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Microscale 1-3-type-like magnetoelectric (ME) composites with ferromagnetic microstrips laterally embedded in a piezoelectric ceramic substrate were fabricated by a dice-and-insert method. Mechanically sliced microstrips of Li/Ta-modified (K,Na)NbO3 lead-free ceramics and CoFe2O4 ceramics were used as the piezoelectric and piezomagnetic phases, respectively, which were inserted into each other and bonded together by epoxy. The ME properties of such 1-3-type-like composites with piezoelectric substrates were verified. The maximum ME coefficient was found to vary with the strip size, substrate thickness, and thickness of epoxy bonding layers. A maximum value of 48 mV/(cm·Oe) was achieved. In addition, a special anisotropy was obtained in the present lateral 1-3 type ceramic composites and made it have potential applications in detecting magnetic field directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, GaN-based yellow light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were homoepitaxially grown on free-standing (0001) GaN substrates by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. X-ray diffraction (XRD), photoluminescence (PL), and electroluminescence (EL) measurements were conducted to investigate the structural, optical, and electrical properties of the yellow LED. The XRD measurement results showed that the InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) in the LED structure have good periodicity because the distinct MQWs related higher order satellite peaks can be clearly observed from the profile of 2θ-ω XRD scan. The low temperature (10 K) and room temperature PL measurement results yield an internal quantum efficiency of 16% for the yellow LED. The EL spectra of the yellow LED present well Gaussian distribution with relatively low linewidth (47–55 nm), indicating the homogeneous In-content in the InGaN quantum well layers in the yellow LED structure. It is believed that this work will aid in the future development of GaN on GaN LEDs with long emission wavelength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Romantic writings about electricity have proved a fruitful topic for recent scholars of the period, and the study of electrical discourse is a fast‐growing interdisciplinary field. This essay offers a survey of the best work on Romantic electricity, focusing on 2 key areas: the ways in which electricity appears as an image of revolutionary activity, and the use of electric imagery in Romantic poetry as a figure for creativity and vitality. In assessing such recent work, this essay argues for the importance of reading Romantic electrical texts within the context of the material experimental cultures of period. Such historical attention reveals that electrical language is amazingly ubiquitous in the Romantic period, and is used in a variety of ways in literary and political texts. Awareness of this rich body of electrical texts offers scholars opportunities to move beyond assigning electricity a particular political valence, and to investigate the operation of electrical language in the work of a wide range of authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decarbonizing the global electricity system is expected to contribute significantly to mitigating climate change. A significant body of research has focused on the development of low-carbon power systems; hence, this bibliometric review is timely. We assess the global scientific research on low-carbon electricity both quantitatively and qualitatively, based on the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) spanning a quarter century and 13,767 publications. Our analysis illustrates the role of inter-institutional collaboration in successful scientific research on low-carbon power systems. The United States has contributed most to the low-carbon electricity literature with 3074 publications, the highest h-index (58), 8 of the 10 most cited articles, and 4 of the 10 most productive institutions. The Chinese Academy of Science is the most productive institution with 270 publications and notably high levels of international collaboration. Based on an analysis and visualization of author keywords and content analysis, we also characterize three phases of the global transition to low-carbon electricity. The 1990s involved reliance on traditional base-load fuels (coal and nuclear), which spurred the search for cleaner alternatives. These alternatives materialized as the rise of clean coal and wind in the first decade of the 21st century, followed by the growth of solar and natural gas beginning in 2010. Besides this evolution of technologies, we document the transition to more nuanced forms of economic and policy analysis in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief investigated bipolar resistive switching (RS) characteristic of a top-electrode-free sol-gel SnOx resistive memory, which was fabricated at a low temperature of 120 °C. The RS characteristic was obtained by directly using a probe tip to make an electrical point contact with the SnOx surface. The SnOx memristor exhibited a remarkable memory window of 103 and it can operate over 500 dc cycles without noticeable degradation. Oxygen ion storage and release from a chemically active top-electrode, which were commonly used to explain RS, seem not applicable to this SnOx memristor. The SnOx film was characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy. The physical mechanisms of the conduction current and the RS behavior were also explored. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The fin de siècle American fascination with electricity has been well documented. David E. Nye, Carolyn Marvin, and other historians have explored the hopes and fears of the new technology in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and they have brought laboratories, living rooms, and worlds fairs back to life in the process. But turn-of-the-century writers and inventors sparked another fantasy that remains unaccounted for in these histories: the dream of enjoying electricity without the machinery or the corporations that generate it. This article recovers that dream of a wireless future. By reading Tesla in tandem with Edward Bellamy, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and other electrical utopians, this paper illuminates the utopian dimension of a major inventor; it challenges the conventional interpretation of the utopian novel as a vehicle for economic and political concerns; and it expands the history of electricity to account for a provocative and underexamined fantasy of wirelessness. Most importantly, it argues for the inextricable interrelationship of technological and literary production during the turn of the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is receiving increasing attention as a technology with the potential to provide clean electricity in a cost effective and dispatchable manner. Despite its renewable nature, solar power generation generates impacts that need to be adequately evaluated and managed. The objective of this paper is to estimate the socioeconomic and environmental life cycle impacts of the production of electricity by a commercial CSP plant using Multiregional Input Output Analysis. These effects have been estimated in terms of additional economic activity, value added, employment creation, climate change, acidification, photochemical oxidant formation and primary energy consumption. Additionally, the economic sectors and countries with higher effects in the value chain have been identified. The results are presented both in gross and net terms, including not only the effects of the system’s life cycle, but also the avoided effects derived from the displacement of other technologies in the Spanish electricity market. The effects of the displaced electricity have been calculated by estimating the Levelized Cost Of Energy of the mix of marginal technologies displaced by the CSP plant. The results indicate that producing electricity in a CSP plant and selling it into the Spanish electricity market results in net positive impacts on the economy, the employment and the environment both at a national and global scale. Taking into consideration the electricity technologies displaced by the CSP plant, the socioeconomic net effects amount to 167 €/MWh of goods and services generated, 87.9 €/MWh of value added and 4.67 h/MWh of employment creation. The global and net environmental impacts on climate change, photochemical oxidant formation, acidification and primary energy consumption amount to −188 kg eq CO 2 /MWh, 8 g eq NMVOC/MWh, −389 g eq SO 2 /MWh and −4169 MJ/MWh, respectively, implying a net prevention of pollutant emissions and primary energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a method of describing the load shifting ability of flexible electrical loads in a manner suitable for existing power system dispatch frameworks. The concept of an asymmetric block offer for flexible loads is introduced. This offer structure describes the ability of a flexible load to provide a response to the power system and the subsequent need to recover. The conventional system dispatch algorithm is altered to facilitate the dispatch of demand response units alongside generating units using the proposed offer structure. The value of demand response is assessed through case studies that dispatch flexible supermarket refrigeration loads for the provision of regulating power. The demand resource is described by a set of asymmetric blocks, and a set of four blocks offers is shown to offer cost savings for the procurement of regulating power in excess of 20%. For comparative purposes, the cost savings achievable with a fully observable and controllable demand response resource are evaluated, using a time series model of the refrigeration loads. The fully modeled resource offers greater savings; however the difference is small and potentially insufficient to justify the investment required to fully model and control individual flexible loads. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Electricity markets are based on several sequential energy and reserve trading mechanisms to constantly maintain the balance between generation and demand. During the last years, reserve markets are getting much importance all around the world with the increasing social awareness of the renewable energy benefits. Additional reserve quantities and larger remunerations are being implemented by the regulators since this renewable energy is highly dependent on weather conditions uncertainties. Utilities are therefore demanding more and more powerful models to better optimize their reserve bidding curves to be sent to the system operators. This paper describes a new methodology to obtain an optimized real bidding curve for the secondary (spinning) reserve market. The approach is based on the maximization of a company profit, assuming a set of residual demand curves scenarios for its competitors' representation, and considering the day-ahead market opportunity cost to build the reserve cost curve. The case study validates the main features of the proposed methodology by its application to the Spanish secondary reserve market. This methodology is being daily used by one of the most important electricity companies in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The United States targets to supply 20% of its electricity generation using wind energy by 2030. The expansion of renewable resources, especially weather-based resources such as wind, creates more uncertainty and variability in the operation of the power grid. New methods and approaches in electricity market operations are needed to efficiently manage the continuing increase in variability and uncertainty caused by expanding intermittent wind. This paper proposes an improved stochastic programming approach for incorporating wind uncertainty into energy markets. The proposed formulation improves the two-stage stochastic unit commitment problem by introducing a dynamic decision making approach similar to a multi-stage formulation in the presence of wind power scenarios which are not well represented by a scenario tree. The numerical results present up to 1%–2% decrease in operational costs compared to the two-stage stochastic unit commitment formulation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For a ‘discrete choice experiment’ to gauge consumer preferences for alternative electric service plans, surveys were administered to over 1000 residences in 12 electricity markets. The resulting estimated choice function parameters provide insights into the importance consumers place on individual features. Several demographic effects were identified that associate preferences with customers, providing powerful and actionable market segmentation tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines principles that govern a new utility business model for vertically integrated electric utilities. The principles spell out a direct relationship between the utility and its customers in which customers may have a greater say in the sources of their energy. A sample program illustrates these principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For several years, California’s carbon market has cleared just above a quarterly auction price floor. Following an anemic February 2016 auction, however, secondary market prices fell below the price floor. At the May auction, 90% of available allowances went unsold—$880 million worth, if valued at the price floor. These developments suggest that a combination of allowance oversupply and uncertainty over post-2020 climate policy has destabilized the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More studies on retention of impacts from increasingly popular behavioral energy efficiency programs are needed to allow programs to be credited with all their attributable effects, accurately assess cost-effectiveness, and optimize program design and delivery. This study reviews recent retention results for home-energy report-type (HER) programs, examines technical degradation function (TDF) and falloff, and provides sample calculations on program cycling for improved cost-effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient electricity day-ahead market designs include virtual transactions. These are financial contracts awarded at day-ahead prices and settled at real-time prices. Under current PJM market rules, there is an asymmetry in the settlement treatment of different types of virtual transactions, but a recent recommendation by PJM to eliminate this asymmetry is problematical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the integration of crystalline and thin film (a-Si) floating photovoltaic (PV) arrays for electricity generation in remote mine sites. Floating PV arrays rather than regular ground mounted PV arrays are considered more suitable for the site because it decreases the environmental impacts--in terms of not requiring landscaping or deforestation. The research provides a techno-economic analysis for the integration of varying levels of PV with 40 MW of diesel generation. The main challenge was the consideration of the gen sets part load together with the variability of the solar resource at the site. Applications of alternative technologies at remote mine sites are fairly limited. Results show that at a diesel fuel cost greater than $129c/L a-Si floating PV would offer some financial benefits. At this price, this is not applicable to floating crystalline PV arrays because the infrastructure required to keep them floating would offset the cost savings from the PV array. Further savings could be achieved if energy storage or load shedding could be implemented at the mine, or extra revenue could be generated through carbon credits. Solar energy for remote mine sites is not a solution to 100% of its electricity demands, unless an energy storage is available, so diesel generation is still a requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid oxide cells (SOCs) can be operated either as fuel cells (SOFC) to convert fuels to electricity or as electrolyzers (SOEC) to convert electricity to fuels such as hydrogen or methane. Pressurized operation of SOCs provide several benefits on both cell and system level. If successfully matured, pressurized SOEC based electrolyzers can become more efficient both energy- and cost-wise than PEM and Alkaline systems. Pressurization of SOFCs can significantly increase the cell power density and reduce the size of auxiliary components. In the present study, a SOC stack was successfully operated at pressures up to 25 bar. The pressure dependency of the measured current-voltage ( I-V) curves and impedance spectra on the SOC stack are analyzed and the relation between various system parameters and pressure is derived. With increasing pressure the open circuit voltage (OCV) and the reaction kinetics (electrode performance) increases for thermodynamic and kinetic reasons, respectively. Further, the summit frequency of the gas concentration impedance arc and the pressure difference across the stack and heat exchangers is seen to decrease with increasing pressure following a power-law expression. Finally a durability test was conducted at 10 bar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic and industrial literature concerning the energy use of commercial kitchens is scarce. Electricity consumption data were collected from distribution board current transformers in a sample of fourteen UK public house-restaurants. This was set up to identify patterns of appliance use as well as to assess the total energy consumption of these establishments. The electricity consumption in the selected commercial kitchens was significantly higher than current literature estimates. On average, 63% of the premises' electricity consumption was attributed to the catering activity. Key appliances that contributed to the samples' average daily electricity consumption of the kitchen were identified as refrigeration (70 kWh, 41%), fryers (11 kWh, 13%), combination ovens (35 kWh, 12%), bain maries (27 kWh, 9%) and grills (37 kWh, 12%). Behavioural factors and poor maintenance were identified as major contributors to excessive electricity usage with potential savings of 70 and 45%, respectively. Initiatives are required to influence operator behaviour, such as the expansion of mandatory energy labelling, improved feedback information and the use of behaviour change campaigns. Strict maintenance protocols and more appropriate sizing of refrigeration would be of great benefit to energy reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a modeling approach for estimating emissions (e.g., carbon dioxide) from nuclear, coal, natural gas, and hydropower generators in reaction to short-term changes to electricity demand. The modeling approach accounts for a set of operating constraints (OCs), including scheduled maintenance, forced outage, spinning reserves, fuel switching, seasonal output capacities, and seasonal hydro resource availability. It is found that these OCs are important to achieve reasonable estimates of electricity production by fuel type as well as associated emissions. This conclusion follows from an analysis of electric power generation by networks of power plants in Texas and New York in 2004 and 2005. The inputs to the model with operating constraints (OC model) developed in this article include hourly electricity demand, fuel costs, a list of power plants in the network, their basic generation characteristics, and the set of OCs developed in this article. Given these inputs, the OC model estimates the hourly amount of electricity generation by each power plant in the network, which leads to estimates of marginal resource consumption and emissions. Our central result is that historical annual and monthly generation by fuel type and efficiency are well estimated by the OC model and that the exclusion of OCs leads to poor estimates. This work can be combined with emerging work on wind and solar generation to provide a complete picture of contemporary grid dispatch and associated emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use a unique dataset that combines an original survey of households, information about the structural characteristics of their homes, utility-provided electricity usage records and program participation status, to study the uptake of energy efficiency incentives and their effect on residential electricity consumption. Attention is restricted to homes where heating and cooling is provided exclusively by air-source heat pumps. We deploy a difference-in-difference study design and find that replacing a heat pump with a new one does reduce electricity usage by 8% on average. The effect differs dramatically across households based upon whether they receive an incentive towards the purchase of a new heat pump. Among incentive recipients, the effect is small, and the larger the incentive, the smaller the reduction in electricity usage. These findings suggest that capital costs are incorporated into the (long-term) cost of energy, generating an apparent rebound effect that is much more pronounced for incentive recipients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse vertical integration between generators and retailers in electricity markets and we discuss the implications for price decisions of the presence of asymmetric (cost) information in a simple P-A framework. We analyze a situation in which generators post supply bids taking into account the profit of the entire vertically integrated group they belong to. We then discuss the way in which the degree of vertical integration affects this bidding strategy. Using Italian electricity auction data we show how bid prices posted by a pivotal producer are significantly influenced by variables incorporating vertical integration into the econometric model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forecasting quantile and value-at-risk levels for commodity prices is methodologically challenging because of the distinctive stochastic properties of the price density functions, volatility clustering and the importance of exogenous factors. Despite this, accurate risk measures have considerable value in trading and risk management with the topic being actively researched for better techniques. We approach the problem by using a multifactor, dynamic, quantile regression formulation, extended to include GARCH properties, and applied to both in-sample estimation and out-of-sample forecasting of traded electricity prices. This captures the specification effects of mean reversion, spikes, time varying volatility and demonstrates how the prices of gas, coal and carbon, forecasts of demand and reserve margin in addition to price volatility influence the electricity price quantiles. We show how the price coefficients for these factors vary substantially across the quantiles and offer a new, useful synthesis of GARCH effects within quantile regression. We also show that a linear quantile regression model outperforms skewed GARCH-t and CAViaR models, as specified on the shocks to conditional expectations, regarding the accuracy of out-of-sample forecasts of value-at-risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electricity sector is the largest source of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in the world, and reducing these emissions can often be costly. However, because electricity markets remain integrated at a shallow level (with different pricing regulations), many gains from deeper integration (adoption of marginal cost pricing everywhere) are yet to be realized. This paper assesses the benefits of deep integration between a "hydro" jurisdiction and a "thermal" one. It also underscores the inefficiency of trade when pricing rules differ. Our detailed hourly model, calibrated with real data from the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, Canada, estimates price, consumption, emissions and welfare changes associated with fully integrating electricity markets, under transmission constraints. A negative abatement cost of $37/tonne of CO2 was found (for more than 1 million tonnes), clearly illustrating the untapped potential of wealth creation in carbon reduction initiatives. Furthermore, given the inefficiency of shallow integration between markets, we found that removing interconnections between markets offers a relatively affordable CO2-reduction opportunity, at $21.5/tonne. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work has demonstrated a novel piezoelectric energy harvester without a complex structure and appended component that is capable of scavenging vibration energy from arbitrary directions with multiple resonant frequencies. In this harvester, a spiral-shaped elastic thin beam instead of a traditional thin cantilever beam was adopted to absorb external vibration with arbitrary direction in three-dimensional (3D) spaces owing to its ability to bend flexibly and stretch along arbitrary direction. Furthermore, multiple modes in the elastic thin beam contribute to a possibility to widen the working bandwidth with multiple resonant frequencies. The experimental results show that the harvester was capable of scavenging the vibration energy in 3D arbitrary directions; they also exhibited triple power peaks at about 16 Hz, 21 Hz, and 28 Hz with the powers of 330 µW, 313 µW, and 6 µW, respectively. In addition, human walking and water wave energies were successfully converted into electricity, proving that our harvester was practical to scavenge the time-variant or multi-directional vibration energies in our daily life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming to relieve the large amount of wind power curtailment during the heating period in the North China region, a thermal-electric decoupling (TED) approach is proposed to both bring down the constraint of forced power output of combined heat and power plants and increase the electric load level during valley load times that assist the power grid in consuming more wind power. The operating principles of the thermal-electric decoupling approach is described, the mathematical model of its profits is developed, the constraint conditions of its operation are listed, also, an improved parallel conjugate gradient is utilized to bypass the saddle problem and accelerate the optimal speed. Numerical simulations are implemented and reveal an optimal allocation of TED which with a rated power of 280 MW and 185 MWh heat storage capacity are possible. This allocation of TED could bring approximately 16.9 billion Yuan of economic profit and consume more than 80% of the surplus wind energy which would be curtailed without the participation of TED. The results in this article verify the effectiveness of this method that could provide a referential guidance for thermal-electric decoupling system allocation in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey's electricity mix is dominated by fossil fuels, but the country has ambitious future targets for renewable and nuclear energy. At present, environmental impacts of electricity generation in Turkey are unknown so this paper represents a first attempt to fill this knowledge gap. Taking a life cycle approach, the study considers eleven impacts from electricity generation over the period 1990-2014. All 516 power plants currently operational in Turkey are assessed: lignite, hard coal, natural gas, hydro, onshore wind and geothermal. The results show that the annual impacts from electricity have been going up steadily over the period, increasing by 2-9 times, with the global warming potential being higher by a factor of five. This is due to a four-fold increase in electricity demand and a growing share of fossil fuels. The impact trends per unit of electricity generated differ from those for the annual impacts, with only four impacts being higher today than in 1990, including the global warming potential. Most other impacts are lower from 35% to two times. These findings demonstrate the need for diversifying the electricity mix by increasing the share of domestically-abundant renewable resources, such as geothermal, wind, and solar energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many new demand response strategies are emerging for energy management in smart grids. Real-Time Energy Pricing (RTP) is one important aspect of consumer Demand Side Management (DSM), which encourages consumers to participate in load scheduling. This can help reduce peak demand and improve power system efficiency. The use of Intelligent Decision Support Systems (IDSSs) for load scheduling has become necessary in order to enable consumers to respond to the changing economic value of energy across different hours of the day. The type of scheduling problem encountered by a consumer IDSS is typically NP-hard, which warrants the search for good heuristics with efficient computational performance and ease of implementation. This paper presents an extensive evaluation of a heuristic scheduling algorithm for use in a consumer IDSS. A generic cost model for hourly pricing is utilized, which can be configured for traditional on/off peak pricing, RTP, Time of Use Pricing (TOUP), Two-Tier Pricing (2TP) and combinations thereof. The heuristic greedily schedules controllable appliances to minimize smart appliance energy costs and has a polynomial worst-case computation time. Extensive computational experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm and the obtained results indicate the gaps between the optimal achievable costs are negligible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to tackle climate change, Guangdong has been chosen as an experimental province for low carbon transition by the Chinese government. To analyze the low carbon transition of the electricity sector in Guangdong, a techno-economic model is developed. By applying the model, the policies of CO2tax and subsidy are analyzed first. Based on the analysis, an optimal integrated CO2tax and subsidy policy is designed to exert positive pole and limit negative effects of a simple CO2tax or subsidy policy. As a result, the development of renewable power can be incentivized efficiently and the development of coal-fired power plants can be inhibited. The CO2emission per unit electricity supply can be reduced about 25.1% by 2020 compared with that in 2007.The cost of unit electricity supply will increase about 15.1%, which is close to that in a no-policy scenario and similar to the historical level. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – The proposed solar thermal cooling cogeneration cycle is well suited for industrial as well as domestic needs and it eliminates need of electricity for refrigeration system. The purpose of this paper is to integrate power and cooling to minimize the energy usage. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed plant has double turbine with superheater and reheater to extract more energy, operating on single generator. The saturated refrigerant from the exit of the generator is used to run the primary turbine and the exit mass of refrigerant is split into 50:50 cooling to power ratio. Findings – It produces additional power of 24 kW at absorber concentration of 0.42 and turbine inlet concentration of 0.95, with separator temperature of 145°C and atmosphere temperature of 30°C. Research limitations/implications – The proposed cooling cogeneration cycle is possible to run on all the refrigerant working fluid mixture and it overcomes the problem of Goswami cycle which is not possible to run in hot climatic countries. Originality/value – The cycle can operate individually as refrigeration cycle, power cycle and both and it will run all climatic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The access of distributed energy to traditional distribution grid can enhance the reliability and provide important support for the construction of low-carbon electricity. However, the current reliability evaluation methods do not correlate with the notion of low-carbon power grid. To fully reflect the stochastic fluctuation of the sources and loads, taking the Monte Carlo simulation method as a framework method, the probabilistic reliability evaluation method based on point estimation is proposed to evaluate the probabilistic reliability of isolating part combining with a new shedding strategy. Then analyse the low-carbon benefit on the result of reliability evaluation. Finally, make a simulation based on the case of actual areas in China. From the case, the low-carbon benefit promotes 20%. Therefore, the validity and accuracy of the method can be verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High price volatility and excessive price reduction are introduced as two emerging problems in wind dominant electricity markets. In this study, an agent-based simulation methodology is employed to investigate the impact of two pricing mechanisms, uniform and pay-as-bid, on the mentioned problems. According to the proposed agent-based approach, electricity market agents (here generation units) learn from their previous bidding experience to obtain maximum financial. A comparative study is then conducted to investigate the impact of mentioned pricing schemes on price volatility and average price level. It is shown that these two pricing mechanisms cause different bidding behaviours for the generation units. This study suggests that this change in market agent behaviour, modifies the overall price volatility and system average price. The results indicate that a pay-as-bid pricing mechanism can alleviate policy maker's concerns regarding mentioned emerging problems in power systems with extremely high percentage of wind power penetration. It is also shown that market efficiency is lower under pay-as-bid scheme. The validity of the proposed methodology is investigated using IEEE 24-bus test system with 33 generation units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy "Trilemma" seeks to develop an electricity market which simultaneously ensures environmental quality, security of supply, and economic sustainability. The objective of this paper is to present the "Trilemma" energy as the latest trend in the design of energy policy. For this, a theoretical framework is presented in sections 2 and 3, in section 4 and 5 the importance of security of supply and economic sustainability are discussed, respectively. In section 6 the energy "trilemma" is presented, in section 7 a brief state of the art is showed. Finally in section 8, it is approached three different electricity markets. It is concluded that the regulator has passed in recent years from encouraging a liberalized market scheme, to promote a scheme based on intervention through policies that affect the market competitiveness but allow achieving its environmental goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing geographic disconnect between consumption of goods, the extraction and processing of resources, and the environmental impacts associated with production activities makes it crucial to factor global trade into sustainability assessments. Using an empirically validated environmentally extended global trade model, we examine the relationship between two key resources underpinning economies and human well-being--energy and freshwater. A comparison of three energy sectors (petroleum, gas, and electricity) reveals that freshwater consumption associated with gas and electricity production is largely confined within the territorial boundaries where demand originates. This finding contrasts with petroleum, which exhibits a varying ratio of territorial to international freshwater consumption, depending on the origin of demand. For example, although the United States and China have similar demand associated with the petroleum sector, international freshwater consumption is three times higher for the former than the latter. Based on mapping patterns of freshwater consumption associated with energy sectors at subnational scales, our analysis also reveals concordance between pressure on freshwater resources associated with energy production and freshwater scarcity in a number of river basins globally. These energy-driven pressures on freshwater resources in areas distant from the origin of energy demand complicate the design of policy to ensure security of fresh water and energy supply. Although much of the debate around energy is focused on greenhouse gas emissions, our findings highlight the need to consider the full range of consequences of energy production when designing policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the purpose of generating electricity, what leakage rate renders the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of natural gas equivalent to that of coal? This paper answers this question using a simple model, which assumes that the comprehensive GHG footprint is the sum of the carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions resulting from (1) electricity generation and (2) natural gas leakage. The emissions resulting from electricity generation are taken from published life-cycle assessments (LCAs), whereas the emissions from natural gas leakage are estimated assuming that natural gas is 80 % methane, whose global warming potential (GWP) is calculated using equations provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Results, presented on a straightforward plot of GHG footprint versus time horizon, show that natural gas leakage of 2.0 % or 4.8 % eliminates half of natural gas's GHG footprint advantage over coal at 20- or 100-year time horizons, respectively. Leakage of 3.9 % or 9.1 % completely eliminates the GHG footprint advantage at 20- and 100-year time horizons, respectively. A two-parameter power law approximation of the IPCC's equation for GWP is utilized and gives equivalent results. Results indicate that leakage control is essential for natural gas to deliver a smaller GHG footprint than coal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a review of electricity profiles in UK households and their electricity demands as well as new trends and solutions for energy consumption. There are two aspects investigated in this research; the first deals with new trends and development in the field of technology, which includes usage of electric vehicles. The Second aspect is ecological, of which the UK is trying to reduce their energy demands and CO2 emission in order to find better solutions for energy problem. Also, this paper investigates renewable energy sources and new technology trends in changeable market electricity prices. The lack of information in daily electricity usage outline per household is a key point on which a new solution will be proposed. Original data are collected from daily energy consumption and energy peak demands from UK electricity providers. Furthermore, the effect of energy usage by electric vehicle is just recently introduced into UK and considered as part of overall development. UK has introduced new solutions for electricity usage, involving renewable energy supplies, mostly solar panels, as best way to meet the increase in electricity demands as well as electricity bills. Data shows that solar energy power is more and more used, which is procured with lower PV prices during manufacturing process and their installation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By 2020, intermittent renewable small scale energy sources (e.g. wind and solar energy) are expected to represent about 17% of the EU's total electricity consumption. However, a straight forward implementation of renewable energy options is not easy, due to various barriers and obstacles. In this paper we describe the intermediate outcomes of a European Partnership under the name of GREAT (Growing Renewable Energy Applications and Technologies), funded under the INTERREG IVB NWE Programme. GREAT aims to encourage communities and small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) to develop technological solutions for Smart Grid, Renewable Energy and Distributive Generation; research and develop policy issues for regulatory authorities and provide structured co-operation opportunities between SMEs and research institutes / technology developers. In this paper we explore what the main challenges are in relation to the diffusion and adoption process of renewable energy solutions and technologies in The Netherlands. Their target is that 14% of total electricity consumption is represented by renewable energy sources, while the share of renewables in final energy consumption was a mere 4.5% in 2013 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the Romantic period, lightning was the spirit of the age. Yet it was so in perils no less than in promise, radiating its charges unpredictably. The first channel in this essay tracks the vagaries of domestic science that play a part in boyhoods in the wake of Benjamin Franklin's theater of electric experiment. I then turn to the Byronized Shakespearean stage and the Byronic interplays with which Mary Shelley works the lightning bond of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature. I conclude with Percy Bysshe Shelley's devoted idealism in the climate of Byronic theatrics. All these scenes contend with lightning's contradictory shocks and subtly modal powers of destruction and restoration, its agency for dazzling illumination and murkier critical reflections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Siloxane-induced damage is responsible for a significant proportion of the cost of producing electricity from biogas. The performance of siloxane removal vessels is currently determined by discrete sampling followed by analysis at an external laboratory, making refined process control difficult to achieve. This article introduces the use of on-line siloxane detection. Siloxane breakthrough curves within this article identified that upon approaching media exhaustion, a concentration of 30 mg/m3 was reached within a short time frame. Consequently, changepoint analysis was evaluated as a method to predict the onset of breakthrough. Breakthrough data were collated from vessels that exhibited both broad-fronted and sharp-fronted breakthrough profiles. When applied to broad-fronted profiles, changepoint analysis provided a 25-45 h early warning of breakthrough. In this case, probabilistic changepoint detection methods facilitated by on-line analysis provide sufficient process lag time to enable duty/standby switch over before the critical siloxane concentration is reached. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the electricity generation potential from the mass burn application of as-derived and pre-processed municipal solid wastes in Greece, based on the experience gained in Europe and the USA under the Greek National Plan for Waste Management. The results showed that it is feasible to use the latter in existing power plants that are properly equipped for handling volatile metal and dioxin emissions. Athens, Thessaloniki, Thessaly, and Western Greece require regional Waste-to-Energy facilities for as-derived and pre-processed wastes. Implementation of such a plan will reduce fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rapid development of information and communications technology (ICT) is providing new ways to access media content. Electronic media are sometimes more advantageous from an environmental perspective than paper-based media solutions, but ICT-based media can also bring environmental burdens. This study compared the potential environmental impacts in a life cycle perspective of a print edition of a magazine and that of its electronic edition read on a tablet device. Important objectives were to identify activities giving rise to the main environmental impacts for both the print and tablet editions, determine the key factors influencing these impacts, and address data gaps and uncertainties. A detailed assessment of the tablet edition is provided in a previous article (part 1), whereas this article compares it with the print edition. The methodology used was life cycle assessment and the environmental impacts assessed included climate change, cumulative energy/exergy demand, metal depletion, photochemical oxidant formation, particulate matter formation, terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, marine eutrophication, and fossil depletion. Use of different functional units to compare the print and tablet editions of the magazine resulted in different relative environmental impacts. In addition, emerging (low number of readers and low reading time per copy) and mature (higher number of readers and higher reading time per copy) tablet editions yielded varying results. The emerging tablet edition resulted in higher potential environmental impacts per reader than the print edition, but the mature tablet edition yielded lower impacts per reader in half the impact categories assessed. This illustrates the importance of spreading the environmental impacts over a large number of readers. The electricity mix used in product system processes did not greatly affect the results of tablet/print comparisons, but overall number of readers for the tablet edition, number of readers per copy for the print edition, file size, and degree of use of the tablet device proved crucial for the comparison results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the recent development of advanced metering infrastructure, real-time pricing (RTP) scheme is anticipated to be introduced in future retail electricity market. This paper proposes an algorithm for a home energy management scheduler (HEMS) to reduce the cost of energy consumption using RTP. The proposed algorithm works in three subsequent phases namely real-time monitoring (RTM), stochastic scheduling (STS) and real-time control (RTC). In RTM phase, characteristics of available controllable appliances are monitored in real-time and stored in HEMS. In STS phase, HEMS computes an optimal policy using stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) to select a set of appliances to be controlled with an objective of the total cost of energy consumption in a house. Finally, in RTC phase, HEMS initiates the control of the selected appliances. The proposed HEMS is unique as it intrinsically considers uncertainties in RTP and power consumption pattern of various appliances. In RTM phase, appliances are categorized according to their characteristics to ease the control process, thereby minimizing the number of control commands issued by HEMS. Simulation results validate the proposed method for HEMS. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates joint scheduling problem of large-scale smart appliances and batteries (e.g., in a smart building), to minimize electricity payment, user's dissatisfaction and battery loss under kinds of constraints. Due to the binary nature of charge and discharge states of battery, this problem is formulated as a constrained mixed-integer nonlinear program. In order to solve it efficiently, a distributed mixed optimization approach is proposed. First, Lagrangian relaxation is applied to decompose the original problem into two sets of subproblems, each of which corresponds to scheduling on appliance/battery. Then, the battery scheduling subproblem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear program and tackled by Benders decomposition. The main advantages of the proposed approach are the distributed implementation and low computational complexity, as shown by simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the context of increasing digitalisation of portions of everyday life, this paper analyses the use of data and the process of data production itself as boundary objects. In this case study, data deal with private households' electricity consumption, asking if consumers will change their conduct when they are confronted with real-time and dynamic consumption's data visualization. Such a reflexive socio-technical approach is symptomatic of the development of trace-based regulation of practices. Based on an experimental case study of reflexive visualization of electricity consumption, the paper shows that data building process has to be analysed too, since data are produced by a network of actors who performed translations on data itself. Then data are boundary objects that are translated, i.e. decontextualised to be recontextualised again. That is why according to some conditions only, such encounters could constitute particular types of subjects and attachments, which we call «quantified selves». [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct carbon fuel cells (DCFC) that use zirconia-based electrolytes and molten Sb anodes have much promise for the efficient conversion of carbonaceous solid fuels into electricity. However, etching of the electrolyte, and ultimately cell failure, has been observed during operation. In this study, we have investigated this etching phenomenon as a function of the electrolyte composition and cell operating conditions and demonstrated that it is not electrochemical in nature, but rather results from reaction between the electrolyte and Sb2C3 that is produced during cell operation. Etching was also observed when a yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) wafer was immersed in molten Sb2C3 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]