In the article ‘Building an Oasis in the Desert‘ in the Fall 2009 edition of ArcNews Online, the work of CH2M Hill company is presented. It describes the use of geographic information system (GIS) technology that is being used to develop the Masdar City project located in UAE.
From the article – “”GIS is imperative in managing the overall spatial information necessary for designing, building, and operating Masdar City,” says Derek Gliddon, GIS manager, Property Development Unit, Masdar. Staff members at the City of Masdar use GIS to model building information throughout the life cycle of the project. For the city to meet its challenging goals, CH2M HILL carefully considered the geography of the area: sun angles, wind patterns, street widths, and building density and height. The orientation of buildings on a diagonal grid to provide maximum natural shading was modeled in ArcGIS.”
ApacheSim enables calculation of building energy for a number of different parameters based on thermal performance. Driven by real weather data, it simulates thermal performance as modelled and is available from Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES) in th UK.
“ApacheSim also enables you to perform carbon emissions calculations for compliance with UK Building Regs Part L and Part J. ApacheSim is based on first-principles models of heat transfer processes and is driven by real weather data.”
Energy storage is an increasingly important tool for improving the efficiency of power distribution networks and transportation options. While energy generation is fixed to our means to create it, the demand can fluctuate wildly. Energy storage provides a means to meet the demand and flatten out the need to rapidly generate power on demand.
Utilities Explore Local Storage
Generating power on demand requires a rapid spike in power generation, and the systems in place to meet the quick demand are our least efficient and most expensive options. Using gas-powered generators at an electric utility to quickly meet the demands of users is a much more expensive and wasteful option than simply having energy stored on the grid locally for quick response to that demand.
The Department of Energy has several projects underway to study the effectiveness and efficiency of local energy storage. Utilities are exploring various battery technologies as well as flywheels, supercapacitors, and compressed air or energy stored in water towers to meet storage demands. In each of these technology solutions the storage device is meant to store energy when generation exceeds load, and to discharge energy when loads exceed generation capacity.
Instead of trying to constantly adjust energy generation, storage has proven to be technically viable, cost-effective and an applicable solution to increase the reliability and efficiency of electrical systems. Increasingly, utilities are investing in energy storage as well as smart grid solutions as the investments have a high and almost immediate return by leveling off the need to quickly meet power demands.
Charge for Better Batteries
There are a great deal of research and development dollars going into the discovery of better battery technologies for electric vehicles. The interest to create more efficient storage systems for lighter and longer lasting batteries for electric cars will translate into better batteries for other purposes, including local storage.
Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power are reliant on intermittent energy sources. In order for these sources to work well when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining they need to incorporate reliable energy storage.
Energy storage is an increasingly important element for more efficient energy transmission and distribution. Research into more efficient means to store energy will result in more efficient and affordable systems, including making renewable and clean energy solutions much more viable.
LINKS
U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Storage
Basic Research Needs for Electrical Energy Storage
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Matt Ball is editor of Americas/Asia Pacific for V1 Energy and V1 Magazine. This column alternates weekly.
The Finnish national government established an Energy Efficiency Committee which proposed several recommendations that would save large amounts of energy through increased efficiency. In total the amount of energy saved would be 11.4% by 2020 and amount 37 terrawatt hours.
From the report - “Determined energy saving and energy efficiency measures can achieve savings of 37 terawatt hours in final energy consumption by 2020. This can be achieved through 125 measures that the Energy Efficiency Committee, established by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, submitted to Mauri Pekkarinen, Minister of Economic Affairs, on 9 June 2009. Proposals in the Committee report cover all sectors of society, from trade and industry to private consumption.”
Today Bentley Systems, Incorporated held an online press briefing to announce their new High Performance Building products – a set of building software oriented to meet ‘green’ building industry performance. Noah Eckhouse, Jim Barr and Huw W. Roberts from Bentley were all on hand to explain the new lineup.
Bentley High Performance
The company has positioned itself under the sustainable infrastructure banner, and with a wide and varied product line it finds itself involved in water management, utilities, bridges and roads, plant operations and structural engineering.
However, today’s announcements were focused on building performance, specifically the high amount of energy that buildings use and the need to design, build and operate buildings more efficently.
It was pointed out that U.S. buildings account for 39% of all energy use in that country, 39% of CO2 emissions, 65% of waste and 71% of all electricity use.
Clearly better designed and operated buildings have room for improvement and that was the message being delivered today.
“Many so called green buildings today are not actually delivering green benefits,” said Jim Barr. He was alluding to the fact that many people are making claims, but few are delivering on the promise of better design toward easing the high level of energy use and demand from buildings. “We need to quantify the benefits and identify them,” he further pointed out.
Bentley High Performance
To meet this need Bentley is releasing several products to the market. These include,
- Hevacomp Simulater V8i and Hevacomp Mechanical V8i – designed to follow DOE standard Energy PLUS requirements
- Bentley Tas V8i Simulator – designed for use in complex building design environments
Collectively these products enable models, data and drawings to be integrated together through interoperable standards into a framework enabling design, analysis and simulation to be conducted. The workflow bringing these elements together offers the opportunity to achieve higher levels of performance – thus efficiency – and that is the story of the High Performance Building Series.
The collection of software and its functionality is impressive. Images and explanations described shadow analysis, visualisation, environmental climate parameters, changes in temperature through space and time.
Together these software provide users with an opportunity to see how building designs will perform, and to adjust them to meet optimal needs. Hevacomp and Tas are used by 68% of UK building service consultants. And the message today also pointed out that an invasion of European expertise and knowledge is being readied and aimed at the U.S. and Canadian markets.
While UK professionals have been aware of and required to consider green building performance and standards, a similar concept is yet to arrive in North America. It might very well be that these products begin the capacity building leading to wider adoption of high performace building software in North America due to their installed base, ease of use and increased functionality leading to results.
Time will tell, but for now, designers, builders and operators of buildings in North America will want to check out the details online.
www.bentley.com/EPS
There’s a growing groundswell of effort to take a hard look at making power generation and energy use more efficient. While renewable energies are widely touted to drive down carbon input, there’s a growing realization that an important element in the carbon equation is the amount of energy that we currently consume.
The Obama administration has outlined an energy plan that places a great deal of importance on clean energy and energy independence, but they have also identified energy efficiency as a high priority, calling efficiency our “cheapest, cleanest, fastest energy source.”
Energy Recycling
The design and development of creative systems for power generation provide an exciting new means of energy efficiency. The idea is to take the waste energy from one part of a process and convert it into energy elsewhere. A simple example of this is being implemented by the University of Notre Dame in India, where waste heat generated from computer servers is used to heat a greenhouse, saving $100,000 in cooling costs and $70,ooo in heating costs at little or no actual cost. It’s simply a means to repurpose waste energy to drive energy creation.
A larger-scale example of recycled energy is the Mittal Steel Plant, again in Indiana, that uses waste heat from their blast furnace to produce 75 MW of electricity. The heat energy from the blast furnace creates steam that is used to power a turbine, taking waste and creating better environmental efficiency. As a result of this process the plant generates 215,00 fewer tons of carbon per year.
The most interesting aspect of the idea of recycled energy is that potential energy sources surround the systems that we’ve built over the years. This idea works best in large industrial manufacturing facilities, and is even being explored for the creation of green business parks where the waste and energy from one manufacturing process can be used to power the process of compatible businesses. Everyone benefits, and the pooled energy costs savings help make the businesses sustainable.
Efficiency Incentives
In the United States, the government backs the Energy Star program to help individuals and businesses choose energy efficiency. One of the more interesting parts of the program is an effort to encourage appliance manufacturers to create more energy efficient products. Here, the manufacturers need to meet certain metrics to achieve compliance, and the promotion of Energy Star status gives the manufacturer a marketing incentive as individuals are most likely to choose appliances that save them money. Energy Star becomes a much-needed consumer advocate in this process, and has established itself as an authoritative arbiter of product quality.
Many electric utilities provide incentives to their residential and business customers to cut back on energy usage. One such incentive is rebates for the purchase of more efficient air conditioners, water heaters and furnaces. In many states, a business can receive rebates for installing more energy efficient lighting, drives and pumps. And in most states the utility will come to your place of business and conduct an energy audit that points out where you might save by increasing efficiency. This may seem like a counter-intuitive move, because the utility will generate fewer dollars from these efforts, but the energy utility benefits by reducing the number of new plants that it must build, which is a considerable capital cost.
Weatherizing
One of the areas of greatest energy efficiency gains is in the application of better home insulation to save on home heating costs. The lack of proper insulation in a home is equated to throwing money out the window, and new diagnostic techniques (such as whole house blowers and thermal imaging cameras) reveal these invisible problems.
Older homes are more susceptible to insulation issues, and so too are lower-income homes. In the United States the weatherization of low-income homes is built into the stimulus package with a goal to weatherize 2 million homes at a cost of $6 Billion. In the United Kingdom, aerial thermal imaging is deployed for whole cities to graphically illustrate the homes that need attention, and to quantify the energy loss problem.
Energy efficiency may not be as compelling as creating new clean technologies, but the benefits absolutely cannot be ignored. A recent study by an economics professor quantified the benefits of energy efficiency in the state of California, based on its mandates for higher energy efficiency than other states. The results found that the state saved $56 billion in electricity costs while creating 1.5 million jobs over 35 years. Those are very compelling metrics in such uncertain times as these.
