THE ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF THE GEOTHERMAL POTENTIAL OF WEST AND NORTHWEST REGION OF ROMANIA

The energy crises of the 70s led to the vigorous interventions of the industrialized states in the energy sector. On the European political agenda a new problem appeared, namely the one regarding the security of the energy supply. Romania is the third geothermal power in Europe, after Italy and Greece. The energy potential produced by means of geothermal resources of the West and North - West regions is approximately of 144 MWt. The production of a MWt of electricity through conventional sources (in our case study we chose diesel) emits into the atmosphere about 21,673 tons of CO2. If itâ€(tm)s used the entire installed capacity in these areas Romania reduces pollution by approximately 6,935,552 TCO2.durability, externalities, renewable, geothermal, energy independence, pollution

Performance evaluation and optimal design of supermarket refrigeration systems with supermarket model "SuperSim", Part I: Model description and validation

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in International Journal of Refrigeration. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2010 Elsevier B.V.Conventional supermarket refrigeration systems are responsible for considerable CO2 emissions due to high energy consumption and large quantities of refrigerant leakage. In the effort to conserve energy and reduce environmental impacts, an efficient design tool for the analysis, evaluation and comparison of the performance of alternative system designs and controls is required. This paper provides a description of the modelling procedure employed in the supermarket simulation model ‘SuperSim’ for the simulation of the performance of centralised vapour compression refrigeration systems and their interaction with the building envelope and HVAC systems. The model which has been validated against data from a supermarket has been used for the comparison of R404A and CO2 refrigeration systems and the optimisation of the performance of transcritical CO2 systems. These results are presented in Part II of the paper.DEFR

Usage of NASA's Near Real-Time Solar and Meteorological Data for Monitoring Building Energy Systems Using RETScreen International's Performance Analysis Module

This paper describes building energy system production and usage monitoring using examples from the new RETScreen Performance Analysis Module, called RETScreen Plus. The module uses daily meteorological (i.e., temperature, humidity, wind and solar, etc.) over a period of time to derive a building system function that is used to monitor building performance. The new module can also be used to target building systems with enhanced technologies. If daily ambient meteorological and solar information are not available, these are obtained over the internet from NASA's near-term data products that provide global meteorological and solar information within 3-6 days of real-time. The accuracy of the NASA data are shown to be excellent for this purpose enabling RETScreen Plus to easily detect changes in the system function and efficiency. This is shown by several examples, one of which is a new building at the NASA Langley Research Center that uses solar panels to provide electrical energy for building energy and excess energy for other uses. The system shows steady performance within the uncertainties of the input data. The other example involves assessing the reduction in energy usage by an apartment building in Sweden before and after an energy efficiency upgrade. In this case, savings up to 16% are shown

A methodology and toolkit for the assessment and selection of LZC technologies in the building design process

The advent of environmentally driven building regulations, rising energy costs, and heightened client awareness of energy-related issues has increased the demand for the assessment of building integrated low-carbon (LZC) energy supply systems. However, it is seldom the case that any one software tool fulfils the needs for an appraisal of these types of systems. Therefore, there is a clear need for an effective methodology for the use of a range of software tools in LZC technology analysis. This paper describes a practitioner-driven project within which such a methodology and supporting software (termed a 'toolkit') has been developed. The application of this toolkit to a real design problem is described and the results from the analysis are discussed. The paper also addresses the means by which the results from the analysis can be presented to clients and other stakeholders in the design process

Small hydropower plants in Spain: a case study

A small hydropower plant in Spain is studied from an energetic and economic perspective. The viability of the facility is examined using the freeware software RETScreen. Calculated and standard operational data are compared, thereby demonstrating the feasibility of the project from all points of view. The study highlights the growing interest in renewable energies.research project BU019A08 supported by the Department of Culture and Education of the Regional Government of Castilla y León, Spai

Technical and economical prefeasibility study of a solar water heating (SWH) system in an apartment building in Cape Town

Solar power has significant potential to reduce reliance on conventional energy sources in South Africa. A prefeasibility study for a communal solar water heating system (SWHS) is performed for an apartment building in the Cape Town area. Energetic-economic modelling of the system is performed via the calculation of the solar fraction, and fundamental indicators of the financial analysis such as internal rate of return (IRR), net present value (NPV), and benefit-cost ratio. Results indicate that a SWHS with a solar fraction of 32% and a benefit-cost ratio of 3.05 is realizable. Additionally, sensitivity analysis of financial results with respect to incentive rebate amount and electricity escalation rate is performe