Energy and Environmental Situation Awareness

The proposal of the energy-consuming right (ECR) market may lead to generation companies (GenCos) facing the risk of being overcharged due to the inaccurate calculation of carbon emission reduction, since it claims the same credit as the carbon market does. To estimate the carbon emission reduction accurately for the GenCos that participate in electricity, carbon, and ECR markets simultaneously, this paper proposes a market framework where a flexible exchange mechanism between the ECR and carbon markets is specially considered. To investigate the influence of the allocation and exchange of ECR and carbon credits on the behavior of GenCos that participate in multi-type markets, a bi-level model based on the leader–follower game theory is proposed. In the upper level of the proposed model, a decision problem for maximizing the profit of GenCos is developed, which is especially constrained to the primary allocation of ECR and carbon credits. While the multi-type market clearing model and an exchange mechanism between the ECR and carbon credits are proposed in the lower level of the model. The bi-level problem is converted into the mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPECs) through the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) condition to solve. The results illustrate that the interaction between the ECR market and the carbon market can improve the energy efficiency and reduce the carbon emissions of GenCos. Full article

Many regulatory requirements add significant delay in the licensing of new nuclear power stations. One area of particular interest is the environmental impact of potential atmospheric release. The purpose of this research is to demonstrate effectiveness of meteorological data mining and synthesis from offsite locations to reduce need for onsite data, hence allowing rapid licensing. The automated procedures tested for data mining and extraction of meteorological data from multiple offsite sources and the data analytic tool developed for data fusion are presented here. Three important meteorological parameters from regulatory compliance are considered for this analysis: wind velocity, wind direction, and atmospheric stability. Callaway Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP) is used as our reference site. CNPP uses the ${\displaystyle \frac{\mathsf{\Delta }T}{\mathsf{\Delta }z}}$ approach while we use the Vogt method to estimated stability for the offsite locations. Stability classification correlation coefficients between the reference plant and Columbia Regional Airport range from −0.087 to 0.826 for raw with an average of 0.317 ± 0.313. With travel time, correction changed slightly, i.e., a 10 m observation 0.064 ± 0.249 and 0.028 ± 0.123 and a 60 m observation 0.103 ± 0.265 and 0.063 ± 0.155 for the wind from the reference plant to the airport and vice versa, respectively. For Jefferson City Memorial Airport, raw data correlation was from −0.083 to 0.771, with an average of 0.358 ± 0.321. With travel time, correction changed slightly, i.e., 10 m observation 0.075 ± 0.208 and −0.073 ± 0.255 and 60 m observation 0.018 ± 0.223 and −0.032 ± 0.248 for wind from the reference plant to the airport and vice versa, respectively. Stability classification correlation coefficients between the reference plant and St. Louis Lambert International Airport ranged from −0.083 to 0.763 for raw with an average of 0.314 ± 0.295. With travel time, correction changed slightly, i.e., 10 m observation −0.003 ± 0.307 and −0.030 ± 0.277 and 60 m observation −0.030 ± 0.193 and −0.005 ± 0.215 for wind from the reference plant to the airport and vice versa, respectively. It is important to observe that mathematically. stability class correlation coefficients were not great, but in most cases the predicted and observed values were only off by one stability class. Similar correlations were calculated for wind direction and velocities. Our result, when applied to a proposed nuclear power station, can significantly reduce time and effort to prepare a robust environmental protection plan required for license application. Full article