IMPLEMENTING BEST PRACTICES FOR IMPROVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN UNIVERSITIES

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES. Determining the direction of energy saving development is a significant aspect and is present in the policy of rational use of energy resources of leading countries, in most cases it affects the direct consumer and producer of energy, as well as administrative measures. Implementation of best practices of energy efficiency of all types of activities is a tool to improve energy autonomy of universities in Ukraine.METHODS. The study used: the predictive method – to determine the progress of implementation of EU Directive 2012/27/EC in Ukraine; method of comparative analysis – to determine the optimal mechanisms to promote energy efficiency in different countries and the possibility of implementing this experience to create a system of energy efficiency in Ukrainian universities.FINDINGS. Using and expanding the experience of participation in the project to provide energy efficient and comfortable conditions of study in Ukrainian universities together with the European Investment Bank and the Nordic Environment Corporation will allow to upgrade 200 teaching, research and support facilities in 21 universities to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and reduce operating costs of public higher education institutions; quality of teaching, learning, teaching, research and residential buildings. Implementation of such experience will improve the energy efficiency of universities, optimize mechanisms for state regulation, control and stimulation of energy efficiency; solve problems and expand the power of executive authorities and local governments, energy autonomy of universities.CONCLUSION. The analysis of the successes and difficulties of higher professional education for people with disabilities shows that there is an objective need to consolidate the efforts of the higher education community with regional public organizations, executive authorities, regional and city institutions of health, education and social protection to support young people with disabilities.

Smart Fish Feeder Using Solar Energy

Smart fish feeder is an emerging concept of the current trend which use Internet of Things (IoT) technology to operate, monitoring and provides crucial information and status to the whole farming system. This project aims to provide such essential proof of concept that utilized IoT technology combine with the solar energy to power up servo motor and temperature sensor that connect from NodeMCU for the agriculture system. The main objectives of this project are specifically focused on the development of a smart fish feeder by using the solar system with charging capability and controlled by the IoT system. Such a fish feeder system was powered up by 12V battery using 10W solar panel controlled by a solar charger controller. The solar energy was stored in 12 V rechargeable battery. IoT-controlled sensors were also attached to the fish feeder system for providing essential information on temperature and fish feeder timer via the Blynk platform. The results of the developed system successfully proved the concept is workable and could be extended to a larger scale of the farming industry. Owing to its energy autonomy and low cost, the system has the potential to be useful in smart farming technology.

Influence of the Final Ratio on the Consumption of an Electric Vehicle under Conditions of Standardized Driving Cycles

Electric vehicles must improve their electric drive system efficiency and effectively use their limited energy to become a viable means of transportation. As such, these technologies have undergone substantial improvements from their initial conception. More efficient powertrains, together with improved storage technologies, have enabled more extended autonomy. However, from an engineering perspective, these systems are still a key area of research and optimization. This work presents a powertrain optimization methodology, developing energy savings and improving the performance of the electric vehicle by focusing on the differential. The proposed methodology includes a study of the dynamics of the electric vehicle and the generation of a mathematical model that represents it. By simulating the vehicle and varying the final ratio of the differential, a significant optimization for energy savings is obtained by developing a standardized driving cycle. In this case, NEDC, WLTC-2, and WLTC-3 test cycles are used. The results show that a short ratio improves performance, even if this implies a larger torque from the prime mover. Depending on the operating cycle used, an energy-saving between 3% and 8% was registered. An extended energy autonomy and an increment in the life-cycle of the batteries are expected in real driving scenarios.

A comparative review of artificial muscles for microsystem applications

Artificial muscles are capable of generating actuation in microsystems with outstanding compliance. Recent years have witnessed a growing academic interest in artificial muscles and their application in many areas, such as soft robotics and biomedical devices. This paper aims to provide a comparative review of recent advances in artificial muscle based on various operating mechanisms. The advantages and limitations of each operating mechanism are analyzed and compared. According to the unique application requirements and electrical and mechanical properties of the muscle types, we suggest suitable artificial muscle mechanisms for specific microsystem applications. Finally, we discuss potential strategies for energy delivery, conversion, and storage to promote the energy autonomy of microrobotic systems at a system level.

Design of solar light tracking system Research on energy autonomy system design of outdoor patrol car based on solar energy

The Inner Mongolia has abundant solar energy and electricity resources. Because of the long distance between cities, transmission lines are too long, making it difficult to check lines. In order to solve the problems existing in the inspection work, this paper studies a kind of outdoor inspection vehicle using solar energy, the energy system of the inspection vehicle can independently complete the charge and discharge, so as to realize the inspection task. This paper focuses on the energy autonomy of the on-site inspection vehicle for solar energy. According to the design requirements of the inspection vehicle, appropriate parts are selected to build an energy autonomy inspection system for the inspection vehicle. Then the solar tracking algorithm and maximum power tracking control algorithm are used to improve the conversion rate of solar panels and achieve fast charging. Finally, the hardware and software of the solar controller are designed, and the corresponding functions are debugged.

Thermal energy autonomy study for a reference house equipped with PV panels, a heat pump and PCM storage elements

Despite their rapid growth, renewable energies cannot provide energy on demand, which is an essential requirement for heating buildings. To this end, we developed heat exchangers with Phase Change Materials that allow the on-demand charge, storage and discharge of thermal energy. In this paper we evaluate the storage capacities needed to achieve thermal energy autonomy. An existing reference house, meteorological data from MeteoSwiss and solar radiation intensity were used to evaluate the thermal needs and the solar power production for the year 2019. To heat the building an air-water heat pump is preferably powered by solar energy. The calculations have been performed from October to March. Using 1200 litres of PCM, a thermal autonomy of 100% was achieved for March and October. In February, November and December, 24 days could not reach a thermal autonomy. For the month of January that was studied in detail 15 days are self-sufficient. By increasing the PCM volume to 2’600 litres 5 more days become self-sufficient. To achieve total building heating autonomy, seasonal storage is necessary.

Integrated analysis of regional energetic demand and renewable energy potentials at the example of Ludwigsburg county, Germany

This work compares heating and electricity demands with local renewable energy potentials at the example of Ludwigsburg county, a mostly suburban region in South-Western Germany. Bottom-up analyses of the energetic potentials are performed within an established regional energy simulation platform and are thus based on a consistent set of geoinformatic data. This approach has two advantages compared to a top-down analysis or using multiple specialized tools: it allows assessing energetic potentials in high spatial resolution and relates it to heating and electricity demands on a single-building scale. Secondly, it is transferable to other regions due to the widespread availability of most input data. Our results show that exploiting technical potentials for bioenergy, rooftop PV, wind onshore, and hydropower can cover 68% of electricity demand 7% of heat demand in 2019, indicating that energy autonomy is difficult to achieve for densely populated regions in Europe.

The feasibility of energy autonomy for municipalities: local energy system optimisation and upscaling with cluster and regression analyses

The sheer number of alternative technologies and measures make the optimal planning of energy system transformations highly complex, requiring decision support from mathematical optimisation models. Due to the high computational expenses of these models, only individual case studies are usually examined. In this article, the approach from the author’s PhD thesis to transfer the optimisation results from individual case studies to many other energy systems is summarised. In the first step, a typology of the energy systems to be investigated was created. Based on this typology, representative energy systems were selected and analysed in an energy system optimisation model. In the third step, the results of the representative case studies were transferred to all other energy systems. This approach was applied to a case study for determining the minimum costs of energy system transformation for all 11,131 German municipalities from 2015 to 2035 in the completely energy autonomous case. While a technical potential to achieve energy autonomy is present in 56% of the German municipalities, energy autonomy shows only low economic potential under current energy-political conditions. However, energy system costs in the autonomous case can be greatly reduced by the installation and operation of base-load technologies like deep-geothermal plants combined with district heating networks. The developed approach can be applied to any type of energy system and should help decision makers, policy makers and researchers to estimate optimal results for a variety of energy systems using practical computational expenses.