Our energy system is rapidly transforming, partially due to advances in internet and communications technologies that leverage an unprecedented amount of data. Industry proponents of the so-called “smart grid” suggest these technologies facilitate deeper engagement with end-users of energy (utility customers) that can in turn drive behavior-based changes and accelerate a renewable energy transition. While there has been progress in understanding how these technologies change consumer behavior using, for example, real-time feedback, it’s unclear how specific segments (e.g., renters) respond to these interventions; it’s also unclear why feedback is, or is not, producing changes in energy consumption. The literature suggests that behavioral strategies (e.g. information feedback, competitions, incentives) coupled with technology may present a way for utilities and efficiency programs to create savings—expanding opportunities for those often underserved by traditional approaches, such as renters—yet this coupling is not well understood, neither broadly (for all end users) nor specifically (for renters). This dissertation builds upon that literature and explores a human side of the smart grid, using a field experiment in renter households to test the interacting effects of real-time energy feedback and a novel form of financial incentive, referred to here as a competitive performance-based incentive. The experiment had two phases: phase one tested the feedback against a control group; phase two tested feedback, the incentive, and a combined treatment, against a control group. Results of these interventions were measured with pre- and post-treatment surveys as well as observed electricity consumption data from each household’s smart meter. The results of this experiment are described in three papers. Paper one examines the interventions’ individual and combined effectiveness at motivating renters to reduce or shift timing of electricity consumption. Feedback alone produced a significant savings effect in phase one. In phase two, the effect of the feedback wore off; the incentive alone had no significant effect; and the group that received feedback and the incentive experienced a doubling of savings relative to the effect of feedback alone, as observed in phase one. Paper two uses pre- and post-intervention survey data to examine how individual perceptions of energy change as a result of the interventions. Perception of large energy-using appliances changed the most in households that received feedback, suggesting that better information may lead to more effective behavior changes. Paper three leverages the results of the first two components to evaluate the policy implications and impacts on demand side management for utilities, efficiency programs, and the potential for behavior-based energy efficiency programs. Advocates of the smart grid must recognize the technology alone cannot produce savings without better engagement of end-users. Utility rate designers must carefully consider how time-based rates alone may over-burden those without the enabling technology to understand the impact of their energy choices.

The growing computational demand of scientific applications has greatly motivated the development of large-scale high-performance computing (HPC) systems in the past decade. To accommodate the increasing demand of applications, HPC systems have been going through dramatic architectural changes (e.g., introduction of many-core and multi-core systems, rapid growth of complex interconnection network for efficient communication between thousands of nodes), as well as significant increase in size (e.g., modern supercomputers consist of hundreds of thousands of nodes). With such changes in architecture and size, the energy consumption by these systems has increased significantly. With the advent of exascale supercomputers in the next few years, power consumption of the HPC systems will surely increase; some systems may even consume hundreds of megawatts of electricity. Demand response programs are designed to help the energy service providers to stabilize the power system by reducing the energy consumption of participating systems during the time periods of high demand power usage or temporary shortage in power supply. This dissertation focuses on developing energy-efficient demand-response models and algorithms to enable HPC system's demand response participation. In the first part, we present interconnection network models for performance prediction of large-scale HPC applications. They are based on interconnected topologies widely used in HPC systems: dragonfly, torus, and fat-tree. Our interconnect models are fully integrated with an implementation of message-passing interface (MPI) that can mimic most of its functions with packet-level accuracy. Extensive experiments show that our integrated models provide good accuracy for predicting the network behavior, while at the same time allowing for good parallel scaling performance. In the second part, we present an energy-efficient demand-response model to reduce HPC systems' energy consumption during demand response periods. We propose HPC job scheduling and resource provisioning schemes to enable HPC system's emergency demand response participation. In the final part, we propose an economic demand-response model to allow both HPC operator and HPC users to jointly reduce HPC system's energy cost. Our proposed model allows the participation of HPC systems in economic demand-response programs through a contract-based rewarding scheme that can incentivize HPC users to participate in demand response.

Orientador: José Luz Silveira / Resumo: Nesse trabalho são apresentadas propostas de sistemas híbridos de geração de energia (SHGE) para o fornecimento de energia elétrica. O Caso 1 propõe um SHGE conectado à rede elétrica (on-grid) para atender a demanda elétrica de edifícios urbanos. O Caso 2 propõe um SHGE aplicado a áreas rurais com disponibilidade de rede elétrica local. O Caso 3 considera uma propriedade rural sem rede elétrica local, portanto propõe-se um SHGE com armazenamento de energia (off-grid). Os três casos são analisados em termos técnicos, econômicos e ambientais para três cidades brasileiras: Fortaleza (CE), Guaratinguetá (SP) e Florianópolis (SC). Para o dimensionamento do SHGE, desenvolve-se um algoritmo de otimização cuja função objetivo é a minimização do custo de geração de energia elétrica. Utiliza-se o software LINGO para a determinação da solução ótima do arranjo SHGE para cada caso. A análise econômica leva em consideração os custos de investimento, operação e manutenção para determinação do período de retorno (payback) e da receita anual esperada. A análise ambiental é feita através do cálculo da eficiência ecológica dos sistemas de geração de energia estudados. Os resultados mostram que o Caso 2 – SHGE on-grid: Propriedade Rural possui o menor período de retorno de investimento, entre 1 e 2 anos. Para todos os casos, a cidade de Fortaleza é onde evidencia-se o menor custo de investimento dos SHGE e, consequentemente, menor custo de geração de eletricidade dada seus elevados potenciais en... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Mestre

L’objectif principal de ce travail est de développer une stratégie de gestion optimale afin d’améliorer l’efficacité énergétique des véhicules hybrides. Ces travaux comportent une partie analyse expérimentale de la mobilité, une partie modélisation numérique et une partie optimisation de la stratégie de gestion énergétique. L’étude de la mobilité a permis de mettre en avant et de quantifier la prédictibilité des trajets, dus à une forte mobilité contrainte. La modélisation dynamique du véhicule, nécessaire à l’étude de stratégie, a été réalisée par Représentation Energétique Macroscopique (REM) qui est une bonne méthode pour ce type d’étude. La stratégie proposée est basée sur le contrôle prédictif (MPC), résolu par une méthode de Programmation Quadratique, et mis en place en s’appuyant sur la prédiction de cycle issu de l’étude expérimentale. Les perspectives d’améliorations de ces travaux se situent au niveau de la consolidation de la base de données, et du niveau de modélisation de la batterie (impact de la thermique et du vieillissement) et du moteur thermique (prise en compte des polluants). / The main objective of this work is to develop an optimal management strategy to improve energetic efficiency of hybrid electric vehicle. This work is composed by a mobility experimental analysis part, a numerical modelization part and an optimization part of the energy management strategy. The study of mobility allow to highligth and quantify the predictibility of trips, due to a constraint mobility.The dynamic modelling of the vehicle which is necesary to study perfomance of strategies, was realized by Energetic Macroscopic Representation (EMR) which is a good methode in this case. The proposed strategy is based on the predictive control (MPC), solve by a method of Programming Quadratic, and set up resting on the cycle prediction determined from the experimental study. The perspectives of improvements of these work are consolidation of the database, and improvement of the battery modelling (imcluding thermal and ageing effects) and of the thermal engine (taken into account by some pollutants).

<p>A large proportion of the energy consumption is in the building industry and a large part goes to heating our homes and premises. In the developing countries' development now threatens the large consumption of energy in our earth's climate. It is in the West world that we must be good role models in terms of energy efficiency. One solution to reduce energy consumption for heating of buildings may be to continue to build low energy houses and passive houses, but it is also about rebuilding the buildings that currently have high energy consumption such as the old Million program Houses. These buildings will be standing many years and their energy consumption will not diminish over time by itself and energy prices will certainly not diminish in the future. This report will touch on the subject mainly new construction, how to build an energy efficient building, but a smaller portion will touch on the subject rebuilding, particularly the solutions that can fit into economic terms.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>Calculations have been done to link the concepts of U_mean of a building and its energy consumption. This was done by calculations using an Excel document created in connection with this thesis.</p><p> </p><p>The buildings and architectural solutions addressed in this report will focus on apartment buildings where the partner of this thesis is Eskilstuna Municipal Building. Eskilstuna Municipality Property manages buildings and premises to Eskilstuna Municipality, but also owns their own house with rental apartments.<strong></strong></p>

<p>Fjärrvärmen utgör idag ungefär 12 % (48 TWh) av Sveriges totala energianvändning. Starka argument att använda fjärrvärme för att tillgodose bostäders och lokalers värmebehov är möjligheten att använda olika bränslen av skiftande pris och kvalitet, den goda verkningsgraden en centraliserad värmeanläggning erhåller samt fördelen med att kombinera produktionen av el och värme.</p><p>Halmstad energi och miljö (HEM), förser Halmstad och närområdet med fjärrvärme och total mängd producerad energi uppgick 2009 till 596 GWh. Avfall och biobränsle utgör den största produktionsandelen men även industriell spillvärme samt mindre mängder olja och naturgas används för att framställa värme.</p><p>Konkurrenssituationen för fjärrvärme är på många orter i det närmsta monopolistisk där en stor aktör äger hela marknaden. Det är viktigt att förbättra fjärrvärmesystemet för att i framtiden behålla dess konkurrenskraft. Följande rapport utreder och beskriver åtgärder för att göra ett redan befintligt fjärrvärmesystem mer effektivt.</p><p>Utifrån möten med personal på HEM har tio punkter presenterats, vilka utvärderar olika delmoment i Halmstads fjärrvärmesystem. Utifrån dessa punkter presenteras en ”kvalitetsstämpel” vilken beskriver hur väl HEM:s fjärrvärmesystem fungerar inom respektive delområde.</p><p>Slutsatsen av rapporten visar att förbättringspotential ur en energieffektiv synvinkel är möjlig men att de ekonomiska fördelarna är få.</p> / <p>District heating constitutes about 12 % (48 TWh) of the total energy usage in Sweden. Arguments for utilize district heating to provide housings and premises with heat are the possibility to use different kinds of fuels with various prices and quality, the good efficiency a centralized heating plant gives and the benefits of produce electricity and heat at the same time.</p><p>The energy company HEM supplies Halmstad and surrounding area with district heating and the produced amount of energy 2009 was 596 GWh. Waste and bio fuels constitutes the largest part of produced energy but also industrial lost heat and small amounts of oil and natural gas are used to produce heat.</p><p>The competitive situation for district heating is in many places close to monopolistic because only one major participant owns the market. It is important to improve a district heating system to maintain it’s ability to be competitive in the future. The following report investigates and describes interventions to make an already existing district heating system more efficient.</p><p>From meetings with personnel, ten items has been presented evaluating different elements in the district heating system of Halmstad. These elements also give a view of how well HEM:s district heating system works in different areas.</p><p>The conclusion of this report shows that the potential of a more energy efficient system is possible but the economical benefits are few.</p>

<p>In June 2006 the Swedish government decided that the use of energy in buildings should be reduced by 20 percent until 2020, compared to the level of energy used in 1995. To contribute to this goal, the real estate company “Eskilstuna Kommunfastigheter AB”, set up own goals for their buildings. In 2009, the goal for schools was to have a maximum energy use of 118 kWh/m²year for heating and hot water.</p><p>The school “Hållsta skola”, just south of Eskilstuna, exceeds the limit since it used 270 kWh in 2008. The school is heated by oil burners, which is not desirable since oil is a fossil fuel. The aim of this study was to identify cost effective measures for decreased energy use for heating and hot water in the school, and to find alternatives to the oil burners.</p><p>The school was built between 1963 and 1975 and consists of two buildings. The insulation in the roof, walls, windows and floor is poor and the ventilation is mainly performed without heat recovery. Measures including insulation of the roof, new windows, heat recovery in the ventilation system and more effective water taps were studied with Life Cycle Cost analysis (LCC) and Pay-off analysis. The energy use with and without the new performance was calculated with the building simulation program VIP+. If all of the economically favorable measures are carried out the total energy use would decrease to 167 kWh/m²year.</p><p>One of the alternatives to oil burners that were suggested is heat pumps. The two types of heat pumps studied, ground source or air source, were both found to be profitable, although the ground source heat pump would be slightly more profitable. In the calculations it was considered that an electric boiler would back up the heat pumps during cold days. With heat pumps, the energy bought for heating and hot water would be about 55 kWh/m²year, which is well below the goal of maximum 118 kWh/m²year.</p>

Purpose: This thesis investigates and analyzes the customer satisfaction over a 10-year time period among Trivselhus customers. Background: More companies in the building sector are starting to realize the importance of using cus-tomer satisfaction as a tool to enhance their competitive advantage. Customer satisfaction brings several positive aspects to a company, which can contribute to a successful business. It is crucial to fulfill customers‟ wants and needs in order to obtain customer satisfaction. Building a house is one of the largest investment people make in life, with important deci-sions that can affect their current way of living. Customer satisfaction is, therefore, crucial for a company like Trivselhus, where it is essential to keep their customers satisfied by of-fering the right products that fulfill their expectations. Another increasingly important aspect in people‟s lives today is the environment. This has now come to affect the house building industries as they have to fulfill customer expecta-tions regarding energy efficiency and environmental friendliness. Method: To answer the purpose, primary data have been collected by conducting a telephone sur-vey. The survey was made randomly among Trivselhus customers. From the different theo-ries, important categories that affect customer satisfaction were found. Aspects from all these categories were included in the questionnaire to explain customer satisfaction. The analysis is based on statistical data generated from the survey. Central tendency values and regression analysis makes it possible to explain which variables affect customer satisfaction among Trivselhus customers. Conclusion: The outcome of the research signifies, that customer satisfaction among Trivselhus cus-tomers has not changed during all the years covered in this research. There are several va-riables affecting customer satisfaction. These variables are included in different categories; Complaints, Expectations, Service Quality, Energy, Product Quality, and Image. Further-more, there is not enough evidence to prove that energy efficiency and environmental friendliness affect customer satisfaction geographically. / Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka och analysera kundnöjdheten bland Trivselhus kun-der över en 10 års period. Bakgrund: Fler företag inom byggsektorn har börjat inse vikten utav att använda kundnöjdhet som ett redskap för att skaffa sig konkurrensfördelar. Kundnöjdhet medför flera positiva aspekter till ett företag, som kan bidra till en framgångsrik affärsverksamhet och det är viktigt att uppfylla kundernas förväntningar och behov för att få kunde nöjd. Att bygga ett hus är en utav de största investeringar som görs i livet, med viktiga beslut som kan påverka ens levnadssituation. Kundnöjdhet är därför avgörande för ett företag såsom Trivselhus, där det är viktigt att hålla sina kunder nöjda genom att erbjuda rätt produkter som uppfyller deras förväntningar och krav. En annan viktig aspekt idag är miljön. Det har visat sig att miljön har kommit att påverka byggsektorn eftersom de nu måste uppfylla kunders förväntningar även angående miljö och energi aspekter. Metod: För att besvara syftet har primärdata samlats in genom en telefonundersökning. Undersök-ningen gjordes slumpmässigt bland Trivselhus kunder. Från teorier hämtades viktiga kate-gorier som påverkar kundnöjdhet. Aspekter från alla dessa kategorier ingick i frågeställ-ningen för att kunna förklara kundnöjdhet. Analysen bygger på statistiska uppgifter. Me-delvärden samt regressions analys gör det möjligt att förklara vilka variabler som påverkar kundnöjdheten bland Trivselhus kunder. Slutsats: Resultatet utav studien visar att kundnöjdheten bland Trivselhus kunder inte förändrats under åren som behandlats, men det finns flera variabler som påverkar kundnöjdhet. Dessa variabler är inkluderade i olika kategorier; Klagomål, Förväntningar, Servicekvalitet, Energi, Produktkvalitet och Image. Vidare så finns det inte tillräckligt med bevis för att miljö och energi påverkar kundnöjdheten geografiskt.

Wearable systems continue to gain new markets by addressing improved performance and lower size, weight and cost. Both civilian and military markets have incorporated wearable technologies to enhance and facilitate user's tasks and activities. A wearable system is a heterogeneous system composed of diverse electronic modules: data processing, input and output modules. The system is constructed to be body-borne and therefore, several constraints are put on wearable systems regarding wearability (size, weight, placement, etc.) and robustness rendering the task of designing wearable systems challenging. In this thesis, an overview of wearable systems was given by discussing definition, technology challenges, market analysis and design methodologies. Main research targeted at network architectures and robustness to environmental stresses and electromagnetic interference (EMI). The network architecture designated the data communication on the intermodule level - topology and infrastructure. A deeper analysis of wearable requirements on the network architecture was made and a new architecture is proposed based on DC power line communication network (DC-PLC). In addition, wired data communication was compared to wireless data communication by introducing statistical communication model and looking at multiple design attributes: power efficiency, scalability, and wearability. The included papers focused on wearable systems related issues including analysis of present situation, environmental and electrical robustness studies, theoretical and computer aided modelling, and experimental testing to demonstrate new wearable architectural concepts. A roadmap was given by examining the past and predicting the future of wearable systems in terms of technology, market, and architecture. However, the roadmap was updated within this thesis to include new market growth figures that proved to be far less than was predicted in 2004. User and application environmental requirements to be applied on future wearable systems were identified. A procedure is presented to address EMI and evaluated solutions in wearable application through modelling and simulation. Environmental robustness and wearability of wearable systems in general, and washability and conductive textile in particular are investigated. A measurement-based methodology to model electrical properties of conductive textile when subjected to washing was given. Employing a wired data communication network was found to be more appropriate for wearable systems than wireless networks when prioritizing power efficiency. The wearability and scalability of the wired networks was enhanced through conductive textile and DC-PLC, respectively. A basic wearable application was built to demonstrate the suitability of DC-PLC communication with conductive textile as infrastructure. The conductive textile based on metal filament showed better mechanical robustness than metal plated conductive textile. A more advanced wearable demonstrator, where DC-PLC network was implemented using transceivers, further strengthened the proposed wearable architecture. Based on the overview, the theoretical, modelling and experimental work, a possible approach of designing wearable systems that met several contradicting requirements was given.

This thesis analyses a specific type of energy usage system, “energy usage in hotels”, and how this system behaves. In order to evaluate the current state of energy use in hotels, an energy audit questionnaire was developed and conducted among 31,5% of hotels on the Adriatic coast. The energy audit was used as a tool to set a benchmark for energy consumption in hotels and to identify opportunities for increased energy efficiency measures in HVAC systems. The analysis has shown that the average energy consumption in hotels on the Adriatic coast is in the range of 159 to 180 kWh/m2 and 162 to 225 kWh/m2 for seasonal and non seasonal hotels respectively. In order to establish a relationship between different independent variables in the hotels (total floor area and number of rooms) and dependent variables, such as electricity and oil consumption, mathematical statistical methods, such as correlation and regression analysis, were implemented. The objective of this thesis was also to develop - from an energy, environmental and economical points of view - a methodology for the design and retrofit of HVAC systems in the hotels on the Adriatic coast. The methodology named HOTECO is based on a system thinking approach. With respect to the technological aspects, the first step was to analyse conventional HVAC system designs and to compare it with the three most promising alternative HVAC systems utilizing renewable energy sources for a typical hotel. Computer modelling in TRNSYS was used to assess energy consumption. TRNSYS software has been used for simulations for a number of years, is internationally recognized, and has been validated and verified. It was concluded that energy and environmental savings in hotels on the Adriatic coast could be achieved using readily available technologies. The HOTECO methodology also demonstrated a framework that supports decision making iv regarding system selection and operational strategies to limit environmental impact from HVAC systems in hotels. Four scenarios for energy consumption in hotels on the Adriatic coast with regards to current state of energy systems and improved retrofit solutions utilizing renewable energy source were given. / QC 20100929