scholarly journals Smart Solutions for Sustainable Cities—The Re-Coding Experience for Harnessing the Potential of Urban Rooftops

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (20) ◽  
pp. 7112
Author(s):  
Valeria Todeschi ◽  
Guglielmina Mutani ◽  
Lucia Baima ◽  
Marianna Nigra ◽  
Matteo Robiglio

Urban rooftops are a potential source of water, energy, and food that contribute to make cities more resilient and sustainable. The use of smart technologies such as solar panels or cool roofs helps to reach energy and climate targets. This work presents a flexible methodology based on the use of geographical information systems that allow evaluating the potential use of roofs in a densely built-up context, estimating the roof areas that can be renovated or used to produce renewable energy. The methodology was applied to the case study of the city of Turin in Italy, a 3D roof model was designed, some scenarios were investigated, and priorities of interventions were established, taking into account the conditions of the urban landscape. The applicability of smart solutions was conducted as a support to the review of the Building Annex Energy Code of Turin, within the project ‘Re-Coding’, which aimed to update the current building code of the city. In addition, environmental, economic, and social impacts were assessed to identify the more effective energy efficiency measures. In the Turin context, using an insulated green roof, there was energy saving in consumption for heating up to 88 kWh/m2/year and for cooling of 10 kWh/m2/year, with a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 193 tCO2eq/MWh/year and 14 tCO2eq/MWh/year, respectively. This approach could be a significant support in the identification and promotion of energy efficiency solutions to exploit also renewable energy resources with low greenhouse gas emissions.

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-44
Author(s):  
Eva Jankovichová

Electrical energy and demand is constantly increasing disproportionately. Therefore, taken at Community level long-term programs such as the Europe 2020 strategy, which is primarily focused on the energy sector. Its priorities include reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy efficiency through the development and introduction of innovative technologies and increasing the share of renewable energy sources (RES) at Community level. The issue of implementation of energy from renewable sources in addition to the existing EU environmental strategies key area where attention is focused policy. Therefore, we can expect a significant inflow of funds into the development of these strategic concepts. Improving the energy efficiency is one of the key strategic approaches, contributing to the achievement of greenhouse gas emissions in Community.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 2319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eunil Park ◽  
Sang Jib Kwon ◽  
Angel P. del Pobil

In some countries, renewable energy resources have become one of the mainstreams of energy savings and sustainable development. Thailand is one of the major countries to use renewable energy generation facilities in public buildings. In particular, public educational institutes consume large amounts of electricity from the grid. To reduce the electricity dependency on the national grid connection and greenhouse gas emissions, this paper introduces potential optimized solutions of renewable energy generation systems for a public university in Thailand, Chiang Mai University. Based on the simulation results from HOMER software, the potential configuration organized by PV panels, batteries and converters is proposed. The suggested configuration achieves 100% of the renewable fraction with $0.728 of the cost of energy for per electricity. Moreover, the greenhouse gas emissions are significantly reduced. Both the implications and limitations are presented based on simulation results.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Staiger ◽  
Adrian Tanţău

Abstract Heating application efficiency is a crucial point for saving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Today, EU legal framework conditions clearly define how heating systems should perform, how buildings should be designed in an energy efficient manner and how renewable energy sources should be used. Using heat pumps (HP) as an alternative “Renewable Energy System” could be one solution for increasing efficiency, using less energy, reducing the energy dependency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This scientific article will take a closer look at the different efficiency dependencies of such geothermal HP (GHP) systems for domestic buildings (small/medium HP). Manufacturers of HP appliances must document the efficiency, so called COP (Coefficient of Performance) in the EU under certain standards. In technical datasheets of HP appliances, these COP parameters give a clear indication of the performance quality of a HP device. HP efficiency (COP) and the efficiency of a working HP system can vary significantly. For this reason, an annual efficiency statistic named “Seasonal Performance Factor” (SPF) has been defined to get an overall efficiency for comparing HP Systems. With this indicator, conclusions can be made from an installation, economy, environmental, performance and a risk point of view. A technical and economic HP model shows the dependence of energy efficiency problems in HP systems. To reduce the complexity of the HP model, only the important factors for efficiency dependencies are used. Dynamic and static situations with HP´s and their efficiency are considered. With the latest data from field tests of HP Systems and the practical experience over the last 10 years, this information will be compared with one of the latest simulation programs with the help of two practical geothermal HP system calculations. With the result of the gathered empirical data, it allows for a better estimate of the HP system efficiency, their economic costs and benefits and their environmental impact.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1543
Author(s):  
Dirk Deschrijver

In October 2014, EU leaders agreed upon three key targets for the year 2030: a reduction of at least 40% in greenhouse gas emissions, a saving of at least a 27% share for renewable energy, and at least a 27% improvement in energy efficiency [...]


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hee-Hoon Kim ◽  
Seul-Ye Lim ◽  
Seung-Hoon Yoo

Heat accounts for about one-third of the final energy use and it is mostly produced using fossil fuels in South Korea. Thus, heat production is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. However, using renewable heat that is directly produced from renewable energy, such as bioenergy, geothermal, or solar heat can save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, rather than transforming conventional fuel into heat. Therefore, an energy policy for renewable heat urgently needs to be established. It is such situations that this paper attempts to assess the consumers’ additional willingness to pay (WTP) or the price premium for renewable heat over heat that is produced from fossil fuels for residential heating. To that end, a nationwide contingent valuation survey of 1000 households was conducted during August 2018. Employing the model allowing for zero WTP values, the mean of the additional WTP or premium for one Gcal of heat produced using renewable energy rather than fossil fuels was estimated to be KRW 3636 (USD 3.2), which is statistically meaningful at the 1% level. This value represents the price premium for renewable heat over heat that is based on fossil fuels. Given that the heat price for residential heating was approximately KRW 73,000 (USD 65.1) per Gcal at the time of the survey, the additional WTP or the price premium corresponds to about 5% of that. When considering that the cost of producing renewable heat is still significantly higher than the cost of producing fossil fuels-based heat, more efforts to lower the production costs of renewable heat as well as financial support of the government for producing and supplying renewable heat are needed to ensure residential consumers’ acceptance of renewable heat.


2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (No. 10) ◽  
pp. 447-457
Author(s):  
Nicoleta Mihaela Florea ◽  
Roxana Maria Badircea ◽  
Ramona Costina Pirvu ◽  
Alina Georgiana Manta ◽  
Marius Dalian Doran ◽  
...  

According to the objectives of the European Union concerning the climate changes, Member States should take all the necessary measures in order to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this study is to identify the causality relations between greenhouse gases emissions, added value from agriculture, renewable energy consumption, and economic growth based on a panel consisting of 11 states from the Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs) in the period between 2000 and 2017. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) method was used to estimate the long-term relationships among the variables. Also a Granger causality test based on the ARDL – Error Correction Model (ECM) and a Pairwise Granger causality test were used to identify the causality relationship and to detect the direction of causality among the variables. The results obtained reveal, in the long term, two bidirectional relationships between agriculture and economic growth and two unidirectional relationships from agriculture to greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy. In the short term, four unidirectional relationships were found from agriculture to all the variables in the model and one unidirectional relationship from renewable energy to greenhouse gas emissions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 837
Author(s):  
Matteo Prussi

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically influencing the environment, and research is strongly committed in proposing alternatives, mainly based on renewable energy sources [...]


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