Success in Sectoral Export Promotion and Economic and Environmental Indicators : A Multisectoral Modelling Analysis

UK policymakers are seeking to use the levers of a more active industrial policy to develop economic opportunities, including through new and expanded trading opportunities. At the same time, the UK Government has committed to a net zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2050. While increases in exports are expected to raise economic activity, it is unclear what impact this will have on UK energy use and emissions. With a main plank of the UK strategy the development of "Sector Deals", it is unknown whether this is also true for specific industrial sectors. We examine this empirically in a multisectoral Computable General Equilibrium model of the UK that captures the interdependence between economic activity, energy use and emissions. Our results suggest that while economic outcomes move in the desired direction there are mixed impacts on energy use, UK territorial industrial emissions, and the energy- and emissions-intensity of the UK economy. Notably, we identify instances where growing exports in specific sectors helps to meet the objectives of both the Clean Growth Strategy and Industrial Strategy

Analysis of electrical drive speed control limitations of a power take-off system for wave energy converters

The active control of wave energy converters with oil-hydraulic power take-off systems presents important demands on the electrical drives attached to their pumps, in particular on the required drive accelerations and rotational speeds. This work analyzes these demands on the drives and designs reliable control approaches for such drives by simulating a wave-to-wire model in a hardware in-the-loop simulation test rig. The model is based on a point absorber wave energy converter, being the wave, hydrodynamic and oil-hydraulic part simulated in a computer that sends and receives signals from the real embedded components, such as the drive generator, controller and back-to-back converter. Three different control strategies are developed and tested in this test rig and the results revealed that despite the drive limitations to acceleration levels, well above 1 × 104 rpm/s, these do not significantly affect the power take-off efficiency, because the required acceleration peaks rarely achieve these values. Moreover this drive is much more economical than an oil-hydraulic and equivalent one that is able to operate at those peaks of acceleration.This work was performed within the Strategic Research Plan of the Center for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering, which is financed by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia-FCT) and the project "Generic hydraulic power take-off system for wave energy converters" funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under contract PTDC/EMS-SIS-1145/2014. The testing has received support from MARINET, a European Community - Research Infrastructure Action under the FP7 "Capacities" Specific Programme, grant agreement nr. 262552. The research leading to these results is also part of the OceaNET project, which has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement nr. 607656