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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.

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Maple sap was successfully transformed into maple syrup and maple syrup products by evaporation of water by microwave heating. Pulsed power supply with duty cycles of 100%, 75% and 60% were used for the microwave application. The dielectric properties of maple syrup at different moisture contents during the process were determined at 25$ sp circ$C. The products obtained were of excellent quality and were comparable to the highest grade prescribed by the industry. Pulsed power supply was found to have better efficiency of heating, but it increased the total time required for the process. The total time was also found to be dependent on the initial mass of the load. The behavior of the dielectric properties of the maple syrup was found to be fairly linear with moisture content and were found to be in close agreement with an empirical model found in literature. Microwave heating seems to have an enormous potential for production of high quality maple syrup.

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The thesis is mainly concerned with experimental studies of the heating effects of eddy currents. Sinusoidal and non-sinusoidal eddy current heating losses in non-magnetic conducting discs and spheres, subjected to a uniform field, are studied both theoretically and experimentally. The theory uses two different methods to calculate the power dissipation in the objects, and it employs Fourler series for the non-sinusoidal case. Some approximations for the losses at low frequency have been derived. The experimental study has three main sections. The first deals with the generation of uniform field for inducing eddy currents. Square Helmholtz coils have been designed, constructed and calibrated for this purpose. The second part is concerned with the measurement of the heat generated by eddy currents. A differential thermometer, using two matched therrnistors in a Blumlein bridge circuit, has been designed, built and calibrated. Operating close to balance, with a phase sensitive detector, the thermometer detects differences of 10-5 degrees C. In the third part, the experiment arranged for the eddy current heating measurements is described. The measured and the calculated results are compared, and the agreement was found to be about 2%. In foil wound inductors excited by alternating current, eddy currents together with proximity effect cause a redistribution of the current density across the width of the inductors. The current flow is increased along the edges of the foil and decreased along the centre portion. A thermal demonstration of this phenomenon, which is known as width effect, is described and studied by using the differential thermometer.