At a time when the population is ageing and most people choose to live in their own home for as long as possible, it is important to consider various aspects of supportive and comfortable environments for housing. This study, conducted in South Australia, aims to provide information about the links between the type of housing in which older people live, the weather and occupants’ heating and cooling behaviours as well as their health and well-being. The study used a Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) system to survey 250 people aged 65 years and over who lived in their own home. The respondents were recruited from three regions representing the three climate zones in South Australia: semi-arid, warm temperate and temperate. The results show that while the majority of respondents reported being in good health, many lived in dwellings with minimal shading and no wall insulation and appeared to rely on the use of heaters and coolers to achieve thermally comfortable conditions. Concerns over the cost of heating and cooling were shared among the majority of respondents and particularly among people with low incomes. Findings from this study highlight the importance of providing information to older people, carers, designers and policy makers about the interrelationships between weather, housing design, heating and cooling behaviours, thermal comfort, energy use and health and well-being, in order to support older people to age in place independently and healthily. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2019.03.023 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jvhoof1980/
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Community energy can be conceptualized as a social movement, which aims to develop a sustainable, democratic, and localist energy system. Increasingly, community energy initiatives aim to develop citizen-led heating projects. District heating projects are characterized by costly investments, a substantial overhaul of local infrastructure, large installations for heat production, and require specialized technical knowledge. Based on Social Movement Theory, we developed a theoretical framework consisting of three main networks: internal, external, and material.In the Netherlands, we studied four cases of citizen-led heating projects. Our primary research question is what a citizen-led DH-project constitutes. We focus on four themes: the internal organization of the CH-project; its outreach to local citizens; the role of technical knowledge and technology choices; the changing role of municipalities in the local energy transition.We situate our findings against a broader European background. We conclude that a democratic structure, transparency of decision making, and a high level of neighborhood participation are key success factors. However, in some cases the choice for a low-cost solution led to concessions to the sustainability of the proposed solutions.
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Community energy can be conceptualized as a social movement, which aims to develop a sustainable, democratic, and localist energy system. Community energy organizations often take the form of cooperatives and strive for a high level of participation at the neighborhood level. Recently, community energy initiatives took on the challenge to develop neighborhood heating projects, which are citizen-led and sustainable. District heating (DH) projects are characterized by costly investments, a substantial overhaul of local infrastructure, and large installations for heat production. Furthermore, specialized technical knowledge is needed for the design of DH-systems.In the Netherlands, we studied four cases where local energy cooperatives developed such citizen-led neighborhood heating projects. Our primary research question is what constitutes a citizen-led or citizen-supported DH-project? We focus on four themes: first, the internal organization of the CH-project; second its outreach to local citizens; third, the role of technical knowledge and technology choices; fourth, the changing role of municipalities in the local energy transition.We developed a theoretical framework that consists of three main networks: the internal network, constituted by the local energy initiative itself and its surrounding neighborhood; the external network, which is comprised of local and regional governments as well as private companies; and the material network, referring to technological and physical aspects.In the discussion, we situate our findings against a broader European background. We conclude that a democratic structure, transparency of decision making, and a high level of activities to involve the neighborhood are key success factors. Nevertheless, the development of a community DH-project is a time-consuming process that takes a high toll on the participants. We observed that the remunicipalization trend is emerging in the Netherlands. Regarding technology choices, we found that the DH-initiatives became quite knowledgeable on technical issues and stimulated the application of new technologies such as small-scale aquathermal energy. However, in some cases the choice for a low-cost solution led to concessions to the sustainability of the proposed solutions.
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This report has been established within the Flexiheat project. Flexiheat has focused on increasing flexibility in district heating systems. The intelligent district heating network is a dynamic network: an open network where different waste heat and renewable energy sources are connected, that has multiple producers and groups of consumers and facilitates the connection between different energy infrastructures (gas, heat and electricity). Eventually this will lead to an optimal deployment of the available heat sources and an increased cost-efficiency of district heating. Flexiheat aims to develop new concepts for these intelligent, flexible district heating networks. One of the strategies is to allow third party access to the network. A smart control system is developed to manage the heat flows across the network. This system makes use of dynamic pricing. In this exploration the concept of third party access in relation to the Flexiheat project will be discussed. The development of new business and price models based on the Flexiheat approach has led to an analysis of possible alternative price models for consumers.
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Ending subsidies for fossil fuel heating systems from 2025, and phasing out gas boilers and other fossil fuel heaters by 2040. These are just two of the outcomes of a political agreement between the EU Council and the European Parliament, which was reached on December 7, 2023. Which measures were agreed upon, and what will the implications be for the heating sector?
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Current methods for energy diagnosis in heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are not consistent with process and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs) as used by engineers to design and operate these systems, leading to very limited application of energy performance diagnosis in practice. In a previous paper, a generic reference architecture – hereafter referred to as the 4S3F (four symptoms and three faults) framework – was developed. Because it is closely related to the way HVAC experts diagnose problems in HVAC installations, 4S3F largely overcomes the problem of limited application. The present article addresses the fault diagnosis process using automated fault identification (AFI) based on symptoms detected with a diagnostic Bayesian network (DBN). It demonstrates that possible faults can be extracted from P&IDs at different levels and that P&IDs form the basis for setting up effective DBNs. The process was applied to real sensor data for a whole year. In a case study for a thermal energy plant, control faults were successfully isolated using balance, energy performance and operational state symptoms. Correction of the isolated faults led to annual primary energy savings of 25%. An analysis showed that the values of set probabilities in the DBN model are not outcome-sensitive. Link to the formal publication via its DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2020.110289
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This paper presents a case study where a model predictive control (MPC) logic is developed for energy flexible operation of a space heating system in an educational building. A Long Short-Term Memory Neural Network (LSTM) surrogate model is trained on the output of an EnergyPlus building simulation model. This LSTM model is used within an MPC framework where a genetic algorithm is used to optimize setpoint sequences. The EnergyPlus model is used to validate the performance of the control logic. The MPC approach leads to a substantial reduction in energy consumption (7%) and energy costs (13%) with improved comfort performance. Additional energy costs savings are possible (7–16%) if a sacrifice in indoor thermal comfort is accepted. The presented method is useful for developing MPC systems in the design stages where measured data is typically not available. Additionally, this study illustrates that LSTM models are promising for MPC for buildings.
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The focus of this paper is to make a comparison between five different types of conductive, heatable samples. These samples have been produced according to the five most important implementation techniques developed so far, which are knitting, weaving, embroidery, printing and nonwoven padding –and their purpose is to help decide which conductive option best accommodates a heating application. This study was divided into four major steps: choosing the adequate materials, swatch production, conductivity measurements and heating behaviour assessment. The first three methods use electro conductive wires as heating elements, the fourth uses conductive ink and the fifth uses carbon black coating. For all of them, resistance, current and heat distribution was measured. The results show that the best options for the development of a wearable textile heating system are the printed and the knitted techniques, as their mechanical strength and elasticity, is sufficiently high and the fabric/substrate structure allows the insertion/deposition of different types of heating elements.Paper from the Saxion Research Centre for Design and Technology for het 12th World Textile Conference AUTEX, June 13th-15th 2012, Zadar, Croatia.
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Current symptom detection methods for energy diagnosis in heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are not standardised and not consistent with HVAC process and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs) as used by engineers to design and operate these systems, leading to a very limited application of energy performance diagnosis systems in practice. This paper proposes detection methods to overcome these issues, based on the 4S3F (four types of symptom and three types of faults) framework. A set of generic symptoms divided into three categories (balance, energy performance and operational state symptoms) is discussed and related performance indicators are developed, using efficiencies, seasonal performance factors, capacities, and control and design-based operational indicators. The symptom detection method was applied successfully to the HVAC system of the building of The Hague University of Applied Sciences. Detection results on an annual, monthly and daily basis are discussed and compared. Link to the formail publication via its DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2020.103344
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The sustainable energy transition asks for new and innovative solutions in the way society, government, energy market and clients (end users) approach energy distribution and consumption. The energy transition provides great opportunity to develop innovative solutions where in the dense built environment district heating and cooling are being strongly advocated.Traditionally, the energy systems in urban districts have been regulated by a top-down approach. With the rise of local and distributed sustainable sources for urban heating and cooling, the complexity of the heat/cold chain is increasing. Therefore, an organic and bottom-up approach is being requested, where the public authorities have a facilitating and/or directive role. There is a need for a new and open framework for collaboration between stakeholders. A framework that provides insight into the integral consideration of heating and cooling solutions on district level in terms of: organisation, technology and economy (OTE). This research therefore focuses on developing this integral framework towards widely supported heating and cooling solutions among district stakeholders.Through in-depth interviews, workshops and focus groups discussions, relevant stakeholders in local district heating/cooling of varying backgrounds and expertise have been consulted. This has led to two pillars in a framework. Firstly the definition of Key Success Factors and Key Performance Indicators to evaluate technical solutions in light of the respective context. Secondly, an iterative decision making process among district stakeholders where technical scenarios, respective financial business cases and market organisation are being negotiated. Fundamental proposition of the framework is the recurrent interaction between OTE factors throughout the entire decision making process. In order to constantly assure broad-based support, the underlying nature of possible barriers for collaboration are identified in a stakeholder matrix, informing a stakeholder strategy. It reveals an open insight of the interests, concerns, and barriers among all stakeholders, where solutions can be developed effectively.
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