The task of this master thesis is to evaluate the potential and economic feasibility of a solar photovoltaic project at the Castle Château de la Chaize, situated near Lyon in France. The domain of the Château de la Chaize aims to be more ecologically responsible, by producing organic wine, using geothermal energy and producing its own electricity, using solar energy. The solar system would hence be used to produce the electricity that the castle and the vineyard would use. Since the whole domain is changing in order to be more sustainable, the energy consumption is still unclear. Three consumption scenarios are thus studied to model: the current situation (108 MWh), the change in energy needs due to the renewal of the wine making process (568 MWh), and finally the additional energy demand due to the construction of a spa on the domain lands (1056 MWh). The project site is also situated in the domain, near the Castle. The meteorological data and the shading scene are gathered from databases and site visits. Since the site is oriented towards the North-West and the South and East sides are blocked by a forest, significant shading losses are expected. In order to maximize the potential of the PV system, the use of Li-Ion batteries, to increases the self-generated part of the consumed electricity, is also considered. Simulations for the system production and the matching of the consumption and production is lead using the PVsyst software. Standard modules and inverters are used to run the simulation. The different configurations (energy consumption, size of the PV system, battery,...) are compared using the self-generation rate (part of the energy that is consumed that comes from the PV system) and financial criteria such as the Internal return rate or the profit at year 20. The results show that using a solar system to provide electricity for the current scenario would not be financially viable. For the renovation scenario, the best system design is the southward oriented fixed tilted plane at 350 kWp. It generates a profit of 71 k€ and has a self-generation ratio of 31.5 %. For the spa scenario, the 350 kWp south-oriented system is also the most interesting, with a self-generation rate of 29.8 % and IRR of 9.33 %. The financial analysis of the systems with batteries shows that the investment costs of the storage system are too high, and its lifetime is too short to be profitable. It would be interesting to see the evolution of the energy storage market, that is expected to develop, to see the economic interest of installing storage systems. / Uppgiften för detta examensarbete är att utvärdera potentialen och den ekonomiska genomförbarheten för ett solcellsfotovoltaikprojekt vid slottet Château de la Chaize, beläget nära Lyon i Frankrike. Domänen för Château de la Chaize syftar till att vara mer ekologiskt ansvarig, genom att producera ekologiskt vin, använda geotermisk energi och producera sin egen elektricitet med solenergi. Därför skulle solsystemet användas för att producera den elektricitet som slottet och vingården skulle använda. Eftersom hela området utvecklas för att bli mer hållbar är energiförbrukningen fortfarande oklar. Tre konsumtionsscenarier studeras sålunda för att modellera: den aktuella situationen (108 MWh), förändringen i energibehov på grund av förnyelsen av vinframställningsprocessen (568 MWh) och slutligen den extra energibehovet på grund av ett nytt spa på domänen landar (1056 MWh). Projektplatsen ligger också i domänen, nära slottet. Meteorologiska data och skuggningsscenen samlas in från databaser och webbplatsbesök. Eftersom platsen är inriktad mot nordväst, och södra och östra sidan blockeras av en skog, förväntas betydande skuggningsförluster. För att maximera PV-systemets potential övervägs också användning av Li-Ion-batterier för att öka den självgenererade delen av den förbrukade elen. Simuleringar för systemproduktion och matchning av konsumtion och produktion är bly med hjälp av PVsyst-programvaran. Standardmoduler och inverterare används för att köra simuleringen. De olika konfigurationerna (energiförbrukning, storleken på PV-systemet, batteriet, ...) jämförs med hjälp av självproduktionshastigheten (en del av energin som förbrukas som kommer från PV-systemet) och ekonomiska kriterier som intern avkastning eller vinsten vid år 20. Resultaten visar att användning av ett solsystem för att tillhandahålla el till det aktuella scenariot inte skulle vara ekonomiskt hållbart. För renoveringsscenariot är den bästa systemdesignen det söderutorienterade fasta lutningsplanet med 350 kWp. Det ger en vinst på 71 k € och har en egenproduktionsgrad på 31,5 %. För spa-scenariot är det sydorienterade systemet med 350 kWp också det mest intressanta, med en egenproduktionshastighet på 29,8 % och IRR på 9,33 %. Den ekonomiska analysen av systemen med batterier visar att investeringskostnaderna för lagringssystemet är för höga och att dess livslängd är för kort för att vara lönsam. Det skulle vara intressant att se utvecklingen av energilagringsmarknaden, som förväntas utvecklas, att se det ekonomiska intresset av att installera lagringssystem.

The potential for variable resources to contribute to Svenska kraftnät’s ancillary services has increased in recent years. Concurrently, with the expansion of renewable energy resources in Sweden, the demand for actors to contribute to a more stable power system has grown significantly. The study aims to understand whether photovoltaic panels have the potential to contribute to frequency regulation and participate in the FCR-D down ancillary service. The study has been made in collaboration with the real estate company Vasakronan, and aims to investigate the economic potential of participating with their rooftop photovoltaic panels.    The thesis consists of a qualitative part where relevant actors were interviewed to gain a deeper understanding of the subject. The quantitative analysis involves examining production and price data. Three of Vasakronan’s facilities and their solar park were studied, and calculations were conducted to determine the profitability of acting as an ancillary service. Utilizing data from the three facilities, an aggregation of all 25 facilities in Uppsala was simulated. Three different scenarios were investigated with the first imposing no production requirements. In the second scenario, it was required that at least one-fourth of the installed capacity was produced, and in the final scenario, at least half of the installed capacity was required.    The primary obstacle in meeting these requirements for photovoltaic panels on rooftops is the capacity constraint, particularly in comparison to larger solar parks with significantly greater volumes. With lower capacity, revenues will decrease and there is greater uncertainty regarding guaranteed delivery. Consequently, the possibility of aggregating multiple smaller facilities becomes crucial to fulfill the requirements for ancillary services, as these plants can be prequalified as a group. Various sensitive parameters impact the revenue analysis, and the most significant challenge is the installation cost of the software. Another sensitive parameter is the prices on the FCR-D down market, as trends suggest a decrease in prices with increased market participation. However, there is a prominent potential for adjustments in several of the current requirements, given the dynamic balancing market. Therefore, the recommendation from the study is to continue investigating the possibilities of aggregating several smaller solar cell plants into a common unit. Considering that the foremost investment, the installation of the photovoltaic panel, has already been completed, participation in the ancillary service could to some extent be viewed as an extra income requiring minimal additional effort.

This thesis investigates the possible future pathways for the road transportation sector of Cyprus, in a time horizon from the year 2013 to 2040. The road transportation sector of Cyprus is the most energy consuming sector in the country, completely dependent on the use of diesel and gasoline. In order to comply with the renewable energy target for the transportation sector set by the European Union, Cyprus needs to transform its road transportation sector. The software MESSAGE (Model for Energy Supply Strategy Alternatives and their General Environmental Impact) is used to model the road transport sector, consisting of passenger and freight transportation. The results of the modelling provides insights into the most cost-effective pathways for Cyprus in the future. In addition to the reference scenario, four different scenarios are examined. These scenarios are focusing on different relevant aspects for Cyprus which are renewable energy, natural gas, public transport and hydrogen. The results of the study indicate that the total numbers of petroleum fueled vehicles will increase in the future, and the freight transport will be particularly difficult to transform. For the passenger transport, there will be a fuel switch from gasoline to diesel, since diesel is less expensive than gasoline. There are possibilities for increasing the numbers of alternative low-carbon emitting vehicle technologies in Cyprus. For the passenger transport, the most cost-effective low-carbon vehicle technologies are hybrid diesel electric cars, plug-in hybrid diesel electric cars and hybrid electric diesel buses. For the freight transport, the most cost-effective low-carbon vehicle technologies are natural gas heavy trycks and electric light trucks. Lastly, the results of the study indicate that it will not be possible for Cyprus to reach the renewable energy target for the transportation sector. The country has to investigate in taxation schemes for increasing the numbers of alternative vehicles as well as increasing the blends of biofuels into gasoline and diesel.

Energy poverty is defined as the lack of access of households in developing countries to modern energy sources, and their consequent reliance on solid biomass fuels for cooking. So-called “Improved stoves” have been promoted by various public and private actors since the 1970s to tackle various environmental and health challenges associated with biomass use. Impact studies of such projects are usually based on on-site surveys about the stoves’ use, and thus are extremely site-specific, and difficultly generalizable. This thesis project aims to introduce a novel approach to impact assessment of improved cooking stoves on both local energy needs and deforestation in the area. This approach will base most of its figures and assumptions on calculated energy needs rather than survey reports. This will result in a highly flexible energy model, which can be used and adapted to help decision and policy makers in their function. The area of Nyeri County, Kenya, where the author completed a one-month field study, is used throughout the thesis as a case study in order to validate the model.

This study performs an overview of the current electricity production for the Island of Lesvos, Greece. With the current trends and transitions towards Renewable Energy Sources, there has been an increase in interest in this topic in the region. This study creates four different scenarios for the generation of electricity with each scenario having an increased amount of RES. The aim of this study is to determine which scenario would be most viable to best implement on the interests of different stakeholders. With the current potential in wind farms due to the wind resource availability, there are large amounts of electricity generated from wind farms in the scenarios.The first scenario is the current scenario of the island. The second scenario has half the total capacity from fossil fuel powerplants with more RES. The third scenario has only RES supplying the island, with the fourth scenario being primarily wind energy with an interconnection with neighboring islands and the mainland. The fourth scenario is the most expensive and hardest scenario to implement. The study applies an MCDA method with the PROMETHEE II tool to rank the different scenarios based on the interests of the stakeholders. This resulted in the fourth scenario being the highest rank for three out of the four stakeholders.

The world energy production, transformation, storage, and usage are under a dramatic change. Actions are being taken by Governments to slow down the effects of the climate change. Wind energy is expected to be a central pillar for this change. However, a key issue facing the expansion of wind energy, especially in Sweden, is the integration of the massive amounts of new generation into the electricity grid (Energinet et al., 2021; Ingeberg, 2019; IVA, 2020). Another challenge facing the expansion of the wind energy is that it can’t be used by end-sector which rely on energy-dens carriers (IRENA, 2020b). In the pursuit of solutions to these challenges, green hydrogen produced by offshore wind energy emerges an alternative. Motivated by the recent Swedish plans to develop offshore wind power capacity in the Baltic Sea, as well as the problematic environmental statues in the Baltic Sea, this work investigate the cost of green hydrogen produced from offshore wind energy in Sweden and evaluates the environmental impacts of utilizing by-product oxygen on the marine ecosystem in the Baltic Sea.  The first step of this work considers the economic feasibility of a 2 GW offshore wind energy dedicated for hydrogen production in the Baltic Sea outside Sweden, with three alternative electrolyzer placement: onshore electrolyzer (III), centralized offshore electrolyzer (II), and decentralized offshore electrolyzer (I). The proposed assessment of this work investigated the hydrogen production cost using electricity from offshore wind energy in the Baltic Sea in Sweden. The LCoE and LCoH in relation to three configurations reflecting the electrolyzer placement were analyzed and compared. The electrolyzer operation at nominal capacities of 06%, 65%, and 70% were considered for the three configurations. The results shows that the LCoE and LCoH differed between the three configurations. The results showed that the lowest LCoE and LCoH is achieved by the configuration where the electrolyzer system decentralized at the turbine platform at a price of 1.7 €/kg. Reflecting the impact of the electrolyzer nominal capacities, which are at 60%, 65%, and 70%, on the LCoH, the result showed that the three configurations are equally competitive. However, when the nominal capacity of 65% were compared among the three configurations, it was showed that the LCoH at the onshore electrolyzer were 2.6 €/kg compared to the LCoH at the centralized electrolyzer which resulted in LCoH of 2.7 €/kg. The second step of this work considers the evaluation of the environmental impact of artificial oxygenation by reviewing existing studies. The results of the reviewed studies on the environmental impacts of artificial oxygenation indicate that the utilization of the by-product oxygen would contribute to important environmental benefits for the Baltic Sea. The use of the by-product oxygen to oxygenate would maintain the processes that removes nutrients, keep the sea water oxygenated, and the seabed habitable for marine animal. There are, however, some aspects that need to be considered and understood when planning for oxygenation, such as the complicated physical and biogeochemical interactions. Hence, this requires further studies and investigations.

<p>Solar thermosiphons integrated into the thermal envelop of buildings has been studied for their potential to take advantage of solar energy in heating buildings. The annual performance of solar thermosiphons cannot currently be predicted with the correlations from previous research. Also, no work has been done on the supply mode of a solar thermosiphon even though it has the potential to provide heating and fresh ventilation air. An investigation was done with the goal of developing a numerical model that could predict the performance of the supply mode of a solar thermosiphon. The numerical model included infrared thermal radiation and conduction through the glass, phenomenon which had not been used in previous numerical models. To validate the numerical model a novel steady state experiment was developed. This experiment included radiation as the heat source and the ability to vary geometric lengths. The performance parameters of mass flow rate and thermal efficiency were comparable between the numerical predictions and experimental results. However, due to uncertainties in the current experimental setup, full validation of the numerical model was not possible. These uncertainties would have to be addressed before the numerical model that was developed can be fully validated and used for generating correlations. After consideration of practical implementation constrains, it was shown that it was easier to implement the indoor air curtain mode of a solar thermosiphon than the supply mode. The indoor air curtain mode provides the same amount of energy from solar radiation to heat a building as the supply mode of a solar thermosiphon.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

<p>In an effort to better understand the physical mechanisms responsible for pool boiling heat transfer, an analytical model is developed that better describes the changing shape and size of a growing bubble. Indeed, any analysis of thermal transport due to nucleate pool boiling requires bubble frequency predictions which are intimately linked to bubble volume. The model is developed and validated for quasi-static bubble growth due to gas injection and for bubble growth due to vaporization within the heat-transfer controlled growth regime; it highlights the need to include the asymmetric nature of growing bubbles when modeling bubble growth.</p> <p>In addition, a numerical study of quasi-static bubble shape for both adiabatic bubble growth and vapour bubble growth provides insight into the dependence the bubble shape evolution has on the Bond number. In so doing, bubble profiles generated from a numerical treatment of the Capillary equation are benchmarked to quasi-static gas injected bubble formations and to heat-transfer controlled vapour bubble formations.</p> <p>The numerical treatment of bubble shape evolution leads to a simplifying bubble geometry for low Bond number applications. The geometric model accounts for bubble shape transformation throughout the bubble growth cycle including the necking phenomenon. An analytical model of quasi-static adiabatic bubble growth is accordingly developed based on the proposed low Bond number geometric model; it is coupled with a geometric detachment relation and a force balance detachment criterion that are dependent on the Bond number. The resulting predicted bubble growth characteristics, such as profile, volume, centre of gravity and aspect ratio, are validated with the benchmarked numerical treatment of the problem.</p> <p>Furthermore, the low Bond number geometric model is applied to bubble growth due to vaporization. In order to solve the mass-energy balance at the vapour bubble interface, a spherical surface area is commonly assumed. This leads to the need for correction factors and provides little insight into the physical mechanism responsible for bubble shape. In this study, the transitioning shape of a vapour bubble is considered in the integral analysis of the interfacial mass-energy balance. The model predicts the following bubble growth characteristics: profile, volume, centre of gravity, and aspect ratio.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p>With the rising prices of energy and the harmful environmental effects many of conventional energy generation techniques the world is pushing for new, cleaner, more efficient and more environmental renewable energy sources. Thermoelectric generators are one of the potential solutions to these problems of unclean and expensive energy. Thermoelectric generators are solid state devices that convert thermal energy into useful electrical energy.</p> <p>Over the last ten years the progress in materials science have led to advancements in thermoelectrics. However as of yet no standardised method of testing thermoelectric generators has been established and as such data provided for thermoelectric generators is regarded as questionable. This thesis deals with two commercial thermoelectric generator models, TEG1 12610-5.1 AND TEG1B 12610-5.1, and quantifies the deviation of the manufacturer’s specifications to what is experimentally achieved by the generators as 147% and 22% respectively. The variance of the outputs between thermoelectric generators was measured by comparing the maximum power output for the models in question over a sample size of four, it was found to be as much as 20% and 8% respectively.</p> <p>A full characterisation of the thermoelectric generators is performed on the two generator models to obtain the data as to their power output and thermal conductivity for the purpose of design of a waste energy harvesting device. The full characterisation was also used to validate the testing apparatus as a device capable for the use as a standardised method of characterising the performance of thermoelectric generation modules.</p> <p>A mechanistic model is created using the experimental characterisation data. This mechanistic model has the ability to accurately predict the voltage and current output of the thermoelectric generator models under any given temperatures and electrical loading condition with a minimum R-squared value of 0.94. The thermal conductivity is also found to be predictable using an established equation modified with an empirical constant.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

There has been an increased interest in renewable energy systems in recent years as a result of concerns on depleting fossil fuel reserves and climate change. Wind and solar energy are amongst the most popular renewable energy technologies. In order to use the full or maximum possible extent of a renewable energy resource in a region, hybrid systems extracting wind and solar energy simultaneously are a popular and obvious choice. It is desired to design hybrid systems that enhance the renewable energy output without increasing the foot print area compared to the base case of only wind or only solar energy. One potential way forward is to consider a vertical axis wind turbine with an enhanced surface area which can be used for mounting solar cells. This way the foot print area remains the same while both wind and solar power are obtained simultaneously. Renewable Energy Solutions LLC has manufactured a novel 2 m high and 2 m in diameter vertical axis wind turbine called Marilyn which has an enhanced surface area, which can be used for the aforementioned purpose. This thesis focuses on the development of a hybrid solar-wind turbine design based on the Marilyn system. Firstly, the wind and solar resource was assessed at Austin, TX using weather monitoring instruments. Typical Meteorological Year 3 (TMY3) data was also used in conjunction with the measured data to estimate the wind and solar resource at Austin, TX. Secondly, the wind turbine performance was assessed based on whether is it able to achieve grid tie in for wind power production starting at wind speeds of 3-4 m/s. It was found that replacing the current generator with different model featuring higher voltage output at lower rotational speeds could help achieve this. Based on this suggested replacement and using the wind resource data, the yearly wind energy production was estimated to be 240 kWh. Finally, a theoretical analysis was performed for estimating the yearly solar energy production. A base case analysis was first made on power production on a particular day of the year if only the top portion of every alternate face of the turbine is covered with flexible 3.4 % efficient solar cells. This analysis is subsequently extended to the case when flexible 20 % efficient solar cells cover the entire top surface of the turbine and the corresponding conservative yearly solar energy output was estimated to be 310 kWh. Thus the total yearly energy output from the Marilyn hybrid system is 550 kWh, which is around 5 % of the annual electricity usage of a typical American home / text