Evaluación del potencial de implantación de redes de calefacción.

Uno de los factores clave para controlar el calentamiento global es mejorar la eficiencia energética en áreas residenciales, uno de los sectores de mayor consumo de energía. Los edificios son responsables de más del 40% de la demanda total de energía, principalmente cubierta por combustibles fósiles, con las emisiones asociadas de gases de efecto invernadero. Los sistemas de calefacción (DH) se consideran una forma prometedora de aumentar la eficiencia energética en la producción de energía térmica. Son muchos los proyectos de investigación que actualmente están trabajando en desarrollar nuevos sistemas de DH bajo los nuevos modelos de eficiencia y uso de energías renovables, y eliminar las barreras económicas, técnicas y legales para su desarrollo masivo. La aprobación en Europa de la Directiva de eficiencia energética (EDD-2012/27/EU) [1], establece un marco común sobre medidas para promover la eficiencia energética en la Unión Europea incluyendo la implementación de sistemas de cogeneración de DHC y de alta eficiencia, sin embargo, las tecnologías DH están en gran parte sin explotar. El objetivo principal de este trabajo es desarrollar metodologías específicas para la evaluación del potencial de implantación de redes de calefacción basadas en la sostenibilidad económica, ambiental y social de los sistemas. Las metodologías abarcan la implantación de redes de calor sobre un área determinada, tanto de cogeneración en grandes núcleos urbanos donde existe suministro de gas natural (CHP-DH), como de biomasa en entornos rurales donde no existen suministro de gas natural (BioDH). Las metodologías se desarrollan con un enfoque top-dow/bottom-up para analizar el área de estudio hasta el nivel de sistema y agregar los resultados de abajo a arriba. Las metodologías se han aplicado a la zona continental de España. Los resultados obtenidos permitirían un ahorro anual de entre 4,2 y 28,7 millones de toneladas de CO2 para los sistemas CHP-DH según distintos escenarios. La inversión necesaria para la implantación de estos sistemas oscilaría entre los 3.482 y 13.715 millones de euros. Los sistemas basados en redes de calefacción con biomasa han sido evaluados aplicándose a 499 municipios de la zona continental de España. La aplicación de la metodología propuesta identifica 31 municipios con un valor de IRR superior al 10%, Entre los 499 municipios analizados, solo tres casos tienen una rentabilidad negativa. Las emisiones totales que podrían evitarse con la implementación total de los sistemas BioDH son de 5,4 millones de toneladas por año, para lo que serían necesarios 4.253 millones de euros

Techno-Economic Analysis of Rural 4th Generation Biomass District Heating

Biomass heating networks provide renewable heat using low carbon energy sources. They can be powerful tools for economy decarbonization. Heating networks can increase heating efficiency in districts and small size municipalities, using more efficient thermal generation technologies, with higher efficiencies and with more efficient emissions abatement technologies. This paper analyzes the application of a biomass fourth generation district heating, 4GDH (4th Generation Biomass District Heating), in a rural municipality. The heating network is designed to supply 77 residential buildings and eight public buildings, to replace the current individual diesel boilers and electrical heating systems. The development of the new fourth district heating generation implies the challenge of combining using low or very low temperatures in the distribution network pipes and delivery temperatures in existing facilities buildings. In this work biomass district heating designs based on third and fourth generation district heating network criteria are evaluated in terms of design conditions, operating ranges, effect of variable temperature operation, energy efficiency and investment and operating costs. The Internal Rate of Return of the different options ranges from 6.55% for a design based on the third generation network to 7.46% for a design based on the fourth generation network, with a 25 years investment horizon. The results and analyses of this work show the interest and challenges for the next low temperature DH generation for the rural area under analysis

Weighting with Life Cycle Assessment and Cradle to Cradle: a methodology for global sustainability design

Sustainable product design uses methodologies focused on eco-effectiveness and eco-efficiency for the proposal of innovative technological solutions and for the control of environmental impacts during the product life cycle. One of the main drawbacks of such techniques is their qualitative nature, associated with a decision-making process that is sometimes arbitrary, or with unverifiable data; this means that several complementary tools are currently being used to reduce the error in the results obtained. This situation makes the unification of procedures necessary. In this context, this research develops a methodology for the sustainable design of industrial products that integrates life cycle assessment (in its environmental, economic and social application) and cradle-to-cradle techniques. For this purpose, a new assessment process is proposed, based on damage, developing LCA+C2C endpoint indicators. The methodology is subsequently verified in a case study of products for sustainable mobility (city trike electric). The results show that an integrated LCA+C2C assessment can help to propose more balanced sustainable strategies and would be a suitable method to measure tradeoffs between economic, social and environmental results, for practical purposes and future redesigns. The unified method provides a procedure to design a solution with a trade-off between eco-efficient and eco-effective criteria; it also simplifies the design phases, facilitates the interpretation of the results and provides a quantitative scope to the cradle-to-cradle framework

Life Cycle Assessment of Sustainable Road Networks: Current State and Future Directions

The construction sector is one of the leading global contributors to environmental footprint, with road infrastructures being a significant resource consumer. The traditional practice of using virgin raw materials and extracting natural aggregates has a significant impact, causing landscape alterations and disruptions to ecosystems. As result, the focus on achieving sustainable mobility through road networks is increasing. Companies operating in the civil sector must consider the environmental performance of roads to inform their decision making. Various assessment tools are available, with life cycle assessment being a commonly employed methodology in the industrial sector. However, its application to infrastructure projects has inherent challenges, primarily due to the complexity associated with inventory management. This complexity has resulted in a limited adoption of LCA within this sector. This research explores the suitability and compatibility of existing tools, methodologies, and databases, while establishing future requirements to adapt LCA and other types of environmental analysis to the life cycle of roads. To achieve this objective, a comprehensive analysis of the scientific and technical literature is conducted in this study. The findings highlight the need for more versatile impact analysis tools, including specialized databases tailored to the specifics of road infrastructure. Such enhancements would facilitate the application of procedures outlined in ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards

Biomass universal district heating systems

In mild climate regions Directive 27/2012 EU application for developing sustainable district heating networks in consolidated urban nucleus is a challenge. In Spain most of the municipalities above 5,000 inhabitants have a reliable natural gas network and individual heating systems at homes. In this work a new heating network paradigm is proposed, the biomass universal heating network in rural areas. This model involves all the economic, legal and technical aspects and interactions between the different agents of the systems: provider company, individual and collective end-users and local and regional administration. The continental region in Spain has 588 municipalities with a population above 1,500 inhabitants close to forest biomass with renewable use. In many of these cases the regulation identifies the ownership of the forest resources use. The universal heating networks are a great opportunity for energy saving of 2,000 GWh, avoiding 2.7 million tons of CO2 emissions and with a global annual savings for end users of 61.8 million of euros. The presented model is easily extrapolated to other small municipalities in Europe. The real application of the model is presented for three municipalities in different locations of Spain where Universal Heating Networks are under development

La holónica como marco paradigmático para el diseño de interfaces

Inicialmente proponemos los principios que constituyen los sistemas holónicos y cómo estos satisfacen la ley de variedad requerida propuesta por Ashby, para su proyección en la formalización de la ingeniería de la usabilidad, así como para el diseño y desarrollo de interfaces holónicas que satisfagan los principios de autonomía, autoasertividad y cooperación, desde la identificación de su dominio de colaboración y el establecimiento de la competencias que ha de integrar en sus dominios de cooperación.Initially we propose the principles that constitute the holonics system and how these satisfy the law of required variety proposed by Ashby, for its projection in the formalization of the usability engineering, as well as for the design and development of holonic interfaces that satisfy the principles of autonomy, autoasertivity and cooperation, from their identification of collaboration’s domain and the establishment of their competences that it has to integrate in their cooperation’s domain

Sustainable biomass pellets using trunk wood from olive groves at the end of their life cycle

Forest biomass is the raw material most commonly used to produce quality pellets for domestic households. However, sustainable forest biomass is not available in all regions, but there are other potential raw material sources for biomass heating systems, based on pellets. There are a large number of olive trees in the Mediterranean area, but these are not used as renewable pellet fuel because the bark cannot be used as raw material to produce quality pellets. The aim of this study is to carry out a methodology to estimate the optimal sustainable bioenergy life cycle, and the amount of sustainable residue available (trunk wood) at the end of the life of the olive grove, by optimizing the benefits, through an analysis of costs and income of the whole life process. The methodology determines the potential value of the trunks of olive trees to be used as biomass, in the form of pellets in domestic contexts and in a specific geographical area. In a case study applied to Andalusia, it has been shown that the optimal renewable life-cycle is 97 years. If policies for agricultural and energy sustainability favouring this model were adopted, this region would produce 160,000 tonnes of pellets per year, and 266,500 tonnes per year, if extended to the whole of Spain. This has a potential for providing 70.17% of the current total pellet consumption. The extension of the model to other Mediterranean countries, such as Greece and Italy, would result in an additional 124,000 and 144,000 tonnes of pellets per year, respectivily

Diseño y desarrollo de interfaz multifuncional holónica para audioguía de ciudades

El desarrollo de una audioguía para ciudades es una ampliación del servicio desarrollado previamente con éxito para la visita guiada de museos y otros recintos cerrados. Mediante esta tecnología, el usuario puede visitar la ciudad a su ritmo y eligiendo su propio itinerario. La empresa sevillana Audiostroll, que había presentado en 2007 su primer prototipo de audioguía para ciudades con un software y hardware específicos, recurrió al grupo de Investigación de Ingeniería Holónicade la Escuela Universitaria Politécnica de Sevilla para desarrollar y diseñar una nueva interfaz multifuncional con mejores prestaciones. El proyecto de rediseño que se detalla en este artículo se ha abordado mediante técnicas de diseño y desarrollo holónico de interfaces, considerando para ello la audioguía una entidad holónica, es decir, un conjunto de las partes que lo integran y de las interacciones cooperativas entre ellas. Tras estudiar el producto bajo lo macroscópico y microscópico se ha realizado un rediseño estético-formal del producto y se ha mejorado su ergonomía cognitiva.The development of an audioguide for cities is an extension of the service previously developed with great success for guided visits to museums and other cultural attractions. Through the use of this technology, users are able to visit the city at their own pace and selecting their own itinerary. The Seville based company Audio-Stroll, which in 2007 presented its first prototype audioguide for cities with specific software and hardware, engaged the expertise of the Holonic Engineering Research group of the Technical University of Seville to develop and design a new, higher specification, multifunctional interface. The redesign project which is described in this article has been approached using holonic interface design and development techniques, for which reason the audioguide can be considered to be a holonic entity, that is, a whole composed of component parts and the co-operative interactions between them. After prior study of the product at a microscopic and macroscopic level, a formal-esthetic redesign of the product was carried out resulting in improvements in its cognitive ergonomic

Biomass District Heating Systems Based on Agriculture Residues

This paper presents a methodology for analyzing the regional potential for developing biomass district heating systems combining forestry biomass and agriculture residues as fuel. As a case study, this methodology is applied to the continental region of Spain. With this analysis the potential for the implementation of biomass district heating systems based on the use of agriculture residues is applied to 501 rural municipalities in Spain. The renewable forestry biomass and agriculture residues resources availability is analyzed and the biomass required for heating is assessed. The results of applying the methodology show the interest of the combination of biomass sources in a relevant number of municipalities with estimated Internal Rate of Return (IRR) values above 10% and for the analyzed region an IRR mean value of 4.3%

Modelo holónico de la ingeniería del producto

En el presente trabajo se formula un modelo holónico de la Ingeniería del Producto,soportado por las siguientes entidades holónicas: Estrategia de Producto, Producto, Proceso, Entorno de Diseño y Desarrollo. Dicho modelo se fundamenta desde los principios holónicos propuestos por Koestler y la teoría de la variedad de Ashby. Esta formulación permite dar soporte a: los requerimientos de empresa y producto extendido y virtual, así como al diseño colaborativo y distribuido inteligente.The present work we formulated a holonic model of the Product Engineering, it is supported by the following holonics entities: Product Strategy, Product, Process, Design and Development Context. This model has a foundation from holonics principles proposed by Koestler and the Ashby theory of varieties. This formulation permits giving support to: Company's requests and extended and virtual product, furthermore the collaborative and distributed intelligent