The aim of this research is to develop a new policy framework for the use of Combined Heat & Power systems' (CHP) in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises2 (SMEs). This entailed an assessment of the extent to which the current national policy framework for the use of CHP is effective and from contemporary data obtained from CHP operators, policy makers, designers and regulators, subsequently to develop a new policy framework. The design of the research process combines the strengths of engineering, economic and social policy academic disciplines for an examination of the potential for the use of CHP in SMEs. The research methodology dictated the use of qualitative and quantitative methods for data collection. The analyses of the data collected formed the basis for proposing a new Governance policy framework designed to encourage the use of CHP in the SMEs. The new Governance framework is proposed as an amalgamation of Support Systems set on the macro and micro levels of SME governance. A Governance Support System (GSS) offers SMEs an integrated structure for regional sustainable development, including flexible decision support base. The Business Decision Support System (BDSS) is designed as a simple tool for use by SME managers' considering CHP as part of any proposal involving capacity constraints for heat or electricity in the business. The thesis concludes that proactive adoption of the new Governance framework would allow for easier access of SMEs to CHP systems as well as assisting the Government in meeting its climate change objectives. 1 A CHP system is one that simultaneously produces heat and electricity in a single process. 2 Enterprises that employ less than 250 staff, with an annual turnover no more than 40 million Euros andis less than 25% owned by s large enterprise.

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This thesis presents a new approach)o the various kind of renewable technologies, \: especially in wind energy, together with Distribut~d Generation (DG) and how there .. ' ~.- regulation and application in the modern power industry and market. The modern power market is growing in the fastest rate in the last decade, mainly because of the deregulation of the power market. The deregulation induced the competitive, which is supposed to reduce the cost and improve the power quality. However, it is like every other growing industry, there are always flaws exist inside the system or mechanism that compromises the original ta, rget. To ma.ke matters more complex, the environmental and energy exhausting concern produce more issues that required immediately attention, such as insertion of renewable energy,' eHP and DG techllologies that helps to reduce pollution and improve power quality. There are many barriers for applying newly development technologies that stated above, one main barrier is that even though population may understand the importance of energy saving and environmental friendly energy source, they may not know where or how to acquire those energy source. Secondly, applying new technologies on the old power system design will increase additional costs such as new wiring system, new design of control and security, and new expertise opinion on the new technologies to ensure their reliability and consistence. All the additional costs will catch participants' attention and some may think they are not worth of investment. Thirdly, DG will seem to be a favourable technologies for renewable energy to use because their characteristics of small in size and feasible to co-operate with traditional energy sources. However, it will create additional load on the existing distribution system that causes the electrical power to flow back to electrical energy grid, which is not original design of the electrical energy gird. To solve the problem may require redesign of the system, which will have negative effect on investor's decision.

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Ultimately there will be a limit on the amount of power from variable sources of renewable energy which can be absorbed by the electricity supply system and continue to remain stable and secure. New technical solutions are required. The development of energy storage technology could provide a potential solution. However, all the current methods involve either a significant loss of energy during the process or are unsuitable for the bulk storage of power. The research work reviews current methods of energy storage and examines the supply chain in order to resolve where energy storage should best be located. Most benefits could be gained if the energy storage units were placed adjacent to the final customers. The power lost during transmission and distribution could be minimised and the capital invested in the infrastructure would be more productive. It would require energy to be stored in relatively small quantities using simple technology, be remotely controJled and offer a long operational life. Few current methods match these requirements. In order to support the analysis of benefits which may be delivered by storing energy, the performance of a modem CCGT power station was monitored while it was operating with a number of different output profiles. The consequences were recorded and analysed for fuel used, C02 emitted, operational costs and maintenance as the plant produced power below its optimum performance. The Flow Battery was identified as the technology likely to deliver most characteristics required of an embedded energy store. However, the flow battery requires space to store the electrolyte and can be expensive to employ in urban areas where land prices are high. An enhancement of the hydraulic accumulator could be developed as an energy store. The initial analysis suggests that it offers the potential technical characteristics required and could be designed for minimum land requirements. Hence it could be located adjacent to existing electricity sub-stations or even within domestic premises, industrial complexes and commercial enterprises where land may already in the hands of the potential user.

The aim of this thesis was to provide new insights into the adoption of solar power technologies. Policy has identified solar technologies capable of providing domestic carbon reductions but limitations such as high capital costs and poor productivity are preventing widespread adoption. The research problem was that neither the attitudes of householders to the technology, nor their adoption decision processes had previously been investigated. If these could be understood, policy interventions might be more effective. This research presents previously unseen adoption curves for solar power systems, which by volume are less significant than conventional energy efficiency technologies, but the ‘S’ curve shows a rate of adoption similar to insulation and boiler systems. In addition, this research presents a comprehensive set of constructs that householders use as heuristics in their decision making process. These constructs were used in a survey of householders that showed both innovative and pragmatic tendencies in order to gain insight to their attitudes towards the systems. The results of this survey highlighted that adopters are mostly positive to solar power systems, especially the environmental aspects. However, on aesthetic, operational and financial issues, the responses indicated less positive attitudes by the ‘pragmatic’ majority. The survey confirmed the presence of a previously theorised ‘chasm’ that demonstrated significant differences between earlier and later adopters. This highlighted seven aspects of the technology that developers should consider, and also a difference in the decision making process followed by the two sets of adopters. Policy insights are discussed in relation to this.

The global resources of unconventional oil such as heavy oil, extra-heavy oil, and bitumen are vast and are expected to play an increasingly important role in meeting the world‘s future energy needs. However, the highly viscous nature of these resources means that only a small fraction of them can be recovered by the simple and inexpensive primary and secondary oil recovery techniques. A greater fraction demands complex and costly tertiary oil recovery techniques known as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). Of the various EOR techniques available today, the recovery of viscous oil remains inextricably tied to steam-based EOR (S-EOR). S-EOR involves the injection of large quantities of steam into the reservoir in order to reduce the oil viscosity to improve its mobility, and thus increase oil production. The economics of S-EOR projects is governed by the time-rate of the recovery of oil versus the time-rate of expenses required to recover this oil. Steam generation is typically the largest cost component in S-EOR projects and it accounts for more than fifty percent of the total operating cost. Despite this, the focus during preliminary development phases is often on maximizing the oil production rate rather than optimizing long run economics. It is argued throughout this study that for optimum S-EOR development, the decision-making process should be based upon optimizing the long term economics. A multidisciplinary approach that includes considerations of surface, subsurface, environmental, and risk perspectives is therefore needed. This thesis reports on the development of TERM-EOR, an integrated surface-subsurface tool to enhance the decision-making processes involved in S-EOR projects. The tool consists of economic, fiscal, environmental, and risk modules that are fully integrated in a single user-friendly platform. The tool can be used both during project feasibility studies and for operation optimization. The use of TERM-EOR is illustrated through two case studies, one of which is surface-oriented while the other is subsurface-oriented. In the first case study, the thermodynamic performance of gas turbine cogeneration in a typical S-EOR project is evaluated and its economics is compared with a fired boiler system. Cogeneration wasfound to provide substantial fuel savings and CO2 reduction, and its economics remains competitive even under the most unfavourable conditions. The unit technical cost (UTC) of the project with cogeneration was found to be between 2 to 10 dollars lower than the project without. In addition, the break-even oil price for the project with cogeneration was also found to be 6 to 8 dollars lower than that without. In the second case study, TERM-EOR is used to optimize the operating pressure of a Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) project. It was found that there is no cut-off answer to the question of optimum operating pressure for SAGD. The answer is found to be influenced by a number of factors including the obtained oil rate, the steam to oil ratio, crude oil prices, steam technology and steam cost, as well as the environmental regulations in place. Operating at high pressure, though resulting in higher oil rates, increases steam consumption, fuel usage and GHG emissions. On the other hand, operating at low pressure is thermodynamically more efficient but results in lower oil rates. In general, from a government viewpoint the economics of the SAGD project was found to be more sensitive to the obtained oil rate, and thus favouring high pressure operations. This is in contrast to the oil company perspective where the economics was found to be driven by the operating costs, and thus favouring low pressure operations. A preliminary thermodynamic evaluation of a parabolic-trough solar system designed to deliver steam for S-EOR projects was carried out. The study highlights a number of technical challenges facing the integration of solar technology into S-EOR operations. For a typical day in Oman, it was found that the steam injection process can only be maintained for less than nine hours a day, after which the steam injectors will be shut-in. The cyclic cooling and heating of injector wells will expose them to fatigue problems, which may result in premature failures. Solar-generated steam will also have to be injected at peak rates during daytime in order to compensate for steam unavailability during the night. The peak in steam rate for the solar case was found to be three times greater than that required for constant-rate operation. Therefore, more steam injectors and larger steam facilities with high turndown capabilities are required to handle peak steam rates. It will also raise concerns about the steam injectivity of the reservoir and whether it will be able to handle peak steam rates associated with solar steam plants, an issue which is still open to debate.

This research identified the two principal reasons for unsustainable forest management in Sierra Leone as inadequate forest policies and policy implementation. There has been a consistent disparity between the government's stated forest policies, published in 1912, 1946 and 1988 with goals of protection and sustainable management, and its actual policies which since 1922 have mainly promoted unsustainable exploitation. Reliance on out-of-date policies created ambiguity that allowed the government to pursue this hidden agenda. Changes in policy were analysed with a balance of policy pressures model that assessed changes in the influence of major policy actors and stresses on them. The dominant actors since 1912 have been the Executive and the Bureaucracy, subject to pressures from the British government (until Independence in 1961) and timber traders. Stated policy changed in 1912 and 1946 in response to their concern about the threat posed by deforestation to timber supplies. But actual policy was soon relaxed, to increase selfsufficiency and contribute to the allied war effort (1939-1945), and benefit the country's Business Elite, particularly after 1969 when patronage and corruption proliferated. Stated policy changed in 1988 under pressure from foreign donor organisations concerned about environmental impacts of forest depletion. But local NOOs and other protectionist groups were still too weak to force a change in actual policy. Poor forest policy implementation by the state's Forestry Division between 1961 and 1984 was explained by institutional constraints, shown by an organisation theory model to involve poor organisational strength, an organisational structure with a clear chain of command but long reporting lines, a high level of discretion allowed to senior staff, and external conditioning of policy down the chain of command. The new structure introduced in 1984 to facilitate more decentralised forest management made lines of communication more indirect and continuing use of old reporting lines led to confusion and dual allegiance. A questionnaire and interview survey of Forestry Division staff found that poor staff compliance with policy is influenced by lack of freedom to express opinions, dilapidated working conditions, limited equipment, low salaries, lack of opportunities for training and promotion, and lack of participation in policy formulation. The government's inability to control peripheral areas has been further limited since 1991 by a rebel insurgency which forced forestry staff to withdraw from most forested areas. While still politically weak, NOOs have complemented the role of the government by undertaking their own afforestation projects. A survey of NOO staff showed that their morale, effectiveness and resource availability were all much higher than that of the Forestry Division. The results of this first comprehensive forest policy analysis for Sierra Leone raise queries about assumptions by environmentalist groups that management of tropical forests generally will become more sustainable simply if governments introduce improved policies, as they are committed to do as signatories to the 2nd International Tropical Timber Agreement. Actual policy will remain exploitative if protectionist groups inside a country remain weak, and implementation will continue to be constrained by institutional factors.

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