Electric bus platform for urban mobility

Today, the technology of automatic battery charging based on Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) for the electric mass transit industry involving electric trains, buses and trams, is being used more and more. The modern solution described in this paper proposes an innovative technology for mixed charging of electric buses, either by wireless charging for 2-3 minutes in selected stations, or by plug-in charging at the end of the bus line, which results in only minimal energy storage on board - practically enough to get to the next charging station. The reduction of the weight of the battery packs determines the increase of the number of passengers transported, but also a reduction of the purchase price of the bus, without reducing the performances. The conversion can cost about half the price of new electric buses, depending on the condition of the vehicle and the extent of the work. This solution can be applied especially for the conversion of Diesel buses into electric buses which is not only sustainable, but also significantly better in terms of investment and operational costs, comparing with the purchase of new electric buses.

The Costs of Charging Electric Vehicles in Poland

The very important factor that influences the decision of those interested in buying a vehicle is its operating costs. This paper determines the costs of driving 100km for various electric vehicles, charging service providers and chargers, which was then confronted with the costs of refueling. Based on the analysis carried out, it was determined that, at present, the lowest costs of fueling/charging of a vehicle in Poland are connected with use of an electric vehicle, but only when the charging is performed with use of public AC chargers. Moreover, it was determined that the savings that will result from charging electric vehicles at AC charging stations as compared to filling up internal combustion engine vehicles are small and do not compensate for the purchase price of an electric vehicle.

Weed control of maize (Zea mays L.) in university farming

Purpose. Regarding the area of maize in Hungary, we can state that it is one of the largest crops grown in the area. Maize was grown on 1,048,070 hectares in Hungary in 2019. The purchase price depends, among other things, on the size of the sown area and the yields, but many other things can also have an impact in either a positive or negative direction. In recent years, the purchase price of maize has been around HUF 50,000/tonne. Maize is one of the heat-demanding plants that needs 500 mm of rainfall during its growing season to develop smoothly. The expected yield is significantly influenced by the type of soil grown. Meadow chernozem and brown forest soil are the most favorable for maize. Methods. The maize was sown on April 17, 2020. In the experimental area were selected 5 squares. A square has a floor area of 4 m2. In the research area were conducted three weed surveys. The dates were: May 18, June 22, and July 29, 2020. The following herbicides were released on 15th May: Sulcotrek (sulcotrione and terbuthylazine); Tegoplant (trisiloxane); Trend (adjuvant). Results. The area was harvested on 21 September by a combine harvester equipped with a corn tube breaker adapter. From an area of one hectare, 9.4 tons of crops were harvested with a moisture content of 14%. Conclusions. In the case of chemical weed control, it is recommended to use an agent or combination which is specifically aimed at reducing unwanted, in this case pine sorghum.

THE CONCEPT OF THE PASSENGER CAR LIFE CYCLE

The article deals with the issues of a conceptual approach to determining the life cycle of a passenger car. The fleet of passenger car mainly consists of models developed and manufactured in the 70-90s of the last century at car plants in Germany and Russia. They are obsolete both morally and physically. This necessitates the renewal of the passenger car fleet by purchasing cars of both domestic and foreign production. In modern conditions, the user of new technology is interested not only in the purchase price, but also in the after-sales costs. This is reflected in the life cycle cost. It is proposed to use a cascade life cycle model for a passenger car. The stages of the life cycle of a passenger car during operation on the railways of Ukraine have been determined. The components of each stage of the life cycle of a passenger car are considered. For a transport company that intends to operate a passenger car, the costs of the first three stages are directly expressed in the initial cost of the car - the purchase price. The life cycle cost (LCC) of a passenger car will be determined by summing up the individual outflow of funds (expenses) at each specific stage (calculation step) of the service life of the equipment. The life cycle assessment of the technical system of railway transport can work at any stage of the life cycle.

A Novel Machine Learning-Based Price Forecasting for Energy Management Systems

Price forecasting (PF) is the primary concern in distributed power generation. This paper presents a novel and improved technique to forecast electricity prices. The data of various power producers, Capacity Purchase Price (CPP), Power Purchase Price (PPP), Tariff rates, and load demand from National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) are considered for MAPE reduction in PF. Eight time-series and auto-regression algorithms are developed for data fetching and setting the objective function. The feed-forward ANFIS based on the ML approach and space vector regression (SVR) is introduced to PF by taking the input from time series and auto-regression (AR) algorithms. Best-feature selection is conducted by adopting the Binary Genetic Algorithm (BGA)-Principal Component Analysis (PCA) approach that ultimately minimizes the complexity and computational time of the model. The proposed integration strategy computes the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), and the overall improvement percentage is 9.24%, which is valuable in price forecasting of the energy management system (EMS). In the end, EMS based on the Firefly algorithm (FA) has been presented, and by implementing FA, the cost of electricity has been reduced by 21%, 19%, and 20% for building 1, 2, and 3, respectively.

The Market for Electric Vehicles in New Zealand: Using stated choice methods to evaluate the implications for electricity demand and carbon emissions to 2030

<p>Anthropogenic global climate change caused by the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the combustion of fossil fuels is one of the greatest environmental threats faced by society. Electric vehicles (EVs), which use lithium-ion battery technology, have been proposed as a means of reducing GHG emissions produced by light passenger vehicles (LPVs). The ability of this vehicle technology to assist in reducing GHG emissions will depend on the market uptake and the effect that a growing EV fleet has on the GHG emissions produced by the electricity sector. This thesis is the first use of stated choice methods in New Zealand to develop a vehicle demand model that takes detailed account of car buyers’ preferences for EV purchase price, driving range, performance, fuel and battery costs, and charging network availability. A nationwide stated choice survey of New Zealand car buyers was undertaken in 2010 (n=281). The data from the survey was used to estimate a mixed multinomial logit discrete choice model, which was linked to a vehicle stock model of the New Zealand LPV fleet developed for this research. These two models were then used to simulate the New Zealand vehicle stock and energy demand, and the LPV fleet’s GHG emissions over a twenty year period. The Electricity Commission’s mixed integer programming ‘generation expansion model’ (GEM) was used to take account of the additional GHG emissions produced by the electricity sector in response to meeting the electricity demand estimates from the vehicle stock model. The results of this study indicate that, assuming the current state of EV technology and only modest reductions in EV prices over the modelling period, there would be sufficient demand for EVs to reduce, by 2030, the annual GHG emissions produced by the LPV fleet to approximately 80% of levels emitted in 2010. Changes in technology or vehicle design that reduce the cost of batteries and the purchase price of EVs would have the greatest impact in increasing the demand for these vehicles, and would further reduce the GHG emissions produced by the LPV fleet. The electricity sector modelling indicates that less than 730 MW of additional generation capacity will be required to be built if network operators can prevent EVs from charging during periods of peak demand, but without this capability, up to 4,400 MW of additional generation capacity could be required. The modelling also indicates that a policy environment where the use of coal-fuelled electricity generation is permitted and the price of carbon limited to $25 per tonne, the increased electricity sector GHG emissions that would result offset 88% of the cumulative GHG emission reductions achieved by the introduction of EVs into the LPV fleet. A policy raising the price of carbon to $100 per tonne would reduce the offsetting effect to 30%. EVs are an emerging technology with considerable potential for further development. The results of this study indicate that even at current prices and levels of technological performance, EVs have the capacity to make a significant contribution to New Zealand’s efforts to reduce GHG emissions. However, the ability to realise this potential is dependent on vehicle manufacturers’ willingness to produce EVs in sufficient quantities and models so that they can fully compete in the market with internal combustion engine vehicles; and on policies that discourage the future use of coal-fuelled electricity generation.</p>

The Market for Electric Vehicles in New Zealand: Using stated choice methods to evaluate the implications for electricity demand and carbon emissions to 2030

<p>Anthropogenic global climate change caused by the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the combustion of fossil fuels is one of the greatest environmental threats faced by society. Electric vehicles (EVs), which use lithium-ion battery technology, have been proposed as a means of reducing GHG emissions produced by light passenger vehicles (LPVs). The ability of this vehicle technology to assist in reducing GHG emissions will depend on the market uptake and the effect that a growing EV fleet has on the GHG emissions produced by the electricity sector. This thesis is the first use of stated choice methods in New Zealand to develop a vehicle demand model that takes detailed account of car buyers’ preferences for EV purchase price, driving range, performance, fuel and battery costs, and charging network availability. A nationwide stated choice survey of New Zealand car buyers was undertaken in 2010 (n=281). The data from the survey was used to estimate a mixed multinomial logit discrete choice model, which was linked to a vehicle stock model of the New Zealand LPV fleet developed for this research. These two models were then used to simulate the New Zealand vehicle stock and energy demand, and the LPV fleet’s GHG emissions over a twenty year period. The Electricity Commission’s mixed integer programming ‘generation expansion model’ (GEM) was used to take account of the additional GHG emissions produced by the electricity sector in response to meeting the electricity demand estimates from the vehicle stock model. The results of this study indicate that, assuming the current state of EV technology and only modest reductions in EV prices over the modelling period, there would be sufficient demand for EVs to reduce, by 2030, the annual GHG emissions produced by the LPV fleet to approximately 80% of levels emitted in 2010. Changes in technology or vehicle design that reduce the cost of batteries and the purchase price of EVs would have the greatest impact in increasing the demand for these vehicles, and would further reduce the GHG emissions produced by the LPV fleet. The electricity sector modelling indicates that less than 730 MW of additional generation capacity will be required to be built if network operators can prevent EVs from charging during periods of peak demand, but without this capability, up to 4,400 MW of additional generation capacity could be required. The modelling also indicates that a policy environment where the use of coal-fuelled electricity generation is permitted and the price of carbon limited to $25 per tonne, the increased electricity sector GHG emissions that would result offset 88% of the cumulative GHG emission reductions achieved by the introduction of EVs into the LPV fleet. A policy raising the price of carbon to $100 per tonne would reduce the offsetting effect to 30%. EVs are an emerging technology with considerable potential for further development. The results of this study indicate that even at current prices and levels of technological performance, EVs have the capacity to make a significant contribution to New Zealand’s efforts to reduce GHG emissions. However, the ability to realise this potential is dependent on vehicle manufacturers’ willingness to produce EVs in sufficient quantities and models so that they can fully compete in the market with internal combustion engine vehicles; and on policies that discourage the future use of coal-fuelled electricity generation.</p>

Iterative Approach on Redesigning and Construction of a Pipe Inspection Robot

<p>A pipe inspection robot is a device that is inserted into pipes to check for obstructions or damage. These robots are traditionally manufactured offshore, are extremely expensive, and are often not adequately supported in the event of malfunction. This had resulted in Associated Environmental Services Limited, a New Zealand utiliser of this equipment, facing significant periods of down-time as they wait for their robots to be repaired. Recently, they were informed that several of their robots were no longer supported. At their instigation, this project was conceived to redesign the electronics and control system of one of these pipe inspection robots, utilising the existing mechanical platform. Requirements for the robot were that it must operate reliably in confined, dark and wet environments, and provide a human user with a digital video feed of the internal status of the pipes. This robot should, as much as possible, incorporate off-the-shelf components, facilitating cheap, and potentially on-site repair. This project details the redesign and construction of such a robot. It employs three electronic boards integrated with the mechanical components and provides video feedback via a custom graphical user interface. Although at the prototype stage, the electronic redesign has been successful, with a cost of less than a tenth of the original robot purchase price.</p>

Iterative Approach on Redesigning and Construction of a Pipe Inspection Robot

<p>A pipe inspection robot is a device that is inserted into pipes to check for obstructions or damage. These robots are traditionally manufactured offshore, are extremely expensive, and are often not adequately supported in the event of malfunction. This had resulted in Associated Environmental Services Limited, a New Zealand utiliser of this equipment, facing significant periods of down-time as they wait for their robots to be repaired. Recently, they were informed that several of their robots were no longer supported. At their instigation, this project was conceived to redesign the electronics and control system of one of these pipe inspection robots, utilising the existing mechanical platform. Requirements for the robot were that it must operate reliably in confined, dark and wet environments, and provide a human user with a digital video feed of the internal status of the pipes. This robot should, as much as possible, incorporate off-the-shelf components, facilitating cheap, and potentially on-site repair. This project details the redesign and construction of such a robot. It employs three electronic boards integrated with the mechanical components and provides video feedback via a custom graphical user interface. Although at the prototype stage, the electronic redesign has been successful, with a cost of less than a tenth of the original robot purchase price.</p>