The purpose of this thesis has been to determine experimentally how good a peltier element is to convert waste heat from wood burning. Three different peltier elements were used in a comparison study. The comparison was mainly done to know how much power could be obtained from each element. Even, a circuit with a step-up function has been created to give a higher output voltage than the peltier element itself. The result of the experiments was a low output power, the highest value reached 2.18W. Also, the Carnot efficiency has been calculated for the three different elements and the efficiency ranged between 14 and 33%. From the circuit a constant 3.3V output was delivered. The main conclusion of this project is that furthermore Studies are needed in the material field because the elements available at the market today have too low efficiency.

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Orust Kretsloppsakademi is a nonprofit organisation, with a goal of annually generate the same amount of electrical energy that is consumed. Orust is an island on the west coast of Sweden, north of Gothenburg. The population of 15 000 reaches 40 000 during summer, due to the large amount of vacationer. The total electricity demand is 174 GWh a year with a maximum power need of 32 MW. This report presents an analysis for the plausibility of their plan and from a power system stability perspective, the effects on the electrical grid. The conclusion is that the restraints for development of power generation from wind, solar and wave generation, are the power systems capability to transfer power, primarily in the transformers of the grid. Various actions, such as constraints of power output at certain times, and clever location of generation facilities, reduces the utilisation rate of the line segments. In order to substantially decrease the utilisation rate of the line segments, the actions need to be combined. Executed simulations showed that Orust needs to be provided with reactive power, even if Orust is self-sufficient of active power, through its connection to the Swedish power system. The need for reactive power decreased when the feeding transformer allowed a reduced voltage in the regional network. Additionally, generation of reactive power could further increase the possibility for Orust to become self-sufficient on electricity generation.

Globally, there are approximately 900 000 telecommunication radio base station sites (RBS-sites)located in areas without access to the electrical grid. Traditionally, these sites are powered by dieselgenerators, consuming large amounts of fossil diesel fuel. Diesel combustion is connected both toenvironmental impacts and high economical expenses for the mobile operators. As the mobilenetwork expansion is increasingly located in off-grid areas of developing countries, the search forrenewable power alternatives has been intensified. This Master thesis presents results from a life cycle assessment (LCA) of photovoltaic and windturbine hybrid power configurations for off-grid RBS-sites. The LCA covers environmental impactsfrom all life cycle activities of the hybrid system: from raw material extraction, manufacturing, andtransportation, to on-site usage, and disposal. To enable assessment of variable hybrid configurations, four scalable sub-models were constructed:one diesel sub-model including the generator and yearly diesel consumption, one back-up batterysub-model, one PV module sub-model and one wind turbine sub-model. Included in the sub-modelswere required site equipment; e.g. foundations for generators, PV modules and battery banks, powerconverters, fuel tanks and possible housings. The number of generators, liters of fuel consumed peryear, number of battery cells, square meters of PV module and number of wind turbines were set asvariables. Hereby RBS-sites with different capacities and availability of renewable source could bemodeled. A hybrid configuration including 21 square meters photovoltaic modules, one wind turbine, a storageof 36 (12 V) batteries and one generator back-up consuming 1500 liters of diesel fuel per year wasevaluated. The hybrid site represents between 11 and 16 percent of the different environmentalimpact potentials, global warming potential specifically representing 13 percent, caused by acorresponding traditional diesel site consuming 20000 liters of fuel per year. The most importantparameters influencing the environmental performance of the renewable hybrid site following thediesel fuel production and combustion are the production energy mix and energy intensive processesincluding the up-stream silicon and lead processing. The thesis confirmed great environmental benefits of using wind and solar power at RBS-sites. Theadditional gain of applying wind power when feasible to decrease the PV module area or batterycapacity required was also demonstrated. The great importance of manufacturing location andelectricity mix should encourage Ericsson to map supplier manufacturing locations, searchingpossibilities to decrease the environmental impacts from the manufacturing phase of the differentsub-systems. / Idag finns det omkring 5 miljoner radiobasstationer i det i det globala telekomnätet, varav 900000 ärbelägna i områden utan tillgång till elektricitet. Traditionellt drivs dessa stationer av dieselgeneratorersom konsumerar stora mängder diesel. Dieselförbränningen bidrar både till lokala och globalamiljöeffekter samt höga driftkostnader för mobiloperatörerna. Expansionen av mobilnätet sker i alltstörre utsträckning i områden i utvecklingsländer utan elförsörjning, vilket har ökat intresset föralternativa kraftkällor. Inom examensarbetet har ett redskap för jämförande livscykelanalys (LCA) av förnyelsebara krafthybridlösningarför radiobasstationer utvecklats. Hybriderna kombinerar solceller och vindturbinermed dieselförbränning och batterier. Genom att använda LCA inkluderas miljöeffekter från alla steg i hybridsystemets livscykel; frånutvinning av råmaterial och tillverkning av sub-system, transport, användning på RBS-siten till denslutliga avvecklingen. För att kunna utvärdera olika hybridkonfigurationer skapades 4 olika delmodeller: en delmodell fördieselförbränning innefattande generator och dieselkonsumption, en batteri-delmodell, en PVdelmodellsamt en vindturbin-delmodell. Delmodellerna inkluderar även nödvändiga komponentersom betonggrund till generatorer, PV-modulerna och batteribanken. Antal dieselgeneratorer,battericeller, vindturbiner samt PV-moduler och liter dieselkonsumption kan varieras för att simuleraen specifik anläggning. En hybridlösning med 21 m2 solceller, en vindturbin, 36 stycken (12V) battericeller och endieselgenerator som konsumerar 1500 liter diesel per år analyserades. Hybridlösningen ger upphovtill miljöeffekter motsvarande mellan 11 och 16 procent, global uppvärmning motsvarande 13procent, av miljöeffekterna orsakade av en traditionell dieselkonfiguration som konsumerar omkring20000 liter diesel per år. Betydelsefulla parametrar som påverkar miljöeffekterna frånhybridlösningen förutom produktion och förbränning av diesel är vilken elektricitetsmix somanvänds vid tillverkning av de olika komponenterna och energiintensiva processer som kisel- ochblyframställning. Resultaten tydliggör de stora minskningar av miljöeffekterna som en övergång från dieselförbränningtill sol- och vindkraft på RBS-anläggningar kan ge. Den relativa förbättringen av att installeravindturbiner för att minimera mängden sol- och battericeller har även visats. Betydelsen avproduktionsplats och elektricitetsmix för den totala miljöpåverkan bör motivera Ericsson attkartlägga och välja tillverkare som innebär ett litet bidrag till de totala miljöeffekterna.