Search results for "Energy Assessment"
showing 9 items of 9 documents
Alkaline pretreatment to enhance one-stage CH4 and two-stage H2/CH4 production from sunflower stalks: Mass, energy and economical balances
2015
Abstract Biological production of second generation biofuels such as biohydrogen (H2) or methane (CH4) represents a promising alternative to fossils fuels. Alkaline pretreatments of lignocellulosic biomass are known to enhance the accessibility and the bioconversion of hollocelluloses during anaerobic digestion and dark fermentation processes. In the present study, four different configurations were investigated: one-stage CH4 continuous and two-stage H2 batch/CH4 continuous process with and without alkaline pretreatment of sunflower stalks (55 °C, 24 h, 4 g NaOH/100 g TS). The results showed that two stage H2/CH4 (150 ± 3.5 mL CH4 g−1 VS) did not improve methane yields compared to one stag…
Wave energy assessment in Sicily (Italy)
2015
Abstract This research presents an estimation of wave energy potential in Sicily (Italy) carried out using both buoy wave measurements from Rete Ondametrica Nazionale (RON), the Italian Government wave buoy network, and wave parameter data by ERA-INTERIM, a recent meteorological reanalysis project of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Starting from these offshore data, we first identified the western part of Sicily as the area with a higher availability of offshore wave energy; subsequently, we selected a study area in the western part of the south coast and assessed the nearshore potential energy by performing propagation using a spectral model (SWAN). The near…
Assessment of Energy and Economic Effectiveness of Photovoltaic Systems Operating in a Dense Urban Context
2013
A methodology that permits testing the level of integration of the photovoltaic technology in urban areas is presented. The percentage of coverage of the electricity demand of grid-connected photovoltaic systems installed on the roofs of buildings were investigated in a district of the city of Palermo (Sicily). After classifying roofs according to their shape, orientation and pitch by means of satellite images provided by Google Earth, the ratio of the productivity of the PV systems and the consumption of electricity of the households was analysed. The results of the energy assessment have been screened considering the economic feasibility of grid-connected photovoltaic systems: the energy …
Wave Energy Assessment around the Aegadian Islands (Sicily)
2019
This paper presents the estimation of the wave energy potential around the Aegadian islands (Italy), carried out on the basis of high resolution wave hindcast. This reanalysis was developed employing Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) and WAVEWATCH III ® models for the modelling of the atmosphere and the waves, respectively. Wave climate has been determined using the above-mentioned 32-year dataset covering the years from 1979 to 2010. To improve the information about wave characteristics regarding spatial details, i.e., increasing wave model resolution, especially in the nearshore region around the islands, a SWAN (Simulating WAves Nearshore) wave propagation model was used. Results obtai…
A Preliminary Energy Assessment to Improve the Energy Sustainability in the Small Islands of the Mediterranean Sea
2020
Power plants supplied by renewable energy sources are expanding around the world, in order to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions, limit the global warming and improve the energy sustainability. Despite the relevant achieved results, small islands are heavily reliant on fossil fuels. In this context, renewable energy sources are available but practically unused, due to landscape and economic constraints. This condition is quite common in the Mediterranean Sea. These islands are normally fed by a stand-alone electrical grid and a power plant, equipped with diesel engines. In order to improve the sustainability of the energy sector, the paper considers the case study of Ustica, a small Italia…
Energy assessment of a dish-Stirling system powering a reverse osmosis plant for seawater desalination
2022
Water scarcity in many regions of the world and the global demographic growth make the desalination of seawater and/or brackish an effective solution to meet the growing demand for freshwater. Nowadays, reverse osmosis has the largest share of the global installed desalination capacity. The impelling need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has been pushing the search for sustainable technologies to produce the electricity needed to power reverse osmosis plants. Among solar technologies, little attention has been paid to the possibility of powering reverse osmosis with electricity from the dish-Stirling concentrator. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper assesses the energy-saving potential…
Environmental sustainability and energy assessment of bituminous pavements made with unconventional materials
2019
The increasing sensibility towards the questions related to climate change has made the scientists and technicians aware of the need to incorporate the principles of sustainable development into the road construction sector. In this view, recycled materials in road pavements and technologies to decrease the overall carbon footprint have become more and more important. Based on the ISO14040 series, the overall purpose of this study is calculating, by means of a systemic approach, the life-cycle energy and the carbon footprint of road pavement solutions. To this aim, several alternatives in terms of bituminous mixtures (warm mix asphalt, reclaimed asphalt pavements, waste plastics) were consi…
On-board Energy Consumption Assessment for Symbolic Execution Models on Embedded Devices
2020
Internet of Things (IoT) applications operate in several domains while requiring seamless integration among heterogeneous objects. Regardless of the specific platform and context, IoT applications demand high energy efficiency. Adopting resource-constrained embedded devices for IoT applications means ensuring low power consumption, low maintenance costs and possibly longer battery life. Meeting these requirements is particularly arduous as programmers are not able to monitor the energy consumption of their own software during development or when applications are finally deployed. In this paper, we discuss on-board real-time energy evaluation of both hardware and software during the developm…
Life cycle energy performances of a Net Zero Energy prefabricated building in Sicily
2017
The paper presents the energy performances in a life cycle perspective of a prefabricated building. The building was simulated in energy plus and validated on monitored data. To avoid the shifting of energy burdens from one life cycle stage to others, a Life Cycle Energy Assessment was performed. The primary energy use throughout the building's life cycle is 1,242 GJ. The materials production stage consumes the highest amount of primary energy (680 GJ) followed by the use stage (484 GJ), while the construction and end-of-life require respectively 1.7 % and the 4.6 % of total primary energy. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific c…