Energies, Volume 7, Issue 12

In order to satisfy the requirements of Directive 2010/31/EU for Zero Energy Buildings (ZEB), innovative solutions were investigated for building HVAC systems. Horizontal air-ground heat exchangers (HAGHE) offer a significant contribution in reducing...

Large-scale longwall mining of shallow coal seams may cause mining-induced fractures that can project completely through to the surface. This could lead to a series of mine safety and environmental issues, further deteriorating the already fragile ec...

The study assessed the wind energy potential of ten selected sites in the south western region of Nigeria and carried out a cost benefit analysis of wind power generation at those sites. Twenty four years’ (1987 to 2010) wind speed data at 10 m heigh...

This paper presents the analysis and design optimization of a coaxial surface-mounted permanent-magnet magnetic gear. The magnetic field distribution in the coaxial magnetic gear is calculated analytically in the polar coordinate system and then val...

In this paper, a methodology for multi-objective optimization of trigeneration plants is presented. It is primarily applicable to the systems for buildings’ energy supply characterized by high load variations on daily, weekly and annual bases, as wel...

Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) extract heat from underground hot dry rock (HDR) by first fracturing the HDR and then circulating a geofluid (typically water) into it and bringing the heated geofluid to a power plant to generate electricity. This s...

State of charge (SOC) estimation is essential to battery management systems in electric vehicles (EVs) to ensure the safe operations of batteries and providing drivers with the remaining range of the EVs. A number of estimation algorithms have been d...

A recombinant strain of Escherichia coli FBWHR was used for ethanol fermentation from hot-water sugar maple wood extract hydrolyzate in batch experiments. Kinetic studies of cell growth, sugar utilization and ethanol production were investigated at d...

Two cable logging systems were reviewed to compare the efficiency of potential biomass extraction from remote forest sites in Ireland based on productive machine hour (PMH) and unit cost of operation (€/m³). Three operational scenarios (SC) were anal...

Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) can be utilized to shave the peak load in power systems and thus defer the need to upgrade the power grid. Based on a rolling load forecasting method, along with the peak load reduction requirements in reality, at...

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) represent a possible sustainable solution for personal urban transportation. Presently, the most limiting characteristic of BEVs is their short range, mainly because of battery technology limitations. A proper design...

We estimate the contamination risks from the atmospheric dispersion of radionuclides released by severe nuclear power plant accidents using the ECHAM/Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) atmospheric chemistry (EMAC) atmospheric chemistry-general cir...

This paper proposes a simple and efficient approach for the optimal dispatch in a medium-voltage microgrid (MG) with various types of distributed generation (DG). The fuel costs generated by these DGs are determined using quadratic and linear functio...

We propose a procedure to estimate the fatigue loads on wind turbines, based on a recent framework used for reconstructing data series of stochastic properties measured at wind turbines. Through a standard fatigue analysis, we show that it is possibl...

Over the last years, much attention has been paid to the development of efficient and low-cost power systems for biomass-to-electricity conversion. This paper aims at investigating the design- and part-load performance of an innovative plant based on...

State-of-the-art integrated macroalgae utilization processes, consisting of drying, gasification, and combined cycle, are proposed and their performance with respect to energy efficiency are evaluated. To achieve high exergy efficiency, the integrati...

The international diffusion of environmental innovations is getting increasing attention as an opportunity to improve competitiveness. Especially in the energy sector, countries use policy support to this end. A recent goal in this context is the for...

This paper reports a modeling methodology to predict the electrical and thermal behaviors of a 2.7 V/650 F ultracapacitor (UC) cell from LS Mtron Ltd. (Anyang, Korea). The UC cell is subject to the charge/discharge cycling with constant-current betwe...

Though the importance of curvature continuity on compressor blade performances has been realized, there are two major questions that need to be solved, i.e., the respective effects of curvature continuity at the leading-edge blend point and the main...

More and more wave energy converter (WEC) concepts are reaching prototypelevel. Once the prototype level is reached, the next step in order to further decrease thelevelized cost of energy (LCOE) is optimizing the overall system with a focus on struct...

This paper presents the results of an extensive study of two thermal energy storage (TES) systems. The goal of the research is to make solar energy cost-competitive with other forms of electricity. A small-scale TES system was first built. The inner...

In this study, we investigated the effects of canola oil biodiesel (BD) to improve combustion and exhaust emissions in a common rail direct injection (DI) diesel engine using BD fuel blended with diesel. Experiments were conducted with BD blend amoun...

The knowledge of ground return current in fault occurrence plays a key role in the dimensioning of the earthing grid of substations and of cable sealing end compounds, in the computation of rise of earth potential at substation sites and in electrom...

Ultracapacitors (UCs), with their features of high power density and high current charge-discharge, have become the best choice for dynamic power compensation to improve the stability of microgrids and are increasingly being applied in microgrids. Th...

This paper investigated a 12-slot/11-pole flux switching permanent magnet (FSPM) machine used for electric vehicles (EVs). Five novel rotor teeth shapes are proposed and researched to reduce the cogging torque and torque ripple of the FSPM machine. T...

Fast capacity estimation is a key enabling technique for second-life of lithium-ion batteries due to the hard work involved in determining the capacity of a large number of used electric vehicle (EV) batteries. This paper tries to make three contribu...

The aim of this paper is to present a thermodynamic cycle for the production of electrical power in the 2–5 kW range, suitable for all types of thermally propelled vehicles. The sensible heat recovered from the exhaust gases feeds the energy recovery...

In three-phase inverters used in uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), three-limb inductors and three-limb transformers are commonly used in consideration of cost and size. However, magnetic coupling exists between the three phases of the inverter,...

In this paper, a dual-bridge DC/DC resonant converter with a generalized series and parallel resonant tank is analyzed. A general approach based on Fundamental Harmonic Approximation is used to find the universal steady-state solutions. The analysis...

Isolated electrical systems lack electrical interconnection to other networks and are usually placed in geographically isolated areas—mainly islands or locations in developing countries. Until recently, only diesel generators were able to assure a sa...

Economic and social factors compel large-scale changes in energy systems. An ongoing transition in the United States is driven by environmental concerns, changing patterns of energy end-use, constraints on petroleum supply. Analysis of prior transit...

Control of corner separation has attracted much interest due to its improvement of performance and energy utilization in turbomachinery. Numerical studies have been performed under both design and off-design flow conditions to investigate the effects...

The performance of modern heavy-duty gas turbines is greatly determined by the accurate numerical predictions of thermal loading on the hot-end components. The purpose of this paper is: (1) to present an approach applying a novel numerical technique—...

Active power-sharing among distributed energy sources (DESs) is not only an important way to realize optimal operation of micro-grids, but also the key to maintaining stability for islanded operation. Due to the unique configuration of series micro-g...

A new type of horizontal axis wind turbine adopting the Archimedes spiral blade is introduced for urban-use. Based on the angular momentum conservation law, the design formula for the blade was derived using a variety of shape factors. The aerodynami...

Base station sites (BSSs) powered with renewable energy sources have gained the attention of cellular operators during the last few years. This is because such “green” BSSs impose significant reductions in the operational expenditures (OPEX) of telec...

Microalgae exhibit great potential for biomass production. Although microalgae display an enormous biodiversity, surprisingly only 15 species are used for large scale production processes worldwide. The implementation of new production strains with g...