scholarly journals Optimization of the Thermal Insulation Level of Residential Buildings in the Almaty Region of Kazakhstan

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 4692 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ainur Tukhtamisheva ◽  
Dinar Adilova ◽  
Karolis Banionis ◽  
Aurelija Levinskytė ◽  
Raimondas Bliūdžius

Kazakhstan is country rich in energy resources, but to raise the living standards of the country’s population, the government regulates prices of heating energy, which are significantly lower comparing to those in the global energy market. Such an approach encourages the construction of residential buildings without concern for their energy efficiency, which significantly increases energy consumption in the sector and leads to the increase of greenhouse gas emissions into the environment. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the impact of regulated low prices of heating energy on long-term energy use in buildings, to determine optimal levels of building thermal insulation at current energy prices and following global energy price trends, and to demonstrate the impact of more efficient building thermal insulation on heating energy consumption from a long-time perspective. The cost-optimal method used in EU countries was chosen for the optimization of building thermal insulation and energy consumption to compare the impact of energy prices on the optimal thermal insulation of buildings. The results of the study showed that maintaining low energy prices hinders the implementation of energy-efficient solutions in buildings and does not provide an economic justification for prolonging the heating season by ensuring the quality of the indoor microclimate. As a practical result of this study, a recommendation was made to introduce optimal thermal insulation requirements in building regulations and to redistribute part of the energy subsidies for implementation of energy-efficient measures in the residential building sector.

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-3
Author(s):  
VIDHYA LAKSHMI R ◽  
SRISANTHI V.G ◽  
EUNICE J

Air Quality and its management has been quite strained in the past few years and a cumulative approach in dealing with it would help reduce the emission and enhance the air quality index. As the government focuses on raising in-house technical capacities, the extent of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises are shooting up. MSMEs contribute to majority of the country’s industrial enterprises and considerable amount of its carbon emissions. It is imperative to concentrate on their environmental impacts based on their energy consumption pattern. However, understanding this key challenge – the MSMEs are to check on their Energy consumption patterns and the source of energy, thus eliminating the over-utilization of resources. This would not only make the MSMEs Energy Efficient but also lead to a decreased emission load and carbon footprint. GHG emission reduction could be mapped over the years. Mapping out the impact of these ambitious policies and its enablers would be critical. This work would aim at building an advanced understanding of potential benefits/impacts of MSMEs on the emissions/concentration of air pollutants v/s business as usual – based on varying levels of Energy Efficient equipment penetration and the fuel being used. This would involve a combination of Air emissions inventory and dispersion modelling approaches based on scientific understanding of comprehensive industrial structure in the industrial clusters. Broadly, energy demands and their usage details – coupled with established local air emissions would be used for establishing a detailed understanding of air quality impacts.


The demand for energy consumption requires efficient financial development in terms of bank credit. Therefore, this study examines the nexus between Financial Development, Economic Growth, Energy Prices and Energy Consumption in India, utilizing Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) technique to determine the nature of short and long term relationships from 2010 to 2019. The estimation of results indicates that a one percent increase in bank credits to private sector results in 0.10 percent increase in energy consumption and 0.28 percent increase in energy consumption responses to 1 percent increase in economic growth. It is also observed that the impact of energy price proxied by consumer price index is statistically significant with a negative sign indicating the consistency with the theory.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (13) ◽  
pp. 4368
Author(s):  
Jitander Kumar Pabani ◽  
Miguel-Ángel Luque-Nieto ◽  
Waheeduddin Hyder ◽  
Pablo Otero

Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks (UWSNs) are subjected to a multitude of real-life challenges. Maintaining adequate power consumption is one of the critical ones, for obvious reasons. This includes proper energy consumption due to nodes close to and far from the sink node (gateway), which affect the overall energy efficiency of the system. These wireless sensors gather and route the data to the onshore base station through the gateway at the sea surface. However, finding an optimum and efficient path from the source node to the gateway is a challenging task. The common reasons for the loss of energy in existing routing protocols for underwater are (1) a node shut down due to battery drainage, (2) packet loss or packet collision which causes re-transmission and hence affects the performance of the system, and (3) inappropriate selection of sensor node for forwarding data. To address these issues, an energy efficient packet forwarding scheme using fuzzy logic is proposed in this work. The proposed protocol uses three metrics: number of hops to reach the gateway node, number of neighbors (in the transmission range of a node) and the distance (or its equivalent received signal strength indicator, RSSI) in a 3D UWSN architecture. In addition, the performance of the system is also tested with adaptive and non-adaptive transmission ranges and scalable number of nodes to see the impact on energy consumption and number of hops. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol performs better than other existing techniques or in terms of parameters used in this scheme.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2538
Author(s):  
Praveen K. Cheekatamarla

Electrical and thermal loads of residential buildings present a unique opportunity for onsite power generation, and concomitant thermal energy generation, storage, and utilization, to decrease primary energy consumption and carbon dioxide intensity. This approach also improves resiliency and ability to address peak load burden effectively. Demand response programs and grid-interactive buildings are also essential to meet the energy needs of the 21st century while addressing climate impact. Given the significance of the scale of building energy consumption, this study investigates how cogeneration systems influence the primary energy consumption and carbon footprint in residential buildings. The impact of onsite power generation capacity, its electrical and thermal efficiency, and its cost, on total primary energy consumption, equivalent carbon dioxide emissions, operating expenditure, and, most importantly, thermal and electrical energy balance, is presented. The conditions at which a cogeneration approach loses its advantage as an energy efficient residential resource are identified as a function of electrical grid’s carbon footprint and primary energy efficiency. Compared to a heat pump heating system with a coefficient of performance (COP) of three, a 0.5 kW cogeneration system with 40% electrical efficiency is shown to lose its environmental benefit if the electrical grid’s carbon dioxide intensity falls below 0.4 kg CO2 per kWh electricity.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (22) ◽  
pp. 7590
Author(s):  
Adam Kula ◽  
Albert Smalcerz ◽  
Maciej Sajkowski ◽  
Zygmunt Kamiński

There are many papers concerning the consumption of energy in different buildings. Most describe residential buildings, with only a few about office- or public service buildings. Few articles showcase the use of energy consumption in specific rooms of a building, directed in different geographical directions. On the other hand, many publications present methods, such as machine learning or AI, for building energy management and prediction of its consumption. These methods have limitations and represent a certain level of uncertainty. In order to compare energy consumption of different rooms, the measurements of particular building-room parameters were collected and analyzed. The obtained results showcase the effect of room location, regarding geographical directions, for the consumption of energy for heating. For south-exposed rooms, due to sun radiation, it is possible to switch heating off completely, and even overheating of 3 °C above the 22 °C temperature set point occurs. The impact of the sun radiation for rooms with a window directed east or west reached about 1 °C and lasts for a few hours before noon for the east, and until late afternoon for the west.


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.


2021 ◽  
pp. 111657
Author(s):  
Marina Laskari ◽  
Rosa-Francesca de Masi ◽  
Stavroula Karatasou ◽  
Mat Santamouris ◽  
Margarita-Niki Assimakopoulos

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Shane Tierling

Objective / Scope With renewable energy sources not currently able to move energy around the globe and forming small portions of the total global energy supply, it has fallen upon hydrocarbon sources to form the backbone of global energy movements. Hence, the recent energy demand decline, along with policy, have disproportionately impacted world-wide petroleum and LNG pricing. The impact on Floating LNG has been a heightened demand for capital efficiency, required to achieve final investment decision. A business case specific means of reducing FLNG CAPEX, has been repurposing marginal assets. Starting with a breakdown of the cost components of an FLNG facility, this paper will provide examples of the inclusion of preexisting assets into FLNG projects to reduce capital cost. The paper will wrap up with other opportunities for cost savings, to stimulate thought. Methods, Procedures, Process Floating LNG (FLNG) technologies have been deployed to monetize mid-sized offshore gas reservoirs, avoiding constructing a sub-sea gas pipeline to a land-based LNG facility and export jetty. Containing the processing to an oceanic environment also reduces the impact on indigenous peoples as well as terrestrial flora and fauna. FLNG facilities also have the potential of serving multiple offshore fields over the life of the facility, thereby reducing the minimum size field that can be economically monetized. Interest in FLNG continues, despite the current slump in energy prices, however these challenging times are refocusing efforts on reducing the capital cost of FLNG. This paper will explore recent capital cost trends in LNG, with a focus on floating LNG, examples of realized opportunities to reduce CAPEX, and further scope for reductions. Results, Observations, Conclusions The readers will take-away from this paper a deeper understanding of: Recent trends in CAPEX for LNG, and specifically FLNG Where significant opportunities lie for cost reduction Examples of the reuse and repurposing of marginal assets to reduce cost of FLNG facilities Areas to be explored for future capital reduction Novel / Additive Information This paper pulls together disparate threads into a coherent whole, providing visualization of the trends and examples of realized opportunities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1205-1220
Author(s):  
Luís Miguel Marques ◽  
José Alberto Fuinhas ◽  
António Cardoso Marques

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on global energy consumption using the economic growth nexus, the prevalent energy hypothesis at a global level and the impact of the main historical events assessed for the period from 1965 to 2015. Design/methodology/approach Given the confirmed presence of endogeneity and cointegration between energy consumption and economic growth, a vector error correction with structural dummies model was used. Furthermore, the impulse-response functions and variance decomposition were computed to evaluate the variables’ dynamics. Findings Bi-directional causality running from energy consumption to economic growth was found, both in the short and long-run, supporting the feedback hypothesis. It is proved that the 2008 crisis impacted on the global energy–growth nexus. Furthermore, there is evidence of the impact of the 1990s oil price shock on the nexus. Innovations in energy consumption have a positive impact on economic growth; however, this impact tends to be null in the long run. Practical implications The results suggest that at a global level, any energy policy should be carefully designed in order not to hamper economic growth. Countries should not remain indifferent to the policies that other countries might follow. Very few historical crises impacted on the global energy–growth nexus. Originality/value This paper offers a different approach to the study of the energy–growth nexus. The energy–growth nexus is analysed in the major macroeconomic aggregate. Global variables reveal their relevance as a benchmark in the energy–growth nexus. Furthermore, this paper arrives at some conclusions about how historical crises impact on global relationships.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (17) ◽  
pp. 3348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaesung Park ◽  
Taeyeon Kim ◽  
Chul-sung Lee

In Kuwait, where the government subsidizes approximately 95% of residential electricity bills, most of the country’s energy consumption is for residential use. In particular, air-conditioning (AC) systems for cooling, which are used throughout the year, are responsible for residential electric energy consumption. This study aimed to reduce the amount of energy consumed for cooling purposes by developing a thermal comfort-based controller. Our study commenced by using a simulation model to investigate the possibility of energy reduction when using the predicted mean vote (PMV) for optimal control. The result showed that control optimization would enable the cooling energy consumption to be reduced by 33.5%. The influence of six variables on cooling energy consumption was then analyzed to develop a thermal comfort-based controller. The analysis results showed that the indoor air temperature was the most influential factor, followed by the mean radiant temperature, the metabolic rate, and indoor air velocity. The thermal comfort-based controller-version 1 (TCC-V1) was developed based on the analysis results and experimentally evaluated to determine the extent to which the use of the controller would affect the energy consumed for cooling. The experiments showed that the implementation of TCC-V1 control made it possible to reduce the electric energy consumption by 39.5% on a summer representative day. The results of this study indicate that it is possible to improve indoor thermal comfort while saving energy by using the thermal comfort-based controller in residential buildings in Kuwait.


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