In 2009, Ontario’s electricity system is in the midst of redevelopment to be sustainable, competitive and reliable. To advance this goal, conservation and demand management (CDM) is a key part of the plan. For CDM plans to be successful, it is necessary to understand why organizations undertake CDM activities. This thesis presents a case study, from 2001 to 2006, investigating organizations’ motivations, enablers and barriers associated with conservation, efficiency and demand response activities. Participants included general service customers with loads greater than 50 kW in Milton, Ontario (Canada). Interviews with representatives from 17 organizations included industrial, commercial and institutional customers. Observations at Milton Hydro Energy Drill Program events, analyses of participants’ electricity usage data, and investigations of the participants’ public profiles were included in the case study. All participants reported undertaking at least one CDM activity. The primary motivation was financial benefit. Customer satisfaction was also an important motivator for some participants. Adhering to business policies and objectives and environmental benefit were complimentary to these main motivations. The Energy Drill Program, in some cases, led to increased conservation and efficiency by encouraging a focus on internal systems and practices as well as by providing an opportunity for businesses to save on operating costs while benefiting from an associated positive public image. The commercial and industrial participants were interested in CDM activities as long as they fit within their business financial management requirements and/or contributed to their business’s competitiveness through improved image or otherwise. The social and/or environmental benefits were seen as complimentary, yet not enough to drive the activities on their own. Most of the institutional participants emphasized the community contribution as an enabler of their participation in the demand response program, however, two of the four such participants did not appear to participate in the program on a regular basis, based on the program impact reports. This incongruity between reported and actual behaviour in this sector may be an interesting area for further research. The barriers reported were for known opportunities and these included the inadequate and uncertain financial benefits, technological uncertainty, and, particularly for the small to medium sized businesses, the limited capacity to further investigate and pursue opportunities. Future research could investigate each sector and/or CDM activity sub-category independently for more specific insights.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 93 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 92-93).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): Herschel H. Loomis, Jr., Alan A. Ross. Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-161). Also available online.

In later years the interest for solar cells has increased in Sweden. Even so, the attractiveness to integrate solar cells to buildings becomes attenuated due to regulations and taxes, which complicate the process. Ihus is a company owned by Uppsala Municipality in Sweden who has chosen to invest in solar cells that are integrated to their facility at Bolandsgatan 10, where they are leasing out locales to other companies. Their aim with the solar cells is to distribute electricity to their tenants without becoming professional electricity suppliers. This study simulates the solar cell electricity demand and supply at Bolandsgatan 10 and analyses the interest and regulations regarding solar cell integration. The result shows that using solar cells not only is an excellent choice of green energy but it would also be economical beneficial for the tenants. To show how solar cell electricity could be allocated, four alternative solutions have been developed. Furthermore, this report shows that tax regulations have to adapt to fit in with the development of solar cells in order to encourage the usage of solar cells in the future.

Today’s debate regarding the United States (U.S.) transportation sector has never been more important. As similar discussions embroil electricity generation, one can see the powerful forces of the status-quo pitted against growing momentum behind alternatives. The electric vehicle (EV) finds itself somewhere in the middle of the debate, as a possible alternative to the conventional vehicle (CV). As demonstrated in this report, electric vehicles are neither new nor technologically infeasible. Current circumstances have initiated what appears to be a revival of the EV – this includes years of high oil prices, geopolitical instability, and growing awareness of environmental concerns resulting from CV usage. Nevertheless, impediments remain. One of the most important is the prospect of building public charging infrastructure to allow drivers to use an EV like their conventional vehicle, for both long and short distances. Public charging infrastructure, however, cannot be built without some critical mass of EV’s on the road to use them – otherwise they are not economically feasible. This report analyzes various facets of both EV’s and public charging infrastructure to give the reader a clear understanding of the complex criteria that must be understood to assess EV’s in the United States. Texas is given special consideration as a case study in this report, particularly the Austin area where public charging infrastructure for EV’s is currently being implemented. Through a detailed analysis of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure, as well as the United States transportation system, this report seeks to reach conclusions over the role EV’s and public charging infrastructure should play in the future U.S. transportation system. / text

Electricity supply industries (ESI) around the world are subject to structural and regulatory change. The environmental implications of these changes will depend, largely, on future investment within cleaner technologies. As developing countries (Des) increase levels of electricity supply, the incentives for investment in clean technologies is particularly important. Policy-makers wishing to promote renewable electricity technologies (RETs) in Des need to understand the nature of technological change in large technical systems (LTS). Broadly this thesis adopts the view that technological change is the outcome of the complex interaction of technical, economic and political factors. Initially technological change in LTS is shaped by social and political factors. As the system increases in both size and complexity driven by economies of scale and scope, and through co-evolution of technical and institutional features, it exhibits 'momentum,' whereupon technological change tends to be 'incremental' and autonomous. Through problem-solving activities to address 'reverse salients' the system evolves on a 'technological trajectory,' its path confined by technological and economic boundaries defined by the prevailing 'techno-economic' paradigm. Subsequently new technologies such as RETs, with characteristics different to those of the 'Traditional Electricity System Trajectory' (TEST) are unlikely to be favoured. Restructuring the electricity system provides a discontinuity in its momentum, allowing the drivers and interactions of different stakeholders to be more transparent. During such periods of instability there are important opportunities for systemic change through meaningful policy input. The socio-economic importance of electricity supply in Des further increases the 'technoinstitutional complexity' within the electricity system, and so resistance to restructuring. The thesis argues that restructuring of the ESI is a necessary, but not sufficient requirement for commercialisation of RETs. Rather policies supported by legislation should ensure that conservative techno-institutional mechanisms are replaced by ones that encourage a 'Balanced Electricity System Trajectory.' The BEST framework incorporates 'economies of the system' as a driver and is characterised by distributed technologies including small-scale and modular generation and sophisticated control technologies. As well as being characterised by flexible control in the technical sense, the BEST model is also characterised by flexible institutional arrangements.

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A new technique is presented for measuring the spatial and momentum distributions of a buffer-gas cooled ion cloud in a Paul trap by extracting it from the trap and fitting the time profile of the extracted ion signal. A thermodynamic model based on the Gibbs distribution has been developed which describes the initial ion cloud phase space volume and fits the measured time distributions of the extracted cloud using only one parameter: temperature. A time-of-flight system has been built to systematically vary the ion extraction conditions and compare predictions of the model to various measurements of the ion cloud time profile. A new numerical method using a multipole expansion was developed to compute the extraction fields. Agreement between the ion simulations and the time-of-flight data is better than 2% of the total flight time. / Ion cloud temperatures were measured for seven different trap loadings of potassium ions and four loadings of sodium ions, in both cases down to clouds of about 1000 ions. This is the first time that temperature measurements have been made for such small numbers of buffer-gas cooled ions. The results show that the temperature of the ions above the buffer gas temperature appears to be proportional to the two-thirds power of the number of ions in the cloud. / Dynamic manipulation of the extracted ion cloud phase space volume was also accomplished using a time-varying acceleration voltage to change the ion cloud energy spread in flight. / A concept is also outlined to measure the detailed phase space area of the extracted cloud using the projection-slice theorem of tomographic imaging. / These measurements have applications for the use of ion traps as beam collectors for nuclear physics experiments at isotope separator facilities and possibly for nano-circuit fabrication.

Wind-electricity is unpredictable in both intensity and duration. This thesis presents the design and implementation of Client-pull and Server-push architectures for the distribution of wind-electricity to Electrical Thermal Storage (ETS) units to match the electrical load of the ETS units with the electricity generation levels. Wind as an energy source is reviewed and the smart grid concept of a communication layer for the transmission, production and usage of electricity is explored. ETS operation is explained and a survey of the Client-pull and Server-push concepts. These implementations are evaluated on their ability to dispatch wind-electricity over a full heating season, short term latency, single day performance and complexity. Client-pull and Server-push architectures have nearly identical performance over a full heating season and identical performance over the 24 hour period evaluated. The Server-push architecture has lower short-term latency but is more complex than the Client-pull.