scholarly journals Using new computer based techniques to optimise energy consumption in agricultural land levelling

Author(s):  
Salim Almaliki ◽  
Nasim Monjezi

Land levelling is one of the most energy-demanding steps in soil preparation. There are many limiting factors for a specific land levelling operation, such as fertile topsoil conservation, limited allowed slope, specific cut to fill ratio, etc. These limitations make optimisation problems of land levelling even more complicated. In this research, three computational and evolutionary methods including ICA, PSO, GA along with MLS were utilised as optimisation methods to minimise the soil cut and fill volumes and to determine the preferred levelling plane. The results indicated that ICA had the most efficient solution for the energy optimisation in the land levelling among the other investigated methods by saving 29% (17 GJ) of the total energy consumption compared with MLS. This study deals with optimising the energy consumption during land levelling projects using new computer-based techniques and compares them to the MLS method as a benchmark. All in all, ICA, PSO, and GA performed much better than MLS by saving 29, 17, and 10% of the total energy consumption in their best model (number 1 models), respectively. Nonetheless, with these great capacities for saving energy in developing countries, unfortunately, the lack of education and excess subsidies on fossil fuels nullify these potentials.

MRS Bulletin ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 18 (10) ◽  
pp. 18-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim C. Sinke

The term “solar energy” refers to a wide variety of techniques for using the energy available as sunlight. Well-known examples are active and passive thermal solar energy and photovoltaic solar energy but, strictly speaking, hydropower, wind energy, and biomass are also forms of solar energy. Today, only hydropower is used in significant quantities, covering approximately 6% of the world's energy demand. Traditional use of biomass, mainly in developing countries, accounts for more than 10% of the total energy consumption, but is sometimes left out of statistics because it falls outside the category of organized and commercial use.The global potential for solar energy is huge, since the amount of energy that reaches the earth's surface every year exceeds the total energy consumption by roughly a factor of 10,000. There are, however, various barriers to the large-scale use of solar energy technologies. Most technologies have in common that the power density of the generator is low; in other words, one needs large areas to generate significant amounts of energy. This is especially true for biomass, with typical conversion efficiencies (solar energy to chemical energy) of 1% or less. Further, many solar energy technologies have proved technically feasible, but have yet to be proved economically feasible. Last, but not least, the large-scale use of solar energy requires substantial modification of our global energy supply system, which is based largely on fossil fuels.


2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Usama Al-mulali

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) growth and renewable and non-renewable energy consumption in 82 developing countries categorized by region. Design/methodology/approach – To achieve the goal of this study, the panel model was used taking the period 1990-2009. Findings – The Kao co-integration test results showed that both renewable and non-renewable energy consumption had a long-running relationship with all the economic sectors in all regions. Moreover, the FMOLS revealed that the renewable and non-renewable energy consumption had a long-run positive relationship with the economic sectors. However, the results also revealed that non-renewable energy consumption has a more significant effect on the economic sectors than the renewable energy consumption. In addition, the Granger causality showed the same results, that the causal relationship between the economic sectors and non-renewable energy consumption is more significant than the causal relationship between the economic sectors and renewable energy. Practical implications – The reason behind these results is that these regions still depend on fossil fuels to promote their economic growth. Fossil fuels basically contribute more than 80 per cent of their total energy consumption. Thus, the study recommends the developing countries to increase their investment on renewable energy projects to increase the share of the renewable energy of total energy consumption. Originality/value – This study is considered different from all the previous studies because it will investigate the disaggregate relationship between GDP and energy consumption (renewable and non-renewable) in East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and the Sub-Saharan African developing countries.


2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Lazić ◽  
V. Larsson ◽  
Å. Nordenborg

The objective of this work is to decrease energy consumption of the aeration system at a mid-size conventional wastewater treatment plant in the south of Sweden where aeration consumes 44% of the total energy consumption of the plant. By designing an energy optimised aeration system (with aeration grids, blowers, controlling valves) and then operating it with a new aeration control system (dissolved oxygen cascade control and most open valve logic) one can save energy. The concept has been tested in full scale by comparing two treatment lines: a reference line (consisting of old fine bubble tube diffusers, old lobe blowers, simple DO control) with a test line (consisting of new Sanitaire Silver Series Low Pressure fine bubble diffusers, a new screw blower and the Flygt aeration control system). Energy savings with the new aeration system measured as Aeration Efficiency was 65%. Furthermore, 13% of the total energy consumption of the whole plant, or 21 000 €/year, could be saved when the tested line was operated with the new aeration system.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 691
Author(s):  
Aida Mérida García ◽  
Juan Antonio Rodríguez Díaz ◽  
Jorge García Morillo ◽  
Aonghus McNabola

The use of micro-hydropower (MHP) for energy recovery in water distribution networks is becoming increasingly widespread. The incorporation of this technology, which offers low-cost solutions, allows for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions linked to energy consumption. In this work, the MHP energy recovery potential in Spain from all available wastewater discharges, both municipal and private industrial, was assessed, based on discharge licenses. From a total of 16,778 licenses, less than 1% of the sites presented an MHP potential higher than 2 kW, with a total power potential between 3.31 and 3.54 MW. This total was distributed between industry, fish farms and municipal wastewater treatment plants following the proportion 51–54%, 14–13% and 35–33%, respectively. The total energy production estimated reached 29 GWh∙year−1, from which 80% corresponded to sites with power potential over 15 kW. Energy-related industries, not included in previous investigations, amounted to 45% of the total energy potential for Spain, a finding which could greatly influence MHP potential estimates across the world. The estimated energy production represented a potential CO2 emission savings of around 11 thousand tonnes, with a corresponding reduction between M€ 2.11 and M€ 4.24 in the total energy consumption in the country.


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