This thesis focused on the performance of large-scale renewable energy projects for the United States Air Force. As global energy demands continue to rise, the need to find ways to save energy and produce alternative sources of energy will increase. The Federal Government has begun to address the challenge of energy production and energy security in recent years. In order to increase both the energy production and energy security for the Air Force, there is a trend to increase the amount of renewable energy produced on military installations. The goal of this research was to compare the estimated and actual performance of these large-scale on-site renewable energy projects at Air Force installations. The variables considered for this research were the execution methods and the renewable energy sources. The performance of each project was evaluated against factors identified in previous sustainable construction studies. The study found that actual performance of third party owned and operated projects differed from the expected performance by less than the Air Force owned and operated projects, and that performance of renewable energy projects differed from the expected performance by less than high performance buildings from previous studies. The study also found factors that contributed to the gap between the expected and actual performance including optimistic modeling, unusual weather, operational issues and higher than expected maintenance of the projects. The results of this research were an initial step in understanding the actual performance of large-scale renewable energy projects. / Master of Science

Texas is the leading producer of renewable energy in the U.S, and Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) is the largest metropolitan area in the state. Texas has a deregulated energy market, with three types of providers: privatized, public-owned, and co-operatives. Privatized providers compete in the deregulated market, and consumers choose between hundreds of electricity retailers. Public-owned providers are owned by the municipality, and electricity consumers that live within the city limits must use the municipal provider. Electric co-operatives operate similarly where customers within the region must use the co-operative, but instead of being owned by the city, co-ops are owned by the members (customers). To date, the availability, cost, accessibility, and outreach of renewable electricity among these provider types remains unclear. For this reason, my research examines the renewable energy market in DFW by asking: (1) Who has access to renewable energy and how do they understand it? (2) How do electricity retailers distribute and make renewable energy available? and (3) If consumers can choose their provider, why do they select certain electricity plans over others? My findings suggest that while many consumers want or are open to using renewable energy, uncertainties surrounding how to find or choose a provider, price, and lack of information about renewables are obstacles for consumers to access renewable energy. Additionally, while renewable energy is widely distributed in the region, there are disparities in renewable energy options.

This thesis considers India's pursuit of energy security. Defining energy security within traditional parameters of supply, delivery, diversification of fuels and suppliers, and affordable prices; the work considers India's energy security condition by surveying the core energy sectors including coal, oil and gas, hydroelectricity, nuclear power and renewables. India's pursuit of energy security is then disaggregated into domestic and international arenas and both are analysed in turn. Considerable attention is paid to the international dimension where India's quest to acquire energy resources is contextualised within bilateral relations with specific countries. What the proceeding analysis makes clear is that the international arena offers considerable opportunities, but also constraints on, the realisation of greater energy security. Chapter one analyses global trends in the main energy sectors of coal, oil, natural gas, hydroelectricity, nuclear power and renewables. Historically, the fortunes of the global energy sectors have mirrored trends in the global economy. Since 2008, most of the world's major industrialised economies have experienced negative or greatly reduced levels of growth. This is primarily due to the proliferation of vast quantities of debt that have capsized several financial institutions and are adversely affecting the liquidity and solvency of many developed governments. The global energy sectors have also been deeply affected by the economic downturn with access to funds for the development of new infrastructure squeezed. The recent poor economic growth of these countries has further accentuated the downward trend they have experienced in energy consumption. Nevertheless, many parts of the developing world, including India, have only been marginally affected by the global economic downturn and continue to develop rapidly. Consequentially most of the growth in demand for energy is coming from developing countries, particularly India. Although there are slight variations depending on sector, this dual trend of stagnation in the developed world and rapid growth in the developing is one ofthe recurring themes in the global energy markets. It is within this context that the second chapter considers India's energy security condition. Detailed analysis of the coal, oil, gas, hydroelectric and renewable sectors demonstrate succinctly that India is experiencing considerable growing pains. While several challenges are unique to each sector the chapter also identifies several systemic problems, including insufficient supply, rampant demand, a tendency to import.

The goal to satisfy the energy demand, global warming and other environmental effects has prompted the urgency to shift energy generation systems to more affordable and sustainable methods, with the goal of phasing out the traditional-conventional systems to environmental friendly and sustainable generation systems. This campaign also calls for a more energy conscious society aware of its energy demand and promoting energy efficiency so as to minimize the demand through reduced wastages. For the later to be achieved energy systems should be understood in organization and this involves performing energy audits. This paper discusses the energy audit of Nchanga mine, Nchanga mine is located in Chingola town in the Copperbelt province of Zambia, and has operations involving underground mining, copper leaching, open pit mining and concentrate extraction. The Objective of the study was to perform a preliminary Audit; to understand the energy scenario and identify areas were savings could be realized. The problem however was that constraints on time could not allow a detailed analysis hence the scope was strictly on a preliminary audit study with minimal details on economics of measures and no analysis of investment cost. The method used for this analysis was the top down approach and the processes were divided into support and production processes to establish the energy balance. Nchanga mine has an annual energy use of about 656 GWh with an average maximum demand of about 88.6 MW. The total cost was about US. $ 34 million with maximum demand (MD) covering about $ 22 million and the rest was energy costs. This was obtained from analysis of energy bills from April 2011 to March 2012. The energy measures analyzed were according to the cost; cost influenced and non-cost influenced. The non-cost influenced measures gave a saving potential of about 15.6 MW ($ 3.9 million) on MD and 46 GWh ($ 818,800) on energy, giving a total electricity cost saving of about $ 4.7 million. The cost influenced measures gave a saving potential of about 12.7 MW ($ 3.1 million) on MD and 12 GWh ($ 213,600) on energy, giving a total electricity cost saving of about $ 3.4 million. These measures have a potential to reduce the overall MD by 28 MW (32% reduction), realizing an annual saving of about $ 7 million, and the overall energy use by about 58 GWh (8.8% reduction), which is an annual saving of about $ 1 million. This gives the total saving on the electricity bill of about $ 8 million that is about 24% reduction on the electricity bill with regards to last year’s expenditure.

Thesis (M. P. A.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2009. / "Spring 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-79).

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes special report study entitled: An education and research centre on renewable energy. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-100).

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes special report study entitled : An education and research centre on renewable energy. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

This research evaluates current home energy assessment tools and practices and investigates their applicability in terms of relevance supporting retrofit decision making in Southwest Virginia. Home energy assessments and audits are comprised of many different tools, strategies, and practices all with the same goal, to achieve accuracy in assessing performance as well as confidence in achieving energy savings from retrofit recommendations. Differing opinions, training, and standards in energy assessments have led to a reduced confidence and reliance on energy assessments, which can ultimately lead to poor retrofit decisions and undesired outcomes. This research undertook an investigation of current tools and practices as well as modeling studies to reveal insights into strengths and weaknesses, and to refine home energy assessments. The goal was to identify opportunities to increase confidence for stakeholders by analyzing energy assessments in terms of what strategies are most suitable to increase the accuracy of capturing different energy influence parameters, as well as to provide a basis for future research and development in this subject area. / Master of Science

Residential electricity consumption is responsible for approximately 30% of global electricity consumption. Further, residential electricity consumption in the United States of America is 25% of the total energy consumption in the United States. Hence the residential energy sector will play a critical role in the future of the electricity industry, especially given the increasing global demand for affordable electricity services, as well as the urgent need to reduce climate change emissions from the electricity sectors. Recent studies estimate that behavioral changes can reduce residential energy consumption by about 7.4%. So, by providing more detailed feedback to consumers about their energy usage at the appliance level can potentially encourage such behavioral changes. However, achieving a better understanding of the nature of household electricity consumption is challenging, due to the heterogeneity of the residential sector, the complexity of the under-lying drivers and the lack of comprehensive data. Relevant data includes household demographics, including occupant numbers, age distributions, and income; household behavior such as how often occupants use certain appliances and the interest and effort that they devote towards energy conservation; building types, such as the type of dwelling (free standing or unit), different appliance ownership and access to alternatives to electricity for some services such as gas for heating and cooking; and the climate zone of the households as well as the daily weather conditions. As explained before, the wide variation seen across all of these drivers’ leads to considerable differences in households’ electricity consumption. But data on these drivers is not always available. There has generally been only limited electricity consumption data available. Energy Conservation has become one of the first sustainability issues to be addressed through combination of national and local government policies. Human behavior is the major link to the environmental issues like global warming. Making domestic energy consumption visible to the end users has become more challenging due to metering methods. The only commonly visible record of consumption comes in the form of quarterly bills or monthly statements, by which time the links between specific activities and the energy consumed are severely dislocated, a situation described elsewhere as similar to a supermarket not displaying any individual product prices but merely providing the shopper with a total non-itemized bill at the checkout. Such issues create a negative effect on awareness towards sustainability. Many studies has proven that giving feedback on human behavior has significantly affected the energy consumption. To most consumers in developed countries, the fuel used within homes has become, to a large extent, an invisible resource. So, there should be some policy to guide consumers and to make them understand the importance of energy saving. Several test statistics procedures were performed to understand the relationship between residents’ behavior and energy consumption: Impact of indoor and outdoor temperature on energy consumption, Impact of residents’ behavior and awareness on energy consumption, and Impact of all variables in the study on energy consumption.