Interdependent energy relationships between buildings at the street scale

Oppgaven tar for seg en analyse av etterforsyning av flytende oksygen(LOX) til C-130J i internasjonale operasjoner og er gjennomført som en case-studie av NORTAD2. Hensikten med undersøkelsen er å anbefale det etterforsyningskonseptet som vil sikre tilgang på LOX til NORTAD3 og som i fremtiden vil kunne benyttes i liknende operasjonsområder. Studien drøfter tre konseptuelt ulike løsninger for etterforsyning: obtain in the battlefield, ship to the forces og carry with the troops, avgrenset til responssyklusen fra siste leverandør til sluttbruker. Først gjøres det en analyse av dagens løsning obtain in the battlefield med lokal leveranse fra leverandøren Air Liquid. Analysen er gjennomført med utgangspunkt i teori fra fagområdet logistikk. I teorien identifiseres det tre hovedutfordringer: usikkerhet knyttet til kvalitet, ledetid og sikkerhet, spesialtilpasning av responssyklusen for et heterogent produkt og organisering av kjeden. Drøftingen tar utgangspunkt i de identifiserte problemene og søker å finne løsninger som kan redusere disse. Den første løsningen som drøftes er ship to the forces ved etterforsyning fra Las Palmas eller nærmeste tilgjengelige flyplass med godkjent LOX. Løsningen vil redusere usikkerhet knyttet til de nevnte faktorene, men imidlertid forlenge ledetiden til to dager. Samtidig reduseres behovet for LOX-spesifikt materiell og personell, og således reduserer ressursbruken. I tillegg vil arbeidet i forkant av bidraget minskes, men tvert imot øke det administrative arbeidet underveis. Løsningen vil by på en prioritering av operativ tilgjengelighet på flymaskinen og redusert usikkerhet. Løsningen anbefales ikke som det primære etterforsyningskonseptet da operativ tilgjengelighet vil være en prioritet. Videre drøftes en rotasjonsordning som et carry with the troops-konsept. Løsningen vil kunne redusere ledetiden ved rotasjon i Mali, men redusere Forsvarets totale fleksibilitet med tanke på transportflykapasitet. Her vil også behov for LOX-spesifikt materiell og personell reduseres. På den andre siden identifiseres det at løsningen vil skape god fleksibilitet for bidraget i forbindelse med LOG-flights og kan således styrke bidraget. Det antas at løsningens totale ressursbruk vil overstige dagens, men det anbefales å gjøre en grundig kost-nytte analyse av denne løsningen. Avslutningsvis drøftes forbedringer ved nåværende løsning. Her foreslås det å sikre operativ tilgjengelighet på lagertanken med en vedlikeholdsplan og utdanning på denne. Samtidig anbefales det investering i egen transportkapasitet for frakt av LOX for å redusere usikkerheten knyttet til leveransen og sikkerhet. Sist bør forståelsen for LOX økes i hele organisasjonen gjennom utdanning slik at å sikre etterforsyning prioriteres. Oppgavens konklusjon og anbefaling er å videreføre dagens løsning med noen utbedringer. Løsning ship to the forces anbefales som plan B. Samtidig bør det gjennomføres en kost-nytte analyse av carry with the troops

Creating sustainable cities one building at a time: towards an integrated urban design framework

One of the tenets of urban sustainability is that more compact urban forms that are more densely occupied are more efficient in their overall use of space and of energy. In many designs this has been translates into high-rise buildings with a focus on energy management at their outer envelopes. However, pursuing this building focused approach alone means that buildings are treated as stand-alone entities with minimal consideration to their impact on the surrounding urban landscape and vice versa. Where urban density is high, individual buildings interact with each other, reducing access to sunshine and daylight, obstructing airflow and raising outdoor air temperature. If/when each building pursues its own sustainability agenda without regard to its urban context, the result will diminish the natural energy resources available to nearby buildings and worsen the outdoor environment generally. This paper examines some of these urban impacts using examples from the City of London where rapid transformation is taking place as very tall buildings with exceptional energy credentials are being inserted into a low-rise city without a plan for the overall impact of urban form. The focus of the paper is on access to sunshine and wind and the wider implications of sustainable strategies that that focuses on individual buildings to the exclusion of the surrounding urban landscape. The work highlights the need for a framework that accounts for the synergistic outcomes that result from the mutual interactions of buildings in urban spaces

Mapping Europe into local climate zones

Cities are major drivers of environmental change at all scales and are especially at risk from the ensuing effects, which include poor air quality, flooding and heat waves. Typically, these issues are studied on a city-by-city basis owing to the spatial complexity of built landscapes, local topography and emission patterns. However, to ensure knowledge sharing and to integrate local-scale processes with regional and global scale modelling initiatives, there is a pressing need for a world-wide database on cities that is suited for environmental studies. In this paper we present a European database that has a particular focus on characterising urbanised landscapes. It has been derived using tools and techniques developed as part of the World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (WUDAPT) project, which has the goal of acquiring and disseminating climate-relevant information on cities worldwide. The European map is the first major step toward creating a global database on cities that can be integrated with existing topographic and natural land-cover databases to support modelling initiatives

The Application of Boundary Layer Climatology and Urban Wind Power Potential in Smarter Electricity Networks

Smart electricity networks that address energy demand, efficiency and sustainability concerns are predicated on the ability to capture renewable energy in a controllable manner. Such networks will have a particular role in cities, where increasing demand is inevitable but this requires that primary (renewable) energy resources, including that of wind, is better understood. In this paper, the role of wind energy systems, as integral components of a smarter urban electricity network, is considered using a model of the urban wind resourcein Dublin, Ireland that is based on boundary layer theory and meteorological observations. This model is used in conjunction with an electricity network model to investigate the implications of wind energy contributions for the delivery of electricity. The available wind resource in a city is estimated from wind observations at a conventional meteorological station located at Dublin Airport, outside the city. These observations are used to estimate the parameters of the logarithmic wind profile and establish a wind value at a height well above the roughness effects of the urban surface. This value is then employed to estimate wind speed within the inertial sub-layer of the urban boundary layer (UBL). The model is tested at two sites in Dublin: a suburban site with relatively low buildings and mature vegetation and a city centre site with taller buildings and little vegetation. At each site wind-speed and direction is recorded at a level that is approximately 1.5 times the average height of surrounding buildings using a three-dimensional sonic anemometer. The results indicate that in urban environments, there is a viable wind resource at heights 1.5-2 times the average building height and that estimates based on an understanding of the urban surface roughness can produce good estimates. This suggests that mapping the aerodynamic roughness of the city can provide insight into the potential wind resource across the urban area and the positioning of wind turbines to create a distributed generation (DG) system. Integrating a DG system into an electricity distribution network is not straightforward as it must account for bidirection power flow and variability in voltage. Bidirectional power flow and in particular reverse power flow from the DG has the effect of causing the network voltage to rise. To investigate the implications of such a system for consumers connected to a DG system, a typical mean year of the urban wind resource is used to model power flow for a section Dublin suburban electricity network. The results suggest significant amounts of electricity derived from wind energy can be accommodated. From a smart network perspective, this type of holistic analysis is required if wind energy is to contribute significantly to meeting energy demand

Do public policies affect county growth?

Economic development

Good neighbours

The energy impact of tall buildings on neighbourhoods should be taken into account when evaluating their carbon emissions, say Julie Futcher, Gerald Mills and Ivan Korolij

The Energy Budget of the Urban Surface: Two Locations in Dublin

In the first decade of the 21st Century a significant milestone was reached when the urban proportion of the world’s population of 6.6 billion passed 50%. This proportion will increase rapidly in the decades to come as parts of Asia and Africa become progressively less rural and more urban. Although urban areas occupy less than 3% of the planetary landmass, they are the foci of humans and economic activity. The climates that they generate are distinctive and represent unambiguous evidence of the anthropogenic climatic effect. This urban climate effect is a consequence of two related properties, land cover (form) and land use (function). Urbanisation replaces ‘natural’ surfaces with manufactured materials that are usually impervious and have distinctive thermal and radiative properties. In addition, the urban surface is both geometrically complex and highly diverse. These properties of form result in the formation of myriad microclimates caused by a number of climate drivers, including access to the sun and shelter from wind. Urban function refers to the human activities that generate waste heat, moisture and materials as a result of transportation, industrial production, energy consumption, and so on. These functions tend to have distinctive spatial and temporal emission patterns. Together, urban form and urban function generate urban climates at a hierarchy of scales

The Energy Budget of the Urban Surface: Two Locations in Dublin

In the first decade of the 21st Century a significant milestone was reached when the urban proportion of the world’s population of 6.6 billion passed 50%. This proportion will increase rapidly in the decades to come as parts of Asia and Africa become progressively less rural and more urban. Although urban areas occupy less than 3% of the planetary landmass, they are the foci of humans and economic activity. The climates that they generate are distinctive and represent unambiguous evidence of the anthropogenic climatic effect. This urban climate effect is a consequence of two related properties, land cover (form) and land use (function). Urbanisation replaces ‘natural’ surfaces with manufactured materials that are usually impervious and have distinctive thermal and radiative properties. In addition, the urban surface is both geometrically complex and highly diverse. These properties of form result in the formation of myriad microclimates caused by a number of climate drivers, including access to the sun and shelter from wind. Urban function refers to the human activities that generate waste heat, moisture and materials as a result of transportation, industrial production, energy consumption, and so on. These functions tend to have distinctive spatial and temporal emission patterns. Together, urban form and urban function generate urban climates at a hierarchy of scales