Demand side management will become part of the array of tools necessary to accommodate the integration of large scale non-dispatchable renewable energy such as wind onto existing energy networks. The built environment is responsible for over 50% of energy use and therefore is heavily targeted in terms of energy/carbon reduction policies. Commercial and industrial buildings in many cases have sufficient electricity and building infrastructure capacities to accommodate demand side management through for example the adoption of thermal energy storage techniques to allow the storage of heating or cooling capacity. In considering how this may be achieved at a domestic household level, there are immediate cost and space constraints for the incorporation of thermal storage vessels to provide typically between 2 hours and 4 hours of storage depending on the needs of the energy suppliers, energy network, the subsequent energy tariffs and of course, the end-users. This study will highlight the existing capacity of UK domestic dwellings to meet this challenge, the role of traditional electrically driven vapour compression heat pumps in enhancing this demand-side capacity through fossil-fuel boiler substitution, the challenges such a substitution may place on the network, the role of thermal storage in providing greater demand side management and the impact on both the energy networks and potential end-users. The study will conclude with recommendations for heat pump and energy storage development to minimise impacts on the existing energy networks.

抄録全体を表示

Northern Ireland (NI) extends to 14,000 square kilometers and has a population of 1.8 million. Despite being remote from main world markets, lacking oil and gas resources, it has significant opportunities for exploiting offshore renewable energy. Suffering from the effects of economic recession, currently 44% of households are in fuel poverty against England’s 16%. There is overdependence on an unregulated oil sector which accounts for 70% of household heating costs. Energy prices are higher than mainland Europe. Over 38% of houses were built before 1964 and are energy inefficient. Following a bank-financed housing boom, the recession resulted in loan defaults and construction job losses, doubling unemployment to 8%. A legal requirement to meet climate change targets exists. NI construction companies are diversifying their markets to exploit opportunities in this environment, needing to up-skill or reskill their workforce, develop product range and become more competitive. South Eastern Regional College (SERC), a Higher and Further Education College needs to assist companies by providing technical, business and training support for the Region’s existing and future workforces. To assist this, SERC in 2011 built a $15m Environmental Skills Centre. Leading international companies, through donation of cutting-edge industry-standard equipment, facilitate curriculum and training enhancement while benefiting from the direct support SERC offers. SERC carries out developmental research and delivers skills training in energy reduction, carbon zero construction, passive house design and micro-generation. A member of a number of global networks, SERC carried out an innovative cross-border partnership with the Republic of Ireland and since 2010 has trained over 900 refrigeration engineers to meet environmental regulations. A new sustainability course for junior high schools across NI is shaped by SERC staff. The Centre directly assists startup companies and provides incubation space, a recent example being the development of an affordable and innovative air heat pump system for use in social housing and care homes. Last year SERC seminars and workshops informed over 3,000 industry participants of the opportunities within the growing environmental sector. More than 2,500 practitioners received specialist sustainable energy and construction training. While a good start has been made, significant opportunities exist to support the burgeoning offshore wind, tidal and wave power industries in exploiting NI’s natural resources.

抄録全体を表示

The Renewable Energy and Island Sustainability (REIS) group was formed in 2009 and provides an innovative multidisciplinary education and research program for graduate and undergraduate students. This paper discusses the different facets of the program including the graduate curriculum, research projects, opportunities for undergraduate students, and outreach. A goal of the program is to develop workforce in energy and sustainability for Hawai`i, the United States, and globally. We discuss a multidisciplinary research project from the REIS group, the University of Hawaii smart sustainable microgrid project. The project works to develop an energy management plan for the University of Hawaii by using distributed renewable energy sources and incorporating energy efficiency practices (conserving energy and demand side management). The project provides students opportunities to perform multidisciplinary research and work on a real testbed system.

抄録全体を表示

High resolution and high performance calculation for the Tsunami run-up simulation at Toyama-bay in Japan is achieved by using Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) method and by using General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU). AMR generated the fine grid at the boundary line between the water and the land, and the method kept the reasonably constant of the total number of calculation grids by deleting the fine grids at the far from the interested region. GPGPU realized the fast calculation of Tsunami. The method calculated more than three million calculation grids in about two minutes for five minutes simulation. And the method was about 80 time faster calculation than the CPU calculation.

抄録全体を表示

The difference in the absorbance of water for near-infrared light at wavelengths of 945 and 1450 nm was used to distinguish between three different precipitation types: snow, sleet, and rain. From the ratio of the number of generated light absorption events at the two wavelengths, a distinction between snow, sleet and rain events was demonstrated. The weather judgment results by this system were consistent with those obtained from the meteorological observatory weather database. This system will be useful for environmental measurement and disaster control.

抄録全体を表示

In this study, we report spherical shaped oxide materials obtained by flash synthesis. The diameter of spherical particles is in the range 100nm to 100 μm and their surface structure is nano-fiber network, aggregation of nano-cubes and smooth types. This method is simple combustion synthesis in which a mixture of starting materials is combusted by external heating and ignited one end, combustion wave propagates from the end to the other. The starting mixtures are evaporated and form droplet (spherical shape), and then quenched on the surface of collection trap. Because of the quenching, global structure (spherical shape) is kept and the shape of droplet acts as template. We have succeeded the synthesis of spherical shaped SrTiO3, TiO2, CaTiO3 and Fe2O3 particles. Especially, in the case of synthesis with Ti powder in starting mixture, we also succeeded the synthesis of spherical hollow shaped particles.

抄録全体を表示

A Visual determination based on ON/OFF color reaction is high visibility visual analysis because of determination by counting number of discoloring. On the other hand, there is some problems about operability in this method . Especially, there were necessary to large number of dispensing of reagents and sample. For this reason, original analytical device was made and their properties were examined in this study. As a result, one step visual analysis by counting number of discoloring was realized. Some solutions containing F- ion were simply determined in the concentration range of 0.8 to 6 ppm within few seconds.

抄録全体を表示