Search results for "energy [jet]"
showing 10 items of 1760 documents
Energy, economic and environmental analysis on RET-hydrogen systems in residential buildings
2008
The aim of this study was to analyze energy, economic and environmental performances of a set of scenarios dealing with the production and the use of hydrogen as energy carriers in residential applications in combination with renewable energy (RE). The authors also made an investigation into the required economic conditions necessary for making H2–RE residential systems competitive with conventional ones, which are based on the use of grid electricity and natural gas. A case study was enacted in a small residential district in Palermo (Italy) made by five multi-storey buildings. Many energy systems have been considered according to several fuel-device combinations (electric grid, fuel cell,…
Analysis of operator human errors in hydrogen refuelling stations: Comparison between human rate assessment techniques
2013
Abstract The use of hydrogen as an energy carrier for road transport appears to be an optimal solution for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, the development of this technology depends on the growth and diffusion of production, storage and refuelling infrastructures together with accurate risk analyses to appropriately design the safety and management systems used in these plants. Moreover, to improve safety standards, it is also important to focus attention on the estimation of hazards related to human factors, as this is one of the major causes leading to accidental events, especially in complex industrial technology. The paper reports a case study relevant to operat…
Nano-structured materials in new and existing buildings: to improved performance and saving of energy
2009
Improving well-being in buildings, in relation to energy conservation, represents a great challenge. In southern Italy a basic problem is that of keeping buildings cool in the summer months. This problem affects not only newly-erected buildings, but also the large number of existing buildings, some of which are of historical importance. Nano-technology represents an excellent opportunity to harness the salvage of existing buildings to the living requirements of contemporary society. The use of nano-structured materials in newly-erected buildings will lead to improved performance and a considerable saving of energy. Above all, the use of nano-structured materials in existing buildings will p…
Innovative control logics for a rational utilization of electric loads and air-conditioning systems in a residential building
2015
The paper focuses on the evaluation of the impact on residential buildings of innovative control logics defined for a rational utilization of the electric loads and air-conditioning systems. The control logics are implementable thanks to a Decision Support and Energy Management Systems developed by the same authors and easily installable in new and still-existing houses. The paper shows how a significant reduction of the primary energy consumption can be obtained by controlling the air-conditioning units together with the other electric loads of the house. After having explained how the control logics operate, a simulation tool is described, developed for a preliminary evaluation of their e…
Experimental validation of the BAC factor method for lighting systems
2017
In the last few years, many buildings have been equipped with Building Automation and Control (BAC) systems. BAC systems can be used to achieve a significant reduction of the electrical consumption and to have all the well acknowledged benefits from the daylight (e.g. occupant comfort, health, well-being and productivity). For this reason, Standard EN 15232 "Energy performance of buildings — Impact of Building Automation, Controls and Building Management" puts into evidence the importance of the presence of BAC and Technical Building Management (TBM) systems, suggests a classification of these systems, explains their main functionalities and presents a simplified method to estimate their im…
Are the Best Available Technologies the only viable for energy interventions in historical buildings?
2014
Worth aged buildings represent among the existing buildings a special case when it comes to their energy refurbishment. Current available technologies for building components, characterized by high level of thermal performances, unfortunately, are also characterized, not rarely, by limited compatibility with the architectural integrity of the building. In other words, the so-called Best Available Technologies that are effectively adopted to optimize the energy performances of buildings, in the case of aged buildings to which a certain artistic, historic and/or architectural merit is recognized (heritage houses) could, actually, determine such kind of conflicts and therefore leading to the s…
Novel Energy Efficient Schemes for Wireless Sensor Networks Utilizing Mobile Sensors
2022
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) facilitate many applications in different fields and are well-known in both academic and industrial areas. The networks mainly include sensors, networking parts and a data processing center to collect data for a variety of purposes. However, the energy consumption problem in the networks is always a critical problem that many researchers are looking for good solutions. In this paper, we propose a data collection method that uses mobile sensors attached with bigger energy storages to collect data from static sensors. In addition, we propose a hybrid energy harvesting scheme to harvest energy from ambient environments to support static sensors to prolong the ne…
The requirements and compliance of the Finnish act on energy efficiency in a large enterprise : a case study from the healthcare industry
2015
Energy management is becoming increasingly important for organizations due to legislative, environmental, and economic causes. The Act on Energy Efficiency came into force in Finland on 1st January 2015. One of the law’s obligations requires large enterprises to enhance and report their energy efficiency performance with an energy audit every four years. However, a large company can be exempted from the energy audit obligation in three ways under the Finnish law. The aim of this study is to discover the best solution for the target organization to meet the obligations posed by The Act on Energy Efficiency. The options considered in this study are: 1) performing energy audit as the law requi…
Energy rehabilitation of a nursery school in Sicily: winter and summer behaviours
2004
Following a previous work, concerning the energy audit of a nursery school belonging to the public building park of the town of Palermo, some further analyses have been conducted. These mainly refer to the environmental performances of the school that are assessed with regards to different interventions involving the envelope (the glazed part, particularly) and the surrounding spaces. The interventions are hierarchised by means of suitable indicators concerning energy, environment and economy issues. Finally a simple graph is proposed that visually summarises these indicators for each proposed action.
Free Energy, Enthalpy and Entropy from Implicit Solvent End-Point Simulations
2018
Free energy is the key quantity to describe the thermodynamics of biological systems. In this perspective we consider the calculation of free energy, enthalpy and entropy from end-point molecular dynamics simulations. Since the enthalpy may be calculated as the ensemble average over equilibrated simulation snapshots the difficulties related to free energy calculation are ultimately related to the calculation of the entropy of the system and in particular of the solvent entropy. In the last two decades implicit solvent models have been used to circumvent the problem and to take into account solvent entropy implicitly in the solvation terms. More recently outstanding advancement in both impli…