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Developing Multi-Energy Systems: Technologies, Methods and Models

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2020) | Viewed by 23462

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Miadreza Shafie-khah

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Guest Editor

School of Technology and Innovations, University of Vaasa, 65200 Vaasa, Finland
Interests: smart grid; demand response; electric vehicle; power system; electricity market
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Environmental aspects have been emphasized in designing smart energy systems where sustainable development is a crucial factor. Sustainable development in the energy sector has been introduced as an eventual solution for improving the energy systems to comply with the smart energy requirements considering the environment and energy provision. The development of distributed energy resources such as energy converters and storage can also increase the dependency of energy carriers. On this basis, the cross-impact of various energy vectors should be investigated under the concept of multi-energy systems (MES). Developing technologies, methods, and models in the planning and operation of MES should provide a sustainable system with enhanced flexibility to satisfy the energy demand. To this end, renewable energy resources, energy storage systems, demand response, and electric vehicles will play a key role. In such MES, multi-energy players, who can trade with more than one energy carrier, will be enabled to manage and aggregate demand-side energy resources for enhancing the operational flexibility of the system. In addition, energy policies and energy market regulations can accelerate MES development and facilitate its distribution to small-scale energy systems, such as buildings and homes. This Special Issue aims at encouraging researchers and industries to address their solutions for the design of the system structure as well as of operational and control models for sustainable MES.

Dr. Miadreza Shafie-khah
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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Keywords

multi-energy system
multi-energy carrier
energy hub
distributed energy resource
renewable energy
smart grid
electric vehicle
energy storage system
home energy management
demand response
demand side management
energy market
policy and regulations

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

39 pages, 3915 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Pandapipes: An Open-Source Piping Grid Calculation Package for Multi-Energy Grid Simulations

by Daniel Lohmeier, Dennis Cronbach, Simon Ruben Drauz, Martin Braun and Tanja Manuela Kneiske

Sustainability 2020, 12(23), 9899; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12239899 - 26 Nov 2020

Cited by 36 | Viewed by 5886

Abstract

The increasing complexity of the design and operation evaluation process of multi-energy grids (MEGs) requires tools for the coupled simulation of power, gas and district heating grids. In this work, we analyze a number of applicable tools and find that most of them do not allow coupling of infrastructures, oversimplify the grid model or are based on inaccessible source code. We introduce the open source piping grid simulation tool pandapipes that—in interaction with pandapower—addresses three crucial criteria: clear data structure, adaptable MEG model setup and performance. In an introduction to pandapipes, we illustrate how it fulfills these criteria through its internal structure and demonstrate how it performs in comparison to STANET^®. Then, we show two case studies that have been performed with pandapipes already. The first case study demonstrates a peak shaving strategy as an interaction of a local electricity and district heating grid in a small neighborhood. The second case study analyzes the potential of a power-to-gas device to provide flexibility in a power grid while considering gas grid constraints. These cases show the importance of performing coupled simulations for the design and analysis of future energy infrastructures, as well as why the software should fulfill the three criteria. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Developing Multi-Energy Systems: Technologies, Methods and Models)

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16 pages, 2901 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sustainable and Resilient Smart House Using the Internal Combustion Engine of Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

by Ahad Abessi, Elham Shirazi, Shahram Jadid and Miadreza Shafie-khah

Sustainability 2020, 12(15), 6046; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12156046 - 28 Jul 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2231

Abstract

Nowadays, due to the increasing number of disasters, improving distribution system resiliency is a new challenging issue for researchers. One of the main methods for improving the resiliency in distribution systems is to supply critical loads after disasters during the power outage and before system restorations. In this paper, a “Sustainable and resilient smart house” is introduced for the first time by using plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). PHEVs have the ability to use their fuel for generating electricity in emergency situations as the Vehicle to Grid (V2G) scheme. This ability, besides smart house control management, provides an opportunity for distribution system operators to use their extra energy for supplying a critical load in the system. The proposed control strategy in this paper is dedicated to a short duration power outage, which includes a large percent of the events. Then, improvement of the resiliency of distribution systems is investigated through supplying smart residential customers and injecting extra power to the main grid. A novel formulation is proposed for increasing the injected power of the smart house to the main grid using PHEVs. The effectiveness of the proposed method in increasing power injection during power outages is shown in simulation results. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Developing Multi-Energy Systems: Technologies, Methods and Models)

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17 pages, 4211 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sustainability Assessment of Combined Cooling, Heating, and Power Systems under Carbon Emission Regulations

by Xiaolin Chu, Dong Yang and Jia Li

Sustainability 2019, 11(21), 5917; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11215917 - 24 Oct 2019

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2266

Abstract

The combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) system, which is a sustainable distributed energy system, has attracted increasing attention due to the associated economic, environmental, and energy benefits. Currently, the enforcement of carbon emission regulations has become an increasingly concerning issue globally. In this paper, a multi-objective optimization model is established to evaluate the CCHP system under two different carbon emission regulation policies in terms of economic benefit, environmental sustainability, and energy advantage. A nonlinear programming optimization model is formulated and solved by using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The results from the case studies demonstrate that when considering carbon tax regulation, the cost savings of the optimal CCHP system strategy were on average 10.0%, 9.1%, 17.0%, 22.1%, and 20.9% for the office, supermarket, hotel, school, and hospital in China, respectively, compared with the conventional energy supply system. On the other hand, when considering carbon trading regulation, the optimal CCHP system strategy can lead to a 10.0%, 8.9%, 16.8%, 21.6%, and 20.5% cost-saving for the five different building categories, respectively. Furthermore, the optimal CCHP system strategy for the five buildings, i.e., an average of 39.6% carbon dioxide emission (CDE) reduction and 26.5% primary energy consumption (PEC) saving, can be achieved under carbon emission regulations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Developing Multi-Energy Systems: Technologies, Methods and Models)

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27 pages, 6444 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Low Carbon Scheduling Optimization of Flexible Integrated Energy System Considering CVaR and Energy Efficiency

by Hang Liu and Shilin Nie

Sustainability 2019, 11(19), 5375; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11195375 - 28 Sep 2019

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 2790

Abstract

With the rapid transformation of energy structures, the Integrated Energy System (IES) has developed rapidly. It can meet the complementary needs of various energy sources such as cold, thermal, and electricity in industrial parks; can realize multi-energy complements and centralized energy supplies; and can further improve the use efficiency of energy. However, with the extensive access of renewable energy, the uncertainty and intermittentness of renewable energy power generation will greatly reduce the use efficiency of renewable energy and the supply flexibility of IES so as to increase the operational risk of the system operator. With the goal of minimum sum of the system-operating cost and the carbon-emission penalty cost, this paper analyzes the combined supply of cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) influence on system efficiency, compared with the traditional IES. The flexible modified IES realizes the decoupling of cooling, thermal, and electricity; enhances the flexibility of the IES in a variety of energy supply; at the same time, improves the use efficiency of multi-energy; and reasonably avoids the occurrence of energy loss and resource waste. With the aim of reducing the risk that the access of renewable energy may bring to the IES, this paper introduces the fuzzy c-mean-clustering comprehensive quality (FCM-CCQ) algorithm, which is a novel method superior to the general clustering method and performs cluster analysis on the output scenarios of wind power and photovoltaic. Meanwhile, conditional value at risk (CVaR) theory is added to control the system operation risk, which is rarely applied in the field of IES optimization. The model is simulated in a numerical example, and the results demonstrate that the availability and applicability of the presented model are verified. In addition, the carbon dioxide emission of the traditional operation mode; thermoelectric decoupling operation mode; and cooling, thermal, and electricity decoupling operation mode of the IES decrease successively. The system flexibility is greatly enhanced, and the energy-use rate of the system is improved as a whole. Finally, IES, after its flexible transformation, significantly achieve energy conservation, emission reduction, and environmental protection. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Developing Multi-Energy Systems: Technologies, Methods and Models)

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14 pages, 2118 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Evolution of China’s New Energy Vehicle Industry from the Perspective of a Technology–Market–Policy Framework

by Peng Yu, Jian Zhang, Defang Yang, Xin Lin and Tianying Xu

Sustainability 2019, 11(6), 1711; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11061711 - 21 Mar 2019

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 9059

Abstract

Since air pollution and energy safety have become two worldwide concerns, New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) are one of the solutions to solve these problems. China has been taking action toward the NEV industry and has been successful. This paper aims to explore the evolution of the Chinese NEV industry. By using a three-dimensional model of technology, market and policy, we collected the national level policies from three NEV developmental stages based on the market sales. We found three reasons for its rising up in China: first, the NEV technical road has been directed by both the government and the market; second, the market has periodicity, so the prospective policies have been set ahead; and third, the government has transformed its role on time. Based on the resource endowment the industry has now, we can draw some inferences on its further development in the longitudinal direction. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Developing Multi-Energy Systems: Technologies, Methods and Models)

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