment of acute respiratory failure in patients with COPD and innovations in mechanical ventilation either in the intensive care unit or at home were also reported upon. These sessions are summarised in this article

Association of Country Income Level With the Characteristics and Outcomes of Critically Ill Patients Hospitalized With Acute Kidney Injury and COVID-19

Introduction: Acute kidney injury (AKI) has been identified as one of the most common and significant problems in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. However, studies examining the relationship between COVID-19 and AKI in low- and low-middle income countries (LLMIC) are lacking. Given that AKI is known to carry a higher mortality rate in these countries, it is important to understand differences in this population. Methods: This prospective, observational study examines the AKI incidence and characteristics of 32,210 patients with COVID-19 from 49 countries across all income levels who were admitted to an intensive care unit during their hospital stay. Results: Among patients with COVID-19 admitted to the intensive care unit, AKI incidence was highest in patients in LLMIC, followed by patients in upper-middle income countries (UMIC) and high-income countries (HIC) (53%, 38%, and 30%, respectively), whereas dialysis rates were lowest among patients with AKI from LLMIC and highest among those from HIC (27% vs. 45%). Patients with AKI in LLMIC had the largest proportion of community-acquired AKI (CA-AKI) and highest rate of in-hospital death (79% vs. 54% in HIC and 66% in UMIC). The association between AKI, being from LLMIC and in-hospital death persisted even after adjusting for disease severity. Conclusions: AKI is a particularly devastating complication of COVID-19 among patients from poorer nations where the gaps in accessibility and quality of healthcare delivery have a major impact on patient outcomes

Thrombotic and hemorrhagic complications of COVID-19 in adults hospitalized in high-income countries compared with those in adults hospitalized in low- and middle-income countries in an international registry

Background: COVID-19 has been associated with a broad range of thromboembolic, ischemic, and hemorrhagic complications (coagulopathy complications). Most studies have focused on patients with severe disease from high-income countries (HICs). Objectives: The main aims were to compare the frequency of coagulopathy complications in developing countries (low- and middle-income countries [LMICs]) with those in HICs, delineate the frequency across a range of treatment levels, and determine associations with in-hospital mortality. Methods: Adult patients enrolled in an observational, multinational registry, the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infections COVID-19 study, between January 1, 2020, and September 15, 2021, met inclusion criteria, including admission to a hospital for laboratory-confirmed, acute COVID-19 and data on complications and survival. The advanced-treatment cohort received care, such as admission to the intensive care unit, mechanical ventilation, or inotropes or vasopressors; the basic-treatment cohort did not receive any of these interventions. Results: The study population included 495,682 patients from 52 countries, with 63% from LMICs and 85% in the basic treatment cohort. The frequency of coagulopathy complications was higher in HICs (0.76%-3.4%) than in LMICs (0.09%-1.22%). Complications were more frequent in the advanced-treatment cohort than in the basic-treatment cohort. Coagulopathy complications were associated with increased in-hospital mortality (odds ratio, 1.58; 95% CI, 1.52-1.64). The increased mortality associated with these complications was higher in LMICs (58.5%) than in HICs (35.4%). After controlling for coagulopathy complications, treatment intensity, and multiple other factors, the mortality was higher among patients in LMICs than among patients in HICs (odds ratio, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.39-1.51). Conclusion: In a large, international registry of patients hospitalized for COVID-19, coagulopathy complications were more frequent in HICs than in LMICs (developing countries). Increased mortality associated with coagulopathy complications was of a greater magnitude among patients in LMICs. Additional research is needed regarding timely diagnosis of and intervention for coagulation derangements associated with COVID-19, particularly for limited-resource settings