Search results for "Energy Efficiency"
showing 10 items of 177 documents
Assessing the electricity consumption of outdoor lighting systems in the presence of automatic control: The OL-BAC factors method
2020
Abstract Building automation systems are able to influence significantly buildings’ energy performance. The BAC factors method, presented for the first time by the International Standard EN 15232, is the most used and simple instrument for evaluating the impact of such systems in terms of reduction of the electrical and thermal energy consumption of buildings services. Nevertheless, Standard EN 15232 does not take into consideration the automation of lighting systems serving buildings’ external areas like passages, gardens, entrance walkways, etc. In some cases, such areas can be very extended and, as a consequence, responsible for a not negligible percentage of the overall electricity cons…
The Role of Local Administrations in the Energy Retrofit of Public Buildings: a Case Study
2022
Recent regulations, and related incentives, concerning urban sustainability issued at European and national level place particular attention on improving the energy and environmental performance of buildings. In this sense, a particular focus has been placed on public buildings (offices, schools, hospitals, etc..), being these centers of gravitation of social life. Among the EU strategies on this matter is an initiative called Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (SECAP), through which local administrators, based on the knowledge of their territory, are called to establish appropriate energy strategies and commit to achieving their targets within the timeframe set by the EU. The prese…
The European Standards for Energy Efficiency in Buildings: an analysis of the Evolution with Reference to a Case Study
2019
The improvement of the energy efficiency of building stocks represents an important contribution for the reduction of the energy consumption in the European Union (EU), along with the decrease of greenhouse gases emissions. In this aim both the public administrations and the technical experts need reliable calculation methodology to assess buildings’ energy performance. In this framework, despite the recent publication of the Standard EN ISO 52016, that deeply modifies the approach to the energy building simulation by introducing a new hourly dynamic calculation model, the current normative framework (EN ISO 13790) will maintain its validity until the incorporation of the new Standard in th…
ENERGY RECOVERY FROM REGASIFICATION OF LNG
2012
The international forecasts on energy consumption in the next future show an increasing trend due also to growing markets, and among this the leading emerging economies connected to BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). We need more and more energy. On the other side the environmental problem is arising and the climate change is a more and more pressing emergency. The latest environmental disasters, as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and the earthquake with the following tsunami in Japan in 2011, struck the public opinion and so, as in many European countries, the nuclear program is under a deep revision or even stopped. So it is necessary to utilize a…
Electrical energy analysis and potential environmental improvements of sheet metal punching processes
2013
Discrete part manufacturing processes, in particular non-conventional production processes, are still poorly documented in terms of environmental footprint. Within the separating processes, sheet metal punching processes have not been analyzed yet from environmental point of view. The present paper aims to contribute to filling this knowledge gap. In particular, two different punching machine tool architectures were analyzed. Following the previously developed CO2PE methodological approach, power studies and a preliminary time study have been performed in order to understand the contribution of each sub-unit towards the total energy demand. The influence of the most relevant process paramet…
Reducing energy consumptions and CO2 emissions in European countries: a review on legal environment and increasing use of photovoltaic energy for Ele…
2010
In Europe, the building sector is ranked second in terms of CO2 emissions, just after transport. Particularly, it accounts for 25% of the overall CO2 emissions. Moreover, in order to reduce CO2 emissions, European legislations encourage the use of renewable energies and, among them, particularly the use of PhotoVoltaic (PV) one. This because the connection between the use of PV clean energy and the reduction of CO2 emission is well demonstrated. In this context, the first part of the paper is focused on the regulations related to building energy efficiency while the second part investigates the deployment of PV source all over Europe.
A comparative study on campus sustainability in higher education sector in Hong Kong and Finland
2015
This thesis presents a comparative study examining the practices of campus sustainability in Higher Education Sectors between Hong Kong and Finland. Campus sustainability is a trend during the last decade as a result of numerous declarations and meetings for sustainable development in Higher education all over the world. In this thesis, the investigated areas are focused on environmental sustainability and Social sustainability. This study used the content analysis method to analyze public available documents from the selected fifteen Higher education institutions in Hong Kong and Finland. The first stage was a description of the current overall situations of campus sustainability in the tw…
Characterization of cooling loads in the wine industry and novel seasonal indicator for reliable assessment of energy saving through retrofit of chil…
2020
Abstract The food sector is a major consumer of energy and growing efforts are being made in the search for solutions that will guarantee the efficient and sustainable use of energy resources. Among the different sectors, wineries are attracting particular interest due to the continuous growth of the global market and production. Surveys conducted in the winemaking sector have highlighted the importance of performing accurate energy audits and have identified the installation of efficient refrigeration systems as a promising solution in a variety of cases. Unfortunately, the savings achievable by efficient cooling technologies are often estimated using simplified approaches which do not tak…
Practical considerations for acoustic source localization in the IoT era: Platforms, energy efficiency, and performance
2019
The rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) has posed important changes in the way emerging acoustic signal processing applications are conceived. While traditional acoustic processing applications have been developed taking into account high-throughput computing platforms equipped with expensive multichannel audio interfaces, the IoT paradigm is demanding the use of more flexible and energy-efficient systems. In this context, algorithms for source localization and ranging in wireless acoustic sensor networks can be considered an enabling technology for many IoT-based environments, including security, industrial, and health-care applications. This paper is aimed at evaluating impo…
Energy saving and user satisfaction for a new advanced public lighting system
2019
Abstract The retrofit of urban lighting systems is often an advantageous means of achieving notable energy savings and improvements in the quality of light. User habits, expectations and lifestyle can contribute to the design of these systems, for example in deciding on the most appropriate control strategies or the light quality. The influence of such variables can be extended to the overall system performance. This paper presents a method of street lighting design based on two kinds of analysis carried out in a defined test area: measurements (by means of a monitoring study) and user preferences (by means of a survey). The results of this data analysis create the basis for the final desig…