Application of the TEAC software for analysis of Energy Flexible Building Clusters – a case study

Nowadays, natural environment protection and sustainable development became common and necessary issues for all the economic sectors. It is extremely important to focus on all the efforts resulting in the most efficient and sustainable power sources and electric power grid. Typically, the residential districts are connected by electric grids, which with an application of the appropriate technologies might be considered as so-called smart-grids. In the smart-grid neighbourhoods, houses are the consumers, energy supply is performed by the local or/and national power plants, while energy distribution is performed using some monitoring and management systems. Such a residential area can be considered as a Building Cluster, the novel paradigm in the energy and environmental analysis of the built environments. In this article, the exemplary single-family houses neighbourhood is examined, following the Building Cluster paradigm. The analysed area is located in Lodz (Poland), consisting of 202 buildings. The study is performed by means of the home-developed software named TEAC (Tool for Energy Efficiency Analyses of an Energy Cluster). The analysis is focused on the energy, economic and environmental issues of the considered Building Cluster.

Dynamic Modeling and Control of a Simulated Carbon Capture Process for Sustainable Power-to-X

The goal of this study is to develop a dynamic model for a Carbon Capture (CC) process that can be integrated with a water electrolysis facility. The possibility of operating the post-combustion CC plant dynamically is investigated. The final model successfully tracks the parallel hydrogen production, providing the stoichiometric required CO2 stream for the subsequent methanol reactor. A dynamic model is used to configure controllers and to test the unit performance and stream conditions for various set points. Through the transient operation, the required feed gas is provided while optimizing the solvent and energy requirements. It is found that the slowest acting stage is the reboiler with a time constant of 3.8 h. Other process variables stabilize much quicker, requiring only a few minutes to reach steady-state conditions. The hydrogen-tracking scenario shows that the carbon capture plant can successfully operate under varying conditions with a maximum CO2 output increase of 7% of the minimum flowrate in the representative 24 h simulation time. The output CO2 stream is maintained at the desired >98% purity, 25 °C temperature, and 1.85 bar pressure, which allows to successfully perform hydrogen tracking operations.

Nexus between Natural Resources and Environmental Degradation: Analysing the Role of Income Inequality and Renewable Energy

Globally, as the environment deteriorates, use of renewable energy is increasing. The discrepancy between inequalities, sustainable sources, and natural resources, on the other hand, is enormous. As a consequence, the current research simulated the link between income inequality, renewable energy, and carbon emissions from 1990 to 2018. The long run and short run interaction were estimated using an autoregressive distribution lag (ARDL) model. According to the study’s findings, improvements in sustainable power, as well as income inequality, are producing a rise in environmental quality. Natural resources seem to have a significantly positive influence on the environment’s quality. Furthermore, the study found that financial development and environmental quality have a bidirectional causal link. According to the conclusions of this study, government authorities should support the use of renewable energy, i.e., sources to optimize carbon release.