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This thesis born from the idea and interest to develop in an extent way the knowledge acquired during the master’s degree of Energy Engineering, especially with the topic of applied energy and solar photovoltaic renewable energy. The way to change from fossil fuel energy to environmentally friendly energy is the way for reducing the greenhouse gases emissions. Nowadays, there is a big demand for clean energy. When plant exploiting is installed, they have the objective to achieve zero harmful emissions but the manufacturing process of their components must be taken into account along with its construction. This master’s thesis presents and studies the analysis of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of a real photovoltaic plant existing in Italy by using SimaPro software. Before starting to write the thesis, it is done research of previous studies and papers of the topic of interest as well as a reading of the most interesting ones. In the first part, it is explained the LCA analysis with a description of its methodology and an explanation of all its phases and steps, as well as an explanation of the main software and methodologies that will be used in the practical analysis. In the second part, it is described the real photovoltaic plant that will be analysed with the description of all components. The analysis is carried out on a photovoltaic plant called Acquaviva 02, located in the town of Acquaviva delle Fonti, in the region of Puglia (Italy). The owner of the plant is Espe Rinnovabili SRL. In the third part, a LCA analysis is done for Acquaviva 02 photovoltaic plant taking into account all the steps shown in the first section and the elements described in the second part. Finally, it is done a LCA comparison between the real photovoltaic plant and a photovoltaic plant found in the database of SimaPro, highlighting the main differences and comparing and contrasting both results

Energy conversion systems have assumed a crucial role in current society. The threat of climate change, fossil fuel depletion and the growing world energy demand ask for a more sustainable way of electricity production, eg, by using renewable energy sources, by improving the conversion efficiency and/or by controlling power plant emissions. Despite the relationship between exergy and sustainability stated in literature, exergy losses are usually not considered when comparing systems and energy sources for power generation. The exergetic sustainability assessment method named Total Cumulative Exergy Loss (TCExL) has been used to assess several systems for electricity production, ie, a coal-fired power plant, a coal-fired power plant including carbon capture and storage, a biomass-fired power plant, an offshore wind farm and a photovoltaic park. The results of the TCExL method have been compared with an environmental sustainability indicator, ie, the overall ReCiPe endpoint indicator and the economic indicator named Present Worth Ratio. The offshore wind farm is the best system from the exergetic and environmental point of view. The photovoltaic park is the system with the second-best scores. However, from the economic viewpoint including subsidy by the Dutch government, the photovoltaic park performs better than the wind farm system and the system that performs best is the biomass-fired power plant. Without subsidy, only the coal-fired power plant without carbon capture and storage is profitable. The exergetic sustainability scores of the coal-fired and biomass-fired power plants are similar, but from the environmental sustainability viewpoint, the biomass-fired power plant performs better than both coal-fired power plants. As the results of environmental and economic sustainability assessments strongly depend on models, weighting factors, subsidy, market prices, etc, while the results of the exergetic sustainability assessment do not, it is recommended that the e, Energy & Industry, Petroleum Engineering

Energy conversion systems have assumed a crucial role in current society. The threat of climate change, fossil fuel depletion and the growing world energy demand ask for a more sustainable way of electricity production, eg, by using renewable energy sources, by improving the conversion efficiency and/or by controlling power plant emissions. Despite the relationship between exergy and sustainability stated in literature, exergy losses are usually not considered when comparing systems and energy sources for power generation. The exergetic sustainability assessment method named Total Cumulative Exergy Loss (TCExL) has been used to assess several systems for electricity production, ie, a coal-fired power plant, a coal-fired power plant including carbon capture and storage, a biomass-fired power plant, an offshore wind farm and a photovoltaic park. The results of the TCExL method have been compared with an environmental sustainability indicator, ie, the overall ReCiPe endpoint indicator and the economic indicator named Present Worth Ratio. The offshore wind farm is the best system from the exergetic and environmental point of view. The photovoltaic park is the system with the second-best scores. However, from the economic viewpoint including subsidy by the Dutch government, the photovoltaic park performs better than the wind farm system and the system that performs best is the biomass-fired power plant. Without subsidy, only the coal-fired power plant without carbon capture and storage is profitable. The exergetic sustainability scores of the coal-fired and biomass-fired power plants are similar, but from the environmental sustainability viewpoint, the biomass-fired power plant performs better than both coal-fired power plants. As the results of environmental and economic sustainability assessments strongly depend on models, weighting factors, subsidy, market prices, etc, while the results of the exergetic sustainability assessment do not, it is recommended that the e, Energie and Industrie, Reservoir Engineering

This article aims at finding the most suitable waste heat recovery technology for existing and future offshore facilities. The technologies considered in this work are the steam Rankine cycle, the air bottoming cycle and the organic Rankine cycle. A multi-objective optimization approach is employed to attain optimal designs for each bottoming unit by selecting specific functions tailored to the oil and gas sector, i.e. yearly CO2 emissions, weight and economic revenue. The test case is the gas turbine-based power system serving an offshore platform in the North Sea. Results indicate that the organic Rankine cycle technology presents larger performances compared to steam Rankine cycle units, whereas the implementation of air bottoming cycle modules is not attractive from an economic and environmental perspective compared to the other two technologies. Despite the relatively high cost of the expander and of the primary heat exchanger, organic Rankine cycle turbogenerators appear thus to be the preferred solution to abate CO2 emissions and pollutants on oil and gas facilities. As a practical consequence, this paper provides guidelines for the design of high-efficiency, cost-competitive and low-weight power systems for offshore installations.

Nei tempi attuali dove i combustibili stanno cominciando a sparire come fonte principale d’energia c’è bisogno di cominciare a usare le risorse rinnovabili. Per questo dobbiamo svilupparle bene prima di installare gli impianti in tutto il mondo. L’energia solare con i pannelli fotovoltaici allora rappresenta il futuro per ottenere energia. Lo scopo di questa tesi è continuare lo studio sul raffreddamento dei pannelli fotovoltaici per così poterne migliorare l’efficienza. Per farlo si usa il metodo di buttamento d’acqua fredda per la superficie superiore del pannello finché la temperatura di questa scende fino a valori stabili. Per questo, il presente studio svilupperanno i diversi modi in cui si può buttare l’acqua e potere scegliere quello ottimo. Dopo vari esperimenti si è scelta una configurazione dove, utilizzando 6 ugelli, si butta l’acqua sulla parte superiore del pannello e questa scende progressivamente lasciando uno spessore costante di circa 1 mm. Nel presente studio si sono studiatei anche le diverse problematiche che possono comparire quando si fa lavorare il pannello con il sistema di raffreddamento in una situazione reale. Siccome si vuole attivare il sistema di raffreddamento durante i momenti del giorno dove fa più caldo, la migliore forma è utilizzando ciclo di attivazione ON-OFF lasciando così un ciclo di temperatura dove questa sale e scende in una banda totalmente controllata. Per questo modo, si è raggiunto la miglior forma di controllare questa banda di temperatura dipendendo delle condizioni esterne: temperatura ambiente, vento, umidità..., Outgoing

In light of the on going climate change discussion, sustainability considerations are currently taking more prominent role in material selection decisions for automotive applications. This paper deals with the Life Cycle Assessment of a product. The product chosen is a racing car, designed and built by students of the Università degli Studi di Padova. The first part of this thesis shows all the Life Cycle Assessment theory and concepts necessary for understanding the later analysis and results interpretation. The second part deals about the Life Cycle Assessment of the car and showing the all calculations and procedures necessary for achieving some results. The main goal of this research is analysing the environmental impact of the materials and processes needed for the production of this car. This study is going to include an exhaustive analysis of the impact of each subsystem that is composed in the car in order to be able to analyse each part of it although the importance of knowing the environmental impact of the global car., Outgoing