scholarly journals Socio-Economic Effect on ICT-Based Persuasive Interventions Towards Energy Efficiency in Tertiary Buildings

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Casado-Mansilla ◽  
Apostolos C. Tsolakis ◽  
Cruz E. Borges ◽  
Oihane Kamara-Esteban ◽  
Stelios Krinidis ◽  
...  

Occupants of tertiary environments rarely care about their energy consumption. This fact is even more accentuated in cases of buildings of public use. Such unawareness has been identified by many scholars as one of the main untapped opportunities with high energy saving potential in terms of cost-effectiveness. Towards that direction, there have been numerous studies exploring energy-related behaviour and the impact that our daily actions have on energy efficiency, demand response and flexibility of power systems. Nevertheless, there are still certain aspects that remain controversial and unidentified, especially in terms of socio-economic characteristics of the occupants with regards to bespoke tailored motivational and awareness-based campaigns. The presented work introduces a two-step survey, publicly available through Zenodo repository that covers social, economic, behavioural and demographic factors. The survey analysis aims to fully depict the drivers that affect occupant energy-related behaviour at tertiary buildings and the barriers which may hinder green actions. Moreover, the survey reports evidence on respondents’ self-assessment of fifteen known principles of persuasion intended to motivate them to behave pro-environmentally. The outcomes from the self-assessment help to shed light on understanding which of the Persuasive Principles may work better to nudge different user profiles towards doing greener actions at workplace. This study was conducted in four EU countries, six different cities and seven buildings, reaching more than three-hundred-and-fifty people. Specifically, a questionnaire was delivered before (PRE) and after (POST) a recommendation-based intervention towards pro-environmental behaviour through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The findings from the PRE-pilot stage were used to refine the POST-pilot survey (e.g., we removed some questions that did not add value to one or several research questions or dismissed the assessment of Persuasive Principles (PPs) which were of low value to respondents in the pre-pilot survey). Both surveys validate “Cause and Effect”, “Conditioning” and “Self-monitoring” as the top PPs for affecting energy-related behaviour in a workplace context. Among other results, the descriptive and prescriptive analysis reveals the association effects of specific barriers, pro-environmental intentions and confidence in technology on forming new pro-environmental behaviour. The results of this study intend to set the foundations for future interventions based on persuasion through ICT to reduce unnecessary energy consumption. Among all types of tertiary buildings, we emphasise on the validity of the results provided for buildings of public use.

2019 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 01050 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier M. Rey-Hernández ◽  
Sergio Lorenzo González ◽  
Julio F. San José-Alonso ◽  
Ana Tejero-González ◽  
Eloy Velasco-Gómez ◽  
...  

The high energy consumption, attached to a high energy demand in buildings, has led the development of several research projects with the target of reducing the energy consumption in the buildings. As a result of this high consumption, the increased CO2 emissions that have been generated in recent years, have reached alarming levels, which is why it is necessary to reduce the environmental impact which we are contributing to our planet through the use of energy. The European Directive on Building Performance (EPBD 2018/844/EU), recently updated, requires new buildings to be close to the Zero Energy Buildings (nZEBs), increasing the use of renewable energies on-site, and also highlight how to get to improve the cost-effective renovation of existing buildings with the introduction of building control and automation systems ( smart systems), as well as the energy savings and increase the efficiency of energy systems, by reducing CO2 emissions. The use of new renewable energy technologies integrated in buildings, with the aim of reducing the consumption of the facilities that all nZEB buildings must have, such as the ventilation system used as an Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) control technique. In this study, the energy management of the enthalpy ventilation control system is analysed, where dynamic monitoring is going on in the building controlled through Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA), in combination with different ventilation systems as free-cooling, heat recovery and geothermal energy of an Earth Air Heat eXchanger (EAHX), all of them as strategies implemented in a real nZEB building (LUCIA) located on the campus at the University of Valladolid, with the goal of improving energy efficiency in ventilation. In order to get this aims, monitoring data of several energy parameters (temperature, air velocity, air flow rate, enthalpy, etc.) are measurements, they allow us to perform a control of the combined ventilation systems to achieve a high IAQ and analyze an optimization of the energy efficiency of the all systems and to study of energy recovery and savings of carbon emissions that directly affect the reduction of the impact of climate change. The results achieved are the energy efficiency of the building in ventilation and optimum system operation in cooling and heating mode. In addition, by controlling the ventilation, the IAQ of the nZEB building is improved.


Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Beck ◽  
Alexander Sperlich ◽  
Ricardo Blank ◽  
Eckehard Meyer ◽  
Ralf Binz ◽  
...  

Water collection based on groundwater abstraction has a high energy consumption that depends primarily on the operation and performance of submersible well pumps. The fact of the matter is that these machines still work with a global energy efficiency of less than 50%, and further investigations of the energy aspects in well pumps are needed. The present study introduces measures to increase the global efficiency of submersible well pumps linked to electrical energy savings. Common submersible pumps with asynchronous motors (ASMs) were compared with innovative permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) technology in real well fields in Berlin and Hamburg waterworks. This study confirms that PMSM pumps showed a 6.8%-points higher global efficiency compared to ASM pumps at optimal working points. The investigation of the impact of well field operation on local pump efficiency offers an additional increase in the global efficiency. In this context, the influence of variable speed control on the global efficiency and the energy consumption was analyzed. Global efficiencies of over 70%, and potential energy savings of up to 20%, were determined for the speed-controlled PMSM pump. This offers water suppliers new incentives to optimize their water collection systems for less energy consumption.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1360
Author(s):  
Teodora M. Șoimoșan ◽  
Ligia M. Moga ◽  
Livia Anastasiu ◽  
Daniela L. Manea ◽  
Aurica Căzilă ◽  
...  

Harnessing renewable energy sources (RES) using hybrid systems for buildings is almost a deontological obligation for engineers and researchers in the energy field, and increasing the percentage of renewables within the energy mix represents an important target. In crowded urban areas, on-site energy production and storage from renewables can be a real challenge from a technical point of view. The main objectives of this paper are quantification of the impact of the consumer’s profile on overall energy efficiency for on-site storage and final use of solar thermal energy, as well as developing a multicriteria assessment in order to provide a methodology for selection in prioritizing investments. Buildings with various consumption profiles lead to achieving different values of performance indicators in similar configurations of storage and energy supply. In this regard, an analysis of the consumption profile’s impact on overall energy efficiency, achieved in the case of on-site generation and storage of solar thermal energy, was performed. The obtained results validate the following conclusion: On-site integration of solar systems allowed the consumers to use RES at the desired coverage rates, while restricted by on-site available mounting areas for solar fields and thermal storage, under conditions of high energy efficiencies. In order to segregate the results and support optimal selection, a multicriteria analysis was carried out, having as the main criteria the energy efficiency indicators achieved by hybrid heating systems.


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 4155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Cumino ◽  
Wellington Lobato Junior ◽  
Thais Tavares ◽  
Hugo Santos ◽  
Denis Rosário ◽  
...  

Collaboration between multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to set up a Flying Ad Hoc Network (FANET) is a growing trend since future applications claim for more autonomous and rapid deployable systems. The user experience on watching videos transmitted over FANETs should always be satisfactory even under influence of topology changes caused by the energy consumption of UAVs. In addition, the FANET must keep the UAVs cooperating as much as possible during a mission. However, one of the main challenges in FANET is how to mitigate the impact of limited energy resources of UAVs on the FANET operation in order to monitor the environment for a long period of time. In this sense, UAV replacement is required in order to avoid the premature death of nodes, network disconnections, route failures, void areas, and low-quality video transmissions. In addition, decision-making must take into account energy consumption associated with UAV movements, since they are generally quite energy-intensive. This article proposes a cooperative UAV scheme for enhancing video transmission and global energy efficiency called VOEI. The main goal of VOEI is to maintain the video with QoE support while supporting the nodes with a good connectivity quality level and flying for a long period of time. Based on an Software Defined Network (SDN) paradigm, the VOEI assumes the existence of a centrailized controller node to compute reliable and energy-efficiency routes, as well as detects the appropriate moment for UAV replacement by considering global FANET context information to provide energy-efficiency operations. Based on simulation results, we conclude that VOEI can effectively mitigate the energy challenges of FANET, since it provides energy-efficiency operations, avoiding network death, route failure, and void area, as well as network partitioning compared to state-of-the-art algorithm. In addition, VOEI delivers videos with suitable Quality of Experience (QoE) to end-users at any time, which is not achieved by the state-of-the-art algorithm.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 412-418
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Wrzalik ◽  
Matevž Obrecht

AbstractIn recent years heating in Poland has been transformed as a result of the priorities of the country's energy policy implemented within the European Union. The increase in energy security, the development of renewable energy sources and the fulfilment of legal and environmental requirements are very important. Exploitation of district heating systems should ensure reliable and safe heat supplies for industrial and municipal customers with high energy efficiency and reduction of environmental impact. The article discusses the conditions and directions of centralized heating systems development as well as technical and economic issues, which are important for the security of heat supply. The Author describes selected technological innovations used in the technical infrastructure for heat transfer and modern IT systems which are improving the management of heating systems. The article includes the results of simulation research with use of IT tools showing the impact of selected innovations on the improvement of network operation conditions. Directions of modernization of heating systems in the aspect of increasing energy efficiency and security of heat supply have also been indicted here.


2014 ◽  
Vol 953-954 ◽  
pp. 890-895
Author(s):  
Hui Min Li ◽  
Cun Bin Li ◽  
Zhan Xin Ma

In recent years, with the rapid economic growth, the demand on the amount of energy in China is increasing. So the problem of how to improve the energy utilization efficiency and save energy consumption has to be tackled. The traditional CCR model and BCC model used in the study of provincial energy efficiency do not take the impact of technological progress into consideration. Therefore, the paper uses the generalized DEA method to research the energy utilization efficiency of China’s 29 provinces, that is, to evaluate and analyze the energy utilization efficiency by selecting the capital stock, employment and total energy consumption of China’s provinces as input factors and GDP, per capital GDP as output factors, and then draw tables showing each province’s change of average annual overall efficiency and the pure technology changes, and finally analyze the regularities underlying these changes.


Author(s):  
Nimra Kanwal ◽  
Nuhzat Khan

Buildings are the most important part of development activities, consumed over one-thirds of the global energy. Household used the maximum energy around the world, likewise in Pakistan residential buildings consumed about half of total energy (45.9% per year). The study aims to analyze the impact of building design on climate of Metropolitan City Karachi, Pakistan and to evaluate the change in urbanization patterns and energy consumption in the buildings. To have better understanding of the issues correlations was established amongst population, urbanization patterns, green area, number of buildings (residential and commercial), building design, energy consumption and metrological records (climate change parameters) by collecting the data from the respective departments. With the help of the collected data amount of carbon dioxide was estimated. The results reveled that during last 36 years the urban population of Karachi increased exponentially from 5,208,000 (1981) to 14,737,257 (2017) with increase in urbanized area from 8.35 km2 (1946) to 3,640 km2 (2017) that may led to reduce the green area of the city from 495,000 hectors (1971) to 100,000 hectors (2015). Moreover, the building’s design and numbers are being changed from 21 high-rise buildings (2009) to 344 (2017). It may be concluded that change in temperature pattern and climatic variability of the city may be due to increase in population and change in lifestyle that lead to high energy consumption that is prime source of increased in CO2 emission in the environment of Karachi city, However, Greenhouse Gases (GHG) releases are much lower than the levels reported from metropolitan cities around the world.


Author(s):  
Yuriy Usynin ◽  
Dmitry Sychev ◽  
Nikita Savosteenko

This paper considers issues related to increasing energy efficiency in electric drives of pilger rolling mills, presenting kinematics of such mills, provides justification for the general load chart, presents the detailed review of reference materials on technical energy saving solutions, and suggests a math model of an electric drive with a field regulated reluctance machine. The paper suggests key methods of saving energy in electric drives of pilger mills, namely: kinematic scheme improvement; main energy drainers and ways of energy loss reduction in electric drives with direct- and alternate-current motors, energy-saving electric drive control profiles. The article compares energy-saving resources in electric drives with various-type motors (direct-current motors, synchronous motors, and field regulated reluctance machine), clarifies the scheme of energy-saving resource implementation, provides the qualitative evaluation of electric drive control method efficiency. The accent is made on high energy efficiency of the proportionate control of armature and excitation circuits and across the range of torque in electric drives of abruptly-variable-load mills. The highest economic effect is reached in the electric drive with a field regulated reluctance machine – by means of implementing the energy-efficient electromechanical converter and applying energy-saving control profiles.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 8908
Author(s):  
Rubén Garrido-Yserte ◽  
María-Teresa Gallo-Rivera

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have a huge potential to save energy as they are significantly more energy-intensive in comparison with commercial offices and manufacturing premises. This paper provides an overview of the chief actions of sustainability and energy efficiency addressed by the University of Alcalá (Madrid, Spain). The policies implemented have shifted the University of Alcalá (UAH) to become the top-ranking university in Spain and one of the leading universities internationally on environmentally sustainable practices. The paper highlights two key elements. First, the actions adopted by the managerial teams, and second, the potential of public–private collaboration when considering different stakeholders. A descriptive study is developed through document analysis. The results show that energy consumption per user and energy consumption per area first fall and are then maintained, thereby contributing to meeting the objectives of the Spanish Government’s Action Plan for Energy Saving and Efficiency (2011–2020). Because of the research approach, the results cannot be generalized. However, the paper fulfils an identified need to study the impact of HEIs and their stakeholders on sustainable development through initiatives in saving energy on their campuses and highlights the role of HEIs as test laboratories for the introduction of innovations in this field (monitoring, sensing, and reporting, among others).


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