Abstract

Sustainability as an unambiguous policy goal is not a priori secured, as is clearly shown in the transport sector, where the negative externalities are still increasing despite official policies aiming at a reduction of these external costs and at the achievement of a sustainable transport system. To analyse why this is the case, a conceptual model is developed in this paper, in which stakeholders are identified which influence sustainable transport policies. These stakeholders are individuals, the public sector (subdivided into politicians and civil servants), international organizations and pressure groups (car industry, oil industry, car users and environmental groups). It appears that - although it may be assumed that nobody desires an unsustainable future - most incentives and mechanisms in our conceptual model of the decision-making process hamper the achievement of a sustainable transport system. In the second part - by way of empirical test - results of a questionnaire among Dutch transportation experts on the expected and desired future of European passenger transport are concisely discussed, in which the year 2030 is taken as a reference year. It appears that in the expected future the stakeholders largely behave as predicted in the conceptual model. In Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Abstract

The Torbett-Hutchings-Smith Memorial Hospital geothermal heating project, which is one of nineteen direct-use geothermal projects funded principally by DOE, is documented. The five-year project encompassed a broad range of technical, institutional, and economic activities including: resource and environmental assessments; well drilling and completion; system design, construction, and monitoring; economic analyses; public awareness programs; materials testing; and environmental monitoring. Some of the project conclusions are that: (1) the 155/sup 0/F Central Texas geothermal resource can support additional geothermal development; (2) private-sector economic incentives currently exist, especially for profit-making organizations, to develop and use this geothermal resource; (3) potential uses for this geothermal resource include water and space heating, poultry dressing, natural cheese making, fruit and vegetable dehydrating, soft-drink bottling, synthetic-rubber manufacturing, and furniture manufacturing; (4) high maintenance costs arising from the geofluid's scaling and corrosion tendencies can be avoided through proper analysis and design; (5) a production system which uses a variable-frequency drive system to control production rate is an attractive means of conserving parasitic pumping power, controlling production rate to match heating demand, conserving the geothermal resource, and minimizing environmental impacts. Document type: Report

Abstract

This paper is based on real time EV charging infrastructure development that took place at Brunel University, which is located in west of London, UK. The aim of this paper is to establish the policy making process that has stages of an initial student-staff interest survey, records of the consultation process with EV owners, results of competitive benchmarking with other HEI's and the discussion on Type 2 Mode 3 charging stations which are 240V, 32A, 7kW, 50Hz compliant with IEC 62196 and ISO 14443 Mifare standards. The first time ever PAYG concept of POD Point Ltd is explained. Benefits of using PAYG concept for charging EV are mentioned. Various other factors that played major role were also considered as follows: deciding the tariff of the electricity used by the EV owners, charging cable compatibility with charging station, hours of operation, creation of new enforcement rules and recommendations to provide incentives that recognise and motivate EV community.

Abstract

California has set the goal to source 100% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2045, up from 32% in 2017. Meanwhile, the growing mismatch between the renewable energy generation and peak demand is raising concerns on the electric grid's stability and efficiency. At the same time, electric vehicles are expected to reach 2.3 million in sales by 2050 in the US. The escalating load of electric vehicles amplifies load peaks and may exacerbate the existing supply-demand discrepancy. However, electric vehicle drivers are typically flexible in choosing the time to charge their vehicle batteries. This flexibility allows the electric vehicle drivers to shift their charging time and power to match the supply with little sacrifice or discomfort. As a result, incentives can be utilized to guide electric vehicle user behaviors to mitigate the grid's demand-supply discrepancy. Today, most existing solutions for the demand-supply disparity directly control the time and power of every load in the grid. But the forced control is difficult to implement for electric vehicles due to the lack of hardware support and commercial viability. Instead, incentives can motivate voluntary user behavior changes. This approach is more practical for large-scale deployments.This dissertation presents a smart electric vehicle charging system that incentivizes users to shift their charging time to match the renewable energy generation. The system applies non-monetary and monetary incentives by assigning charging priorities and awarding in-system virtual currency to users based on their consumption of renewable energy. Consequently, users with higher renewable energy consumption receive more power and faster service from the charging system. The effectiveness of the non-monetary incentives is demonstrated through two experiments conducted on the UCLA campus for 15 and 14 months respectively. The first experiment with four charging plugs and one solar panel measures users' willingness to manually change their consumption schedules to match the renewable energy generation. The results indicate that the solar consumption ratio has grown by 37% since the incentives were implemented. The second scaled-up experiment with 28 charging plugs and 2 solar panels introduced system algorithms to automatically control users' charging schedules when they choose so. The results reveal that more than 23% of the participants use the automatic programs regularly to improve their renewable energy usages.The incentive design and data analysis in this dissertation provide comprehensive insights on utilizing electric vehicles to mitigate demand-supply disparity through user behavior changes. Additionally, the experiment and system implementations provide practical experience on building effective interactions between the system and users.