scholarly journals Urban Air Quality Impacts of Distributed Generation

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Carreras ◽  
Marc Medrano ◽  
G. S. Samuelsen ◽  
Jack Brouwer ◽  
Marco Rodriguez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Distributed Generation ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Urban Air ◽  
Distributed Energy ◽  
Power Generators ◽  
The Us ◽  
South Coast Air Basin ◽  
Made In

Distributed Energy Resources (DER) have the potential to supply a significant portion of increased power demands in California and the rest of the US. Distributed generation is characterized by many stationary power generators that are distributed throughout an urban air basin. In contrast, central-generation sources are typically located outside the basin. As a result, distributed generation may lead to increased pollutant emissions within an urban air basin, which could adversely affect air quality. The present project develops a systematic approach for characterizing the installation of DER in an urban air basin and simulates the potential air quality impacts using a state-of-the-art three-dimensional computer model. The assessment of the air quality impacts associated with DER is made in the South Coast Air Basin (SoCAB) of California for the year 2010. Initial results suggest that DER characterization can be systematically applied to urban air basins, and that realistic DER implementation in SoCAB by the year 2010 only slightly affects concentrations of ozone and particulate matter in the basin.

A Small-Scale Solution for a Big Energy Problem: Renewable Distributed Energy

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renee Comly ◽  
Alex Mathew
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Generation ◽  
Transformation Process ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Industrial Wastes ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Energy Problem ◽  
Distributed Energy ◽  
Fuel Gas ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us

A Small-Scale Solution for a Big Energy Problem: Renewable Distributed Energy. Locally generated biomass, industrial and municipal wastes, coal and plastics have a significant part to play in providing a source of reliable and economic energy in the US. The ability to use these materials reliably and cleanly can be addressed with small-scale gasification technology to provide distributed generation. A technology that has improved on the historical success of gasification to provide these elements is TURNW2E™ Gasification. This technology is specifically designed to convert locally available energy resources into a clean fuel gas which is then subsequently used for heat and or power generation. This technology has the ability to operate cleanly and interchangeably using waste materials and /or coal. With the ability to produce power economically from 100 kW to 5 MW it can provide distributed generation at institutions, DOD facilities, and industrial complexes. This creates a reliable and economical energy source for the user, while disposing of wastes in an environmentally sound manner. This replaces landfill use with the energy transformation process of gasification, which provides enormous environmental benefits, including the elimination of carcinogens and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions caused by incineration processes. The use of renewable biomass and wastes provides a sustainable source of electricity that is unrestricted by grid access, providing tremendous potential to reduce US fuel imports. Using this approach, the user can create jobs and power in a sustainable scenario; without sending precious energy dollars overseas, using this process in a distributed manner will help strengthen our nation’s economy, and provide improvements to the quality of life wherever it is installed. By having the ability to use many different feedstocks, the technology can enable the avoidance of landfilling MSW and industrial wastes, including tires; it can use waste wood such as railroad ties, beetle-infested pine, and forestry wastes, farm wastes and natural disaster debris to generate renewable energy for local use or sale to the grid. Materials for processing are varied, and thus, the technology flexibility enables small-scale use in a wide range of installations, a landfill site, transfer station, farm, hospital, manufacturing facility, resort, DOD base, island community, university, and local municipal site. TURNW2E™ Gasification is available at commercial scale and is currently installed at two facilities overseas, with three US facilities planned for ’09. A training and continuing education /R&D facility is underway in the US.

Near source modeling of pollutant emissions from an elevated source over an urban area under cross high ventilation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Hammouda Mahjoub ◽  
Sahar Ben Romdhane ◽  
Nejla Mahjoub Said ◽  
Halemah Ibrahim El-Saeedy ◽  
Sami Znaidia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Pollutant Dispersion ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Atmospheric Effects ◽  
Source Modeling ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Elevated Source

Abstract Due to the rapid urbanization of many cities around the world, industrial manufacturing plants have grown rapidly, thus leading to the release of large amounts of pollutants into the environment. This is a main reason for the degradation of the local air quality, resulting in an increasing risk of unfavorable sanitary conditions for city dwellers. Understanding the dispersion of pollutants in local population environments, meteorological conditions and other physical characteristics is fundamental for predicting and evaluating air quality. This paper provides comprehensive details on the study of flow patterns and pollutant dispersion processes in urban areas. Several factors which include building geometry, local atmospheric effects, structural obstructions, and velocity of exhaust pollutants, are examined considering field data, wind tunnel tests, operational simulation techniques, and computational fluid dynamics. Good agreements are noticeable. Simultaneous evolutions of the velocity, thermal and scalar mass fraction fields of the pollutant emitting from a three-dimensional elevated source around a rectangular obstacle placed on a turbulent boundary layer wall, and also downstream the obstacle have been successfully carried out. The most serious pollutant levels in urban areas under various high wind velocities are identified.

scholarly journals Relations between Air Quality and Covid-19 Lockdown Measures in Valencia, Spain

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 2296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele Donzelli ◽  
Lorenzo Cioni ◽  
Mariagrazia Cancellieri ◽  
Agustin Llopis-Morales ◽  
María Morales-Suárez-Varela
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Urban Air Pollution ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Urban Traffic ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Urban Air ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Monitoring Stations

The set of measures to contain the diffusion of COVID-19 instituted by the European governments gave an unparalleled opportunity to improve our understanding of the transport and industrial sectors’ contribution to urban air pollution. The purpose of this study was to assess the impacts of the lockdown measures on air quality and pollutant emissions in Valencia, Spain. For this reason, we determined if there was a significant difference in the concentration levels of different particulate matter (PM) sizes, PM10, PM2.5, and NOx, NO2, NO, and O3, between the period of restrictions in 2020 and the same period in 2019. Our findings indicated that PM pollutant levels during the lockdown period were significantly different from the same period of the previous year, even if there is variability in the different local areas. The highest variations reduction in the PM10 and PM2.5 levels were observed for the València Centre, València Avd Francia, and València Pista de Silla (all of the urban traffic type) in which there was a reduction of 58%–42%, 56%–53%, and 60%–41% respectively. Moreover, consistent with recent studies, we observed a significant reduction in nitric oxide levels in all the air monitoring stations. In all seven monitoring stations, it was observed, in 2020, NOx, NO2, and NO concentrations decreased by 48.5%–49.8%–46.2%, 62.1%–67.4%–45.7%, 37.4%–35.7%–35.3%, 60.7%–67.7%–47.1%, 65.5%–65.8%–63.5%, 60.0%–64.5%–41.3%, and 60.4%–61.6%–52.5%, respectively. Lastly, overall O3 levels decreased during the lockdown period, although this phenomenon was more closely related to weather conditions. Overall, no significant differences were observed between the meteorological conditions in 2019 and 2020. Our findings suggest that further studies on the effect of human activities on air quality are needed and encourage the adoption of a holistic approach to improve urban air quality.

scholarly journals Improvement of chemical initialization in the air quality forecast system in North Macedonia, based on WRF-Chem model

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vlado Spiridonov ◽  
Nenad Ancev ◽  
Boro Jakimovski ◽  
Goran Velinov
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Urban Air Pollution ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Pollutant Emission ◽  
Urban Air ◽  
Forecast System ◽  
Ensemble Technique ◽  
Air Quality Forecast ◽  
Mobile Emissions ◽  
Quality Forecast

Abstract Urban air quality is determined by a complex interaction of factors associated with anthropogenic emissions, atmospheric circulation, and geographic factors. Most of the urban-present pollution aerosols and trace gases are toxic to human health and responsible for damage of flora, fauna, and materials. The air quality prediction system based on state-of-the-art Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) has been configured and designed for North Macedonia. An extensive set of experiments have been performed with different model settings to forecast simultaneously the weather and air quality over the country. The initial results and the finding from other similar studies suggest that chemical initialization plays a significant role in a more accurate, both qualitative and quantitative forecast and assessment of urban air pollution. The main objective of the present research is to develop and test for a novel chemical initialization input in the air quality forecast system in North Macedonia. It is performed using ensemble technique in respect to treatment of the mobile emissions data using scaling factors. The WRF-Chem prediction has shown a high sensitivity to different scaling methods. While scaling of the overall mobile annual emissions tends to produce some discrepancies regarding the PM10 concentration level (overestimation during summer and underestimation during winter), an improved approach that utilizes scaling, in a wider range, only the mobile emissions originated from household heating offers the possibility of more detailed parameter fitting. The verification results indicate that the best accuracy across all scores for the winter months was achieved when scaling up the baseline pollutant input using a higher factor, while in the other seasons, the best results were achieved when scaling down the baseline pollutant emissions by a significant factor. Taking all into account, we can conclude that the seasonal variation in the pollutant input to the atmosphere is a significant factor in simulating the pollution in this region. Therefore, these seasonal variations must be taken into account when fitting the pollutant emission input to any model.

scholarly journals Urban Air Quality Impacts of Distributed Generation

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Medrano ◽  
Jack Brouwer ◽  
G. S. Samuelsen ◽  
Marc Carreras ◽  
Donald Dabdub
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Distributed Generation ◽  
Atmospheric Chemistry ◽  
Base Case ◽  
Urban Air ◽  
Air Quality Model ◽  
Quality Model ◽  
Case Scenario ◽  
Temporal Perspective ◽  
Base Case Scenario

Distributed Energy Resources (DER) have the potential to meet a significant portion of increased power demands of the future. DER applications can potentially provide benefits in electrical reliability and power quality, in addition to reducing total energy costs in combined cooling, heating and power (CHP) applications. However, the shift from a central generation paradigm to distributed generation results in different emissions characteristics and profiles from both a spatial and temporal perspective. Distributed generation is characterized by many sparsely distributed stationary sources within an urban air-shed compared to central generation where emissions sources are much larger, but typically located outside the air-shed in more remote locations. As a result, high market adoption of fuel-driven (non-renewable) distributed generation (DG) technologies, such as reciprocating engines and microturbines, may influence the air quality within a region. The present paper estimates air quality impacts for a representative distributed generation scenario in the South Coast Air Basin (SoCAB) of California. Simulations are based on the year 2010 with comparison to a base case scenario with no DG emissions. The DG scenarios are developed for a reasonable percentage of power met by DG, representative spatial distribution and temporal operation, and a mix of DG technologies and emissions factors. The resultant emissions inventory for each DG scenario is then provided as input to a three-dimensional air quality model including detailed atmospheric chemistry and transport for simulation of the SoCAB. Preliminary air quality results suggest that there will be an air quality impact, that the impacts will not be uniform throughout the air-shed, and that individual criteria pollutant concentrations may either rise or fall with the introduction of DG.

Urban Air Computing: For Air Quality Detection

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikhitha N ◽  
Rajashekara Murthy S.
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Urban Air ◽  
Quality Detection
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