Comprehensive needs analysis for the development of construction safety education tools in immersive reality

Construction industry remains one of the most hazardous industries to work in, despite numerous efforts by researchers and practitioners to improve levels of Health & Safety (H&S) and reduce the number of accidents which occur on the construction sites. A potential method to reduce the number accidents is to educate construction workers in hazard identification and to raise their awareness of the risks they face at the construction site through the use of emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). This paper presents the first intellectual output of an Erasmus+ project titled Construction Safety with Education and Training using Immersive Reality (CSETIR), whose goal is to examine and apply such VR and AR tools to improve the levels of H&S. Through the literature review and discussions with relevant stakeholders, most appropriate training methods were identified for the development of safety educational tools in the following project phases. VR and AR technologies have the potential to train construction workers in H&S, especially those who have little experience in construction safety, workers with literacy limitations and workers that do not speak the local language. Visual training tools, especially immersive ones, also provide better retention of acquired knowledge and skills. An immersive reality safety education tool, therefore, has the potential to increase the levels of construction H&S and to reduce the number of accidents at construction sites

Analysis of emerging technologies in the hydropower sector

The paper reviews recent research and development activities in the field of hydropower technology. It covers emerging and advanced technologies to mitigate flow instabilities (active and passive approach) as well as emerging magneto-rheological control techniques. Recent research findings on flow instabilities are also presented, especially concerning fluid-structure interaction and transient operating conditions. As a great number of the existing large-scale hydroelectric facilities were constructed decades ago using technologies that are now considered obsolete, technologies to achieve the digitalisation of hydropower are also analysed. Advances in the electro-mechanical components and generator design are presented; their potential role to adapt hydropower to the current operating conditions is also highlighted. The text explores current efforts to advance hydropower operation, mainly in terms of European projects. It provides a detailed overview of the recent efforts to increase the operational range of hydraulic turbines in order to reach exceptional levels of flexibility, a topic of several recent research projects. Variable speed hydropower generation and its application in pumped storage power plants are presented in detail. Moreover, revolutionary concepts for hydroelectric energy storage are also presented with the analysis focusing on underwater hydro storage and hydropower's hybridisation with fast energy storage systems. Efforts to minimise hydropower's environmental footprint are also presented via the utilisation of small-scale and fish-friendly installations

Smart Hydropower Water Distribution Networks, Use of Artificial Intelligence Methods and Metaheuristic Algorithms to Generate Energy from Existing Water Supply Networks

In this paper, the possibility of installing small hydraulic turbines in existing water-supply networks, which exploit the daily pressure fluctuations in order to produce energy, is examined. For this purpose, a network of five pressure sensors is developed, which is connected to an artificial intelligence system in order to predict the daily pressure values of all nodes of the network. The sensors are placed at the critical nodes of the network. The locations of the critical nodes are implemented by applying graph theory algorithms to the water distribution network. EPANET software is used to generate the artificial intelligence training data with an appropriate external call from a Python script. Then, an improvement model is implemented using the Harmony Search Algorithm in order to calculate the daily pressure program, which can be allocated to the turbines and, consequently, the maximum energy production. The proposed methodology is applied to a benchmark water supply network and the results are presented

Sustainable energy modelling of non-interconnected Mediterranean islands

Several Mediterranean islands are not connected to the main electricity grid yet meaning that independent local grids cater for their power requirements, mainly using imported fossil fuels whose resources scarcity, especially during the high-demand summer months, is a significant challenge. Seasonal variability in power demand, fuel price volatility, as well as a growing tourism development, impose some additional complexity. The present study analyses specific island grids of the Aegean Sea. Selected islands are analysed as case studies over a 20-year period (2016e2036). The developed energy modeling exercise uses a Harmony Search Algorithm in its core. It investigates whether the deployment of renewable energy sources could lead to a sustainable system, decrease the current burden from the government budget, and support local resources. In doing so we examine whether an increased share of RES, battery storage, and their combination could reduce islands’ reliance on imports and potentially eliminate the current heavily subsidised status quo. The results show that a 30% increase of the consumption will require increases in installed power capacities by 40e70%, in the best case scenario. The latter involves significantly lower per-kWh cost, between 17% and 36% of the current values, due to the large share of RES.JRC.C.2-Energy Efficiency and Renewable

Developing a Harmony-based Optimization Toolbox: Application on renewable energy production.

The present study aims to develop a problem-independent, generic optimization toolkit applicable to engineering optimization problems. The authors designed a program in MATLAB environment, using a Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA) in its core. A Java-based Optimization Toolkit has also been developed, taking advantage of the inherent features of object-oriented Java. Both programs allow for optimization using the HSA, which is a recent development among metaheuristics, inspired from the music creation process. Since its presentation in 2001, HSA has attracted the interest of those involved in the optimization field and thus has been successfully applied in different implementations. HSA was initially designed to optimize urban water distribution networks. Since then its application has expanded to a remarkably wide range of scientific disciplines. Although the authors’ intention is to address water engineering, hydroelectric energy production and renewable energy related problems, the created tool is generic and can be applied to any scientific field. In section 2 the authors present the up-to-date related work i.e. recent approaches in developing tools to facilitate optimization processes. The architecture of both Toolkits is presented in detail along with the main characteristics of the programs in Section 3. In Section 4 a renewable energy production problem is optimized using HSA Toolkit. This problem deals with maximizing the benefits derived from electricity production of a mini-scale hydroelectric station in a rural area. The successful convergence to best management practices proves that in addition to being user-friendly, the created tool is also very effective.JRC.F.7-Renewables and Energy Efficienc

Modeling the transition to sustainable energy using harmony search: A water-energy nexus case in Greek islands.

The islands of the Aegean Sea in Greece represent a unique example for the water and energy interrelation. A great number of them are not interconnected to the main power grid and independent local grids produce power mainly using imported fossil fuels (e.g. heavy oil, diesel). Equally important, water resources' scarcity is an additional challenge, especially during the high-demand, summer months. Thus, in many arid islands potable water is transported from the mainland by means of sea transport, at a significant cost. This approach apart from the additional cost of fuel and water transport, also imposes signicant economic and environmental impact to these idyllic touristic locations. Seasonal variability in power demand and drinking water consumption, fuel price volatility as well as a growing touristic development, impose some additional complexity. The present study analyzes specic island grids of the Aegean Sea. Selected islands are analyzed as case studies over a 20-year period (2016-2036). The developed energy modeling exercise uses a Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA) in its core. The aim is to investigate whether deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) to existing energy production could lead to a cleaner, sustainable system, decrease the current burden to the government budget and support local resources. The aim is to examine whether increased share of RES, battery storage, desalination and their combination could reduce islands reliability on imports, reduce its cost and potentially eliminate the current non-sustainable and heavily subsidized status quo

Supporting Renewables’ Penetration in Remote Areas through the Transformation of Non-Powered Dams

Supplying power to remote areas may be a challenge, even for those communities already connected to the main grid. Power is often transmitted from long distances, under adverse weather conditions, and with aged equipment. As a rule, modernizing grid infrastructure in such areas to make it more resilient faces certain financial limitations. Local distribution may face stability issues and disruptions through the year and—equally important—it cannot absorb significant amounts of locally-produced power. The European policy has underlined the importance of energy production in local level towards meeting energy security and climate targets. However, the current status of these areas makes the utilization of the local potential prohibitive. This study builds on the observation that in the vicinity of such mountainous areas, irrigation dams often cover different non energy-related needs (e.g., irrigation, drinking water). Transforming these dams to small-scale hydropower (SHP) facilities can have a twofold effect: it can enhance the local energy portfolio with a renewable energy source that can be regulated and managed. Moreover, hydropower can provide additional flexibility to the local system and through reservoir operation to allow the connection of additional solar photovoltaic capacities. The developed methodological approach was tested in remote communities of mountainous Greece, where an earth-fill dam provides irrigation water. The results show a significant increase of renewables’ penetration and enhanced communities’ electricity autarky

A GIS-Based Comparative Groundwater Vulnerability Assessment Using Modified-DRASTIC, Modified-SINTACS and NV Index in a Porous Aquifer, Greece

Groundwater vulnerability assessment is of pivotal importance for the sustainable management of groundwater resources, particularly in regions with intense agricultural activity. This research primarily aims to assess and delineate groundwater vulnerability zones using a comparative approach of three different GIS-based modified models, namely Pesticide DRASTIC-LU, Nitrate SINTACS-LU and Nitrate NV index. For this reason, eight hydrogeological parameters were employed to analyze the spatial distribution of groundwater vulnerability in the Nea Moudania aquifer, Chalkidiki, Greece. This multi-model methodology was implemented to ascertain the most reliable method for the study area. Results indicated that the southern and southwestern parts of the study area exhibited the highest vulnerability potential, whilst the northern part displayed the lowest. Moreover, single-parameter sensitivity analysis has revealed that land use and topography were the most critical parameters of the vulnerability indexes, whereas hydraulic conductivity was the least influential. Finally, the three vulnerability models were validated with nitrate concentrations of groundwater samples. Results revealed that the Nitrate NV index was the most accurate method, trailed by the Pesticide DRASTIC-LU and the Nitrate SINTACS-LU