Abstract

Although integration of higher shares of renewable energy sources in the energy mix improves sustainability, it has profound consequences for the electricity markets. The uncertainty and variability of renewables escalates the need for cost-effective ways to balance supply and demand in real-time. Energy storage systems are considered a viable solution to hedge against the intermittency of supply. However, most prior studies suggest marginal or even negative profitability of batteries when participating in one stage of the electricity market. Given the physical characteristics of batteries which make it suitable for in multiple market stages, we investigate the profitability of batteries when simultaneously participating in the day-ahead and balancing markets. We formulate a stochastic programming framework to choose optimal market position, optimal bidding strategy, and optimal capacity split between the two markets. Our results show that participation of batteries in multiple stages of the electricity markets generates additional profit for the battery. The optimal strategy is to participate in the dayahead market with full capacity as a seller and with fullcapacity in the down-regulation secondary balancing power market as a buyer.

Abstract

Committed to green and low-carbon development, many countries like China is increasing its efforts to promote the development of its service economy such as tourism industries. Considering that tourism is an increasingly important contributor of energy consumption and pollutants emission, its green/low carbon development will play a significant role for China. Given the characteristics of renewable/green energy resources and tourism, a possible path is promoting the co-development of tourism and distributed energy which can create new economic growth points in addition to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and critical air pollutants (CAPs) compared to transitional development pattern. This study attempts to develop an evaluation framework to investigate the effects of the codevelopment of tourism and distributed energy. A typical tourism and distributed energy co-development project in Shenzhen which is a typical low-carbon development city is took as an example to demonstrate the application of the framework and related methods proposed to assess the benefit. The results indicate that the emission reduction effect is 0.5 thousand tonnes (Tt) of CAPs and 7.8 Tt of GHG in 2017. The proposed framework can effectively help China identify the effects of the co-development of tourism and distributed energy, which is helpful to formulate policy and implement actions for next step action aiming at promoting green/low-carbon development and ecological civilization construction.

Abstract

The frictional pressure drop characteristics in gas channels of Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cells (PEFCs) are modelled in this work. The two-phase flow in gas channels of PEFCs has its special features: (1) combination of reactant gas, water vapor and liquid water, (2) flow in micro/mini channels, (3) reactant consumption, (4) condensation from water vapor, (5) continuous water introduction from reaction and (6) flow pattern transitions. Therefore, previous two-phase pressure drop correlations, primarily for adiabatic gas liquid flow, might not be able to capture the pressure drop in the gas channel with a porous wall. The new flow pattern based pressure drop method covers three major flow regimes in gas channels, i.e., the single-phase gas flow zone, and droplet/mist flow and slug/film flow in the two-phase flow zone. In the droplet/mist flow regime, a homogeneous flow modelling was adopted, while in the slug/film flow regime, a modified Chisholm value of 8.5 was used. The new predictive tool presents improved accuracy in pressure drop estimation for different current densities and stoichiometric ratios of operating PEFCs.

Abstract

This paper presents a method for spatially representing the total temporal energetic complementarity between three different variable renewable sources, by means of an index created from correlation coefficients and compromise programming. The method is employed to study the complementarity of wind speed, solar radiation and surface runoff on a monthly scale using continental Colombia as case study, during the year of 2015. Results show that the combination of solar radiation and surface runoff presented the highest energetic complementarity during this year, heavily influenced by El Niño phenomenon.

Abstract

Thermal energy storage has been attracting more and more attentions due mainly to its distinctive features on peak-load shifting capability for systems with renewable energy involved. To further improve the overall thermal efficiency for charging/discharging processes, heat transfer techniques to enhance phase change heat transfer are typically employed. This paper introduced a novel concept of partially-filling ratio of metal foam into PCM. The melting heat transfer can be expected to be further enhanced with partially filled metal foams. To this aim, an axisymmetric twodimensional computational model was established. A series of numerical simulations were carried out to study the effect of filling ratio of metal foam on the melting performance of a TES tube. Good agreement was achieved through the comparison of temperatures obtained from simulation and experimental measurements. Based on the results, it can be concluded as follows: if the goal was to enhance heat transfer simultaneously to save material cost, the suggested filling ratio was 0.90; if saving material cost was the aim, the filling ratio can be further reduced to 0.85. The proposed novel TES unit with partially-filled metal foam outperformed other competing heat transfer techniques, favoring a progressive potential in thermal energy storage applications.

Abstract

An experimental rig of a micro gas turbine is built and investgeted. This rig is composed of the Capstone C65 micro gas turbine and throttle device, which can be operated under variable speed and inlet air throttling (IAT) operating strategies. The speed remains constant in each object throgh the combined variable speed operating strategy and throttle device. When the gas turbine is operated under IAT operating strategy, the air is throttled and the output power decreases. Moreover, the slight variation is presented on the electric efficiency of the gas turbine between IAT and variable speed operating strategies. This study provides a feasible operating strategy of the gas turbine to improve the off-design performance of the energy system.

Abstract

Cities evolved to be major energy consumption centers. However, their potential to generate electricity from renewables is in most cases constrained to photovoltaics. Therefore, transforming them into sustainable and self-sufficient urban areas is a challenging task. In this preliminary study, we have investigated the match between photovoltaics (PV) generation and electrical load of five commercial buildings located in Sweden. First, the rooftop PV potential was assessed. Secondly, the optimization was performed aiming at reducing the energy flow between building/buildings and local electrical network. Results indicate that from the perspective of minimal power flow (for single buildings) optimal are PV system oriented to the southeast and southwest with a relatively small tilt angle of 15°.

Abstract

In small to medium‐scale buildings such as residences, direct expansion (DX) based air conditioning (A/C) systems are widely used for the control of indoor thermal environment. However, to simultaneously control indoor air temperature and humidity, additional equipment or costly measures are necessary. Therefore, in this paper, taking the advantages of multi‐evaporator technology, a novel DX based A/C system having a two‐sectioned evaporator or cooling coil (TS‐DXAC) was proposed, and its inherent operational characteristics were numerically studied through simulation. The evaporator in the TS‐DXAC system had two parallel‐connected sections, a latent cooling coil section (LCC) anda sensible cooling coil section (SCC), operating at two different evaporating temperatures, with a constant total supply air flow rate passing through the entire two‐sectioned evaporator. The simulation results suggested that the TS‐DXAC system can achieve a wider combination of total cooling load (TCC) and equipment sensible heat ratio (E SHR), and a higher area ratio of LCC to SCC is beneficial to a larger variation range of TCC and E SHR.

Abstract

Aiming at the deficiencies of node vulnerability assessment based on complex network theory, adaptive model based on multi-attribute to assess node comprehensive vulnerability of shipboard power network is proposed. First, the structural vulnerability and physical vulnerability is considered. Then, the multi-attribute methods were applied in adaptive comprehensive evaluation model to obtain reasonable weights allocation plan of two kind indices. The adaptive comprehensive vulnerability assessment model of shipboard power network consider both the topological structure of the network and the physical property of the components. Thirdly, prove the maximal element theorem under quasi-order to verify the reasonability of maximizing the evaluation function. Finally, the comprehensive vulnerability index is compared to traditional structural vulnerability index. The test on a ring shaped shipboard power network demonstrates the validity of the model.

Abstract

Competitiveness change after the establishment of carbon emissions trading mechanism is explored on the basis of Beijing industry energy consumption and carbon emissions price data. It is demonstrated that additional costs incurred by carbon trading mechanism have less effect on the industrial competitiveness. Scenario analysis is also conducted to discuss changes under different price.