This paper presents a comprehensive approach about energy resources management in buildings connected to the electricity grid and equipped with energy production and storage systems. The aim of the work is to find interesting configurations that favour energy self-consumption while minimizing the impact of the local production on the grid. Energy and economic criteria are proposed to evaluate t...

The aim of this study was to evaluate life cycle environmental impacts associated with the generation of electricity from biogas produced by the anaerobic digestion (AD) of agricultural products and waste. Five real plants in Italy were considered, using maize silage, slurry, and tomato waste as feedstocks and cogenerating electricity and heat; the latter is not utilized. The results suggest th...

In an energy hub, each energy carrier can be converted to other forms of energy to meet electricity, heating and cooling power demand in an optimal manner. In this study, a framework is presented to optimally design and size interconnected energy hubs. It considers physical constraints on natural gas and electricity networks and environmental issues. The proposed design methodology decides on w...

On the Cover (from left to right): 1. Illustration of Concentrated Solar Power plant layout consisting of a solar field, thermal electric storgae, and power block subcomponents. (see E. Flores, page 28); 2. A92V ftFabI with residue 92 as valine. (see N. Silas et al., page 4); 3. Photo of traditional electrical meters. (see A. Gilbert, page 22). A refereed journal for undergraduate research in t...

Electricity loads in buildings are increasingly supplied by distributed renewable generation sources such as photovoltaic (PV) modules or fuel cells. Often these systems are combined with an electricity storage to raise the level of self-consumption in buildings and to reduce the load on the electric grid. PV production and battery storage are both inherently based on direct current (DC) power....

1 Advances in electricity generation and storage technologies coupled with declines in cost, the planned roll-out of smart metering and favourable regulation have all led to a rapid increase in the number of consumers in Europe and the USA producing or storing electricity at home — through solar panels1, electric vehicles2, batteries3 or other means. In the UK, for instance, by the end of Decem...

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century the limitations of the fossil age with regard to the continuing growth of energy demand, the peaking mining rate of oil, the growing impact of CO2 emissions on the environment and the dependency of the economy in the industrialized world on the availability of fossil fuels became very obvious. A major change in the energy economy from fossil energ...

The need for daily electricity storage systems increases with the growing share of volatile renewable energy in the generation mix. Since the location of decentralized electricity generation (based on reneweable energy resource potentials) and electricity demand (depending on industrial facilities and population density) in Germany are geographically apart from each other, at the same time more...

The purpose of this review is examination of the present scenario of electricity production and investigation of whether an electricity powered world is possible, indicating which primary energy forms should be preferably utilized. Currently, most of the primary energy used by mankind, including that employed to generate electricity, comes from fossil fuels, which need to be phased out because ...