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Abstract: The pulp and paper industry is one of the most energy-intensive industries worldwide. In 2007, it accounted for 5% of total global industrial energy consumption and 2% of direct industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. An energy audit is a primary step toward improving energy efficiency at the facility level. This paper describes a plant-wide energy audit aimed at identifying energy conservation and CO2 mitigation opportunities at a paper mill in Guangdong province, China. We describe the energy audit methods, relevant Chinese standards, methods of calculating energy and carbon indicators, baseline energy consumption and CO2 emissions of the audited paper mill, and nine energy-efficiency improvement opportunities identified by the audit. For each of the nine options, we evaluate the energy conservation and associated CO2 mitigation potential. The total technical energy conservation potential for these nine opportunities is 967.8terajoules (TJ), and the total CO2 mitigation potential is equal to 93,453tonnes CO2 annually, representing 14.4% and 14.7%, respectively, of the mill’s total energy consumption and CO2 emissions during the audit period. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Reusable launchers have been studied under CNES contracts for more than 30 years, with early concepts such as STS-2000 or Oriflamme, more recently with very significant efforts devoted to Liquid Fly Back Boosters as with the Bargouzin project led with Tsniimash, TSTO with the Everest concept studied by Airbus-DS as prime contractor or the RFS Reusable First Stage concept of a large first stage associated to a cryotechnic second stage. These investigations, summarized in the first part of the paper, enabled CNES to identify clearly the technology requirements associated to reusability, as well as cost efficiency through detailed non-recurring costs and mission costs analysis. In parallel, CNES set in place development logic for sub-systems and equipment based on demonstrators, hardware test benches enabling maturation of technologies up to a TRL such that an actual development can be decided with limited risk. This philosophy has been applied so far to a large number of cases, such as TPTech and TPX for Hydrogen turbo pump, GGPX as demonstrator of innovative gas generator, HX demonstrator of modern cryotechnic upper stage with a dozen of different objectives (Thermal Protection, 20K Helium storage, measurements …). This virtuous approach, “learn as you test”, is currently applied in the phased approach towards scaled down reusable booster stage, whose possibility to be used as first stage of a microlaunch vehicle is under investigation. The selected technologies allow paving the way towards reusable booster stages for Ariane 6 evolutions or main reusable stage for a further generation of heavy launchers. The paper describes the logic behind this project, together with the demonstration objectives set for the various sub-systems as well as operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In March 2011, China’s central government set a new challenging target of reducing its energy intensity by 16% during 2011–2015, after it had achieved a reduction of 19.1% during 2006–2010. And this new target was assigned to provincial authorities in August 2011. However, China’s provincial energy-economic developments are unbalanced and different provinces have different key sectors for energy conservation. Most previous studies focused on provincial energy efficiency at the aggregate level, or the three-industry level (or one-digit level). However, whether for policy decision or academic research, it is necessary to further subdivide the sectors. In this paper, we use three indicators (Gini Coefficient, energy consumption share and energy intensity) to compare provincial energy conservation potentials at the two-digit sector level. To our knowledge, this paper is the first one to identify the keys for energy conversation across the 31 provinces×65 sectors. And the results are shown in visualized maps and matrix tables to help identify the key province×sectors for energy conservation easier. This also helps the central and provincial governments to distinguish key sectors when they monitor the energy conservation progress. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Eco-driving is one of the many options to reduce fuel consumption and emissions from transit operations. However, it is not yet clear how effective eco-driving is for different transit service and fuel types. As policymakers consider implementing eco-driving, they also need comparisons of eco-driving against other fuel-conserving strategies, such as purchasing alternative fuel vehicles. Using a case study of transit operations in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, this paper evaluated eco-driving for two very different service types – local urban service and express service. The authors simulated the implementation of transit eco-driving strategies using an innovative, streamlined algorithm designed to minimize fuel consumption by limiting instantaneous vehicle specific power while maintaining average speed and conserving total distance. Fuel consumption and fuel-cycle emissions were compared across the monitored driving cycles and their modified eco-driving cycles. The savings from eco-driving were also compared to fuel and emissions reductions expected via the conversion of the transit fleets to compressed natural gas (CNG), another popular fuel conservation strategy. The results showed that eco-driving would be a potentially very cost-effective strategy for local and express bus transit operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste energy recovery and utilization presents a crucial opportunity in primary energy reduction and energy efficiency improvement for the global iron and steel industry. However, lack of comprehensive and practical methodology, the exact quantity of waste energy is often poorly quantified. This paper develops an innovative techno-economic model to quantify this opportunity that links theoretical, technical, and economic potential with the characteristics of waste energy resources and waste recycling technologies. Various forms of waste energy, such as sensible heat, pressure energy, and chemical energy, were examined. In addition, four scenarios were established to evaluate future energy saving potential and energy consumption reduction under the synergistic effect of technology promotion and structure adjustment. Findings show that the proportion of practical potential is less than 20% when considering the technical implementation rate for the average industry value. The selected 35 energy-saving technologies contribute to 3.08 GJ/t crude steel of cumulative energy savings, and technology implementation plays a significant role in energy consumption reduction. A sensitivity analysis indicates that energy price and discount rate are the most sensitive factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The present paper deals with the energy performance, energy classification and rating and the global environmental quality of school buildings. A new energy classification technique based on intelligent clustering methodologies is proposed. Energy rating of school buildings provides specific information on their energy consumption and efficiency relative to the other buildings of similar nature and permits a better planning of interventions to improve its energy performance. The overall work reported in the present paper, is carried out in three phases. During the first phase energy consumption data have been collected through energy surveys performed in 320 schools in Greece. In the second phase an innovative energy rating scheme based on fuzzy clustering techniques has been developed, while in the third phase, 10 schools have been selected and detailed measurements of their energy efficiency and performance as well as of the global environmental quality have been performed using a specific experimental protocol. The proposed energy rating method has been applied while the main environmental and energy problems have been identified. The potential for energy and environmental improvements has been assessed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this paper a simple and fast re-configuration algorithm which is suitable for a PV array with Series–Parallel architecture is presented and discussed. The main advantage of such an algorithm is represented by its capability to find a nearly optimal configuration by testing only a very small subset of all the possible configurations. In particular it is shown that, in an actual PV array composed by 24 PV modules which operate under mismatching conditions (which are quite common in urban environments due to chimneys, streets lighting poles, antennas, neighboring buildings, etc.), the proposed algorithm is able to lead to energetic performances which are more or less comparable with those ones which can be obtained by adopting a Monte Carlo based algorithm employing a much higher number of trials. Moreover, by means of a specific example, it is shown that maximization of extracted energy and absence of dangerous operating conditions, possibly leading to the premature aging of the PV field and/or to hot spot phenomena, are contrasting requirements. It is nonetheless possible to find proper configurations able to lead to a suitable compromise between such two contrasting requirements. Further work is needed and is in progress in order to design suitable re-configuration algorithms able to identify such compromise configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The first objective of this paper is to map the adoption of technologies for the reduction of energy and resource consumption in production and the second is to test the relationship between the implementation of those technologies and the performance of manufacturing firms. The aim is to contribute to the identification of the characteristics of the manufacturing firms that use this kind of innovative technology in order to help policy makers promote energy and resource efficiency in a suitable manner. Our research is based on the Spanish and Slovenian subsamples of a wider European Manufacturing Survey. Our suggested models explain how significant energy efficiency is, and how much of the variability in economic performance and environmental performance it can explain. The results show that the use of energy and material saving technologies does not have a clear and significant relationship with economic performance. On the other hand a significant positive relationship is found between energy and material saving technologies and environmental performance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Low-income housing constitutes an important but often overlooked area for energy use reductions within the US residential sector. Given the scarcity of existing information on this subject, this study uses a semi-structured interview format to explore the key behavioral tendencies, energy knowledge gaps, and attitudes among low-income public housing residents, with the goal of demonstrating a process for developing, scoring, and analyzing the interviews that will be useful to other researchers when first engaging complex subjects like behavior in contexts that are not well covered by existing literature. Methods for sampling subjects and iteratively developing an interview guide and response-scoring framework are described, and the usefulness of this approach in allowing both quantitative and qualitative analysis of behavior response data is demonstrated. The paper concludes by illustrating how themes that emerge from the response analysis can be used to inform future surveying and intervention efforts. Key themes include the varying definitions for “comfort” amongst residents; the lack of resident control over the household environment; the tendency for residents to evaluate energy conservation measures (ECMs) in terms of costs, savings, and comfort; the muted differences in behavior between those who do and do not pay energy bills; and the importance of building maintenance and resident energy education to ongoing efficiency efforts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In the last years, the growing demand for air conditioning has caused a significant increase in demand for primary energy resources. Solar-powered cooling is one of the technologies which allows to obtain, by using the renewable solar source, an important energy saving compared to traditional air conditioning plants. The paper describes different technical installations for solar cooling, their way of operation, advantages and limits. The objective of the present study has been to analyze the technical and economic feasibility of solar absorption cooling systems, designed for two different application fields: industrial refrigeration and air conditioning. The possibility to replace or integrate the existing plants is studied, by considering the refrigeration requirements of a company, which works in meat manufacturing, and the heating and cooling demands of a hotel located in a tourist town in Italy. In the first case, the system comprises an absorption chiller coupled to solar flat plate collectors, whereas the second application is about a hybrid trigeneration plant, known as thermo-solar trigeneration; this option allows having greater operational flexibility at sites with demand for energy in the form of heating as well as cooling, for example in a hotel. In this way the authors could compare different results obtained by a technical and economic experimental analysis based on existing users and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages in order to suggest the best solution for the two studied cases. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Estimation of energy performance indexes, like the heating curve or the energy signature, requires robust regression of the heating losses on the outdoor temperature. The solution proposed in this paper is to use the range between the 1st and the 3rd quartile of the quantile–quantile (q–q) plot to check if the heating losses and the outdoor temperature have the same distribution and, if yes, to perform the regression in this range of the q–q plot. The result is a model that conserves its prediction performance for data sets of the outdoor temperature different of those used for parameter identification. The robust model gives the overall heat transfer coefficient and the base temperature, and it may be used to estimate the energy consumption for data sets of the outdoor temperature coming from different time—space locations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]