This study explores how households interact with smart systems for energy usage, providing insights into the field's trends, themes and evolution through a bibliometric analysis of 547 relevant literature from 2015 to 2025. Our findings discover: (1) Research activity has grown over the past decade, with leading journals recognizing several productive authors. Increased collaboration and interdisciplinary work are expected to expand; (2) Key research hotspots, identified through keyword co-occurrence, with two (exploration and development) stages, highlighting the interplay between technological, economic, environmental, and behavioral factors within the field; (3) Future research should place greater emphasis on understanding how emerging technologies interact with human, with a deeper understanding of users. Beyond the individual perspective, social dimensions also demand investigation. Finally, research should also aim to support policy development. To conclude, this study contributes to a broader perspective of this topic and highlights directions for future research development.
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Key takeaways from the project underscore the importance of fostering long-term collaborations between technical experts, communities, and institutional partners. By integrating technical innovation with human-centred design, the SUSTENANCE project has not only advanced renewable energy adoption but also established a framework for empowering communities to actively participate in sustainable energy transitions. Moving forward, the lessons learned, and solutions developed provide a solid foundation for addressing future challenges in energy system decarbonization and resilience.
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Renewable energy is often suggested as a possible solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and decreasing dependency on fossil energy sources. The most readily available renewable energy sources in Europe, wind, solar and biomass are dispersed by nature, making them ideally suited for use within Decentralized Energy Systems. Decentralized energy grids can help integrate renewable production, short lived by-products e.g. heat, minimize transport of energy carriers and fuel sources and reduce the dependency on fossils, hence, possibly improving the overall efficiency and sustainability of the energy distribution system. Within these grids balance between local renewable production and local energy demand is an important subject. Currently, fluctuations between demand and production of energy are mainly balanced by input from conventional power stations, which operate on storable fossil energy sources e.g. coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear. Within the long term scope of transition towards a low carbon intensive energy system, sustainable systems must be found which can replace fossil energy sources as load balancer in our energy supply systems.
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There is an ongoing transition towards renewable energy sources in order to combat climate change. National power grids are suffering due to the rapid introduction of new energy sources and have other disadvantages. Local Energy Systems (LESs) are a beneficial example of an off-grid energy systems that can aid the energy transition. LESs are community driven and require participating and steering members. This can be achieved through empowering end-users to become active participants or steerers. End-users can be empowered to become an active participant through engagement with energy management activities. This does not work for empowering to steer, which begs the question, how to empower end-users or participants to become steerers in Local Energy Systems. Through a literature review this study explores the importance of establishing a group containing steerers with diverse skills, strong leadership, and engagement with the environment and community. Additionally, this study identifies the strategy that empowers end-users to steer. Which is training technological and managemental skills; and training capabilities in establishing relations with local participants and intermediary organisations. To apply these findings more precisely a secondary analysis is conducted on a survey with 599 participants. The original study researched willingness to participate in LESs, however the secondary analysis establishes three important factors to predict willingness to steer. These are energy independence, community trust, and community resistance. Additionally, men with a high level of education are most willing to become steerers per default, thus different demographics generally require more empowerment.
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Wind and solar power generation will continue to grow in the energy supply of the future, but its inherent variability (intermittency) requires appropriate energy systems for storing and using power. Storage of possibly temporary excess of power as methane from hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide is a promising option. With electrolysis hydrogen gas can be generated from (renewable) power. The combination of such hydrogen with carbon dioxide results in the energy carrier methane that can be handled well and may may serve as carbon feedstock of the future. Biogas from biomass delivers both methane and carbon dioxide. Anaerobic microorganisms can make additional methane from hydrogen and carbon dioxide in a biomethanation process that compares favourably with its chemical counterpart. Biomethanation for renewable power storage and use makes appropriate use of the existing infrastructure and knowledge base for natural gas. Addition of hydrogen to a dedicated biogas reactor after fermentation optimizes the biomethanation conditions and gives maximum flexibility. The low water solubility of hydrogen gas limits the methane production rate. The use of hollow fibers, nano-bubbles or better-tailored methane-forming microorganisms may overcome this bottleneck. Analyses of patent applications on biomethanation suggest a lot of freedom to operate. Assessment of biomethanation for economic feasibility and environmental value is extremely challenging and will require future data and experiences. Currently biomethanation is not yet economically feasible, but this may be different in the energy systems of the near future.
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The increasing share of renewable production like wind and PV poses new challenges to our energy system. The intermittent behavior and lack of controllability on these sources requires flexibility measures like storage and conversion. Production, consumption, transportation, storage and conversion systems become more intertwined. The increasing complexity of the system requires new control strategies to fulfill existing requirements.The SynergyS project addresses the main question how to operate increasingly complex energy systems in a controllable, robust, safe, affordable, and reliable way. Goal of the project is to develop and test a smart control system for a multi-commodity energy system (MCES), with electricity, hydrogen and heat. In scope are an industrial cluster (Chemistry Park Delfzijl) and a residential cluster (Leeuwarden) and their mutual interaction. Results are experimentally tested in two real-life demo-sites scale models: Centre of Expertise Energy (EnTranCe) and The Green Village (TU Delft) represent respectively the industrial and residential cluster.The result will be a market-driven control system to operate a multi-commodity energy system, integrating the industrial and residential cluster. The experimental setup is a combination of physical demo-site assets complemented with (digital) asset models. Experimental validation is based on a demo-scenario including real time data, simulated data and several stress tests.In this session we’ll elaborate more on the project and present (preliminary) results on the testing criteria, scenarios and experimental setup.
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This century, greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen oxides must be significantly reduced. Greenhouse gases absorb and emit infrared radiation that contributes to global warming, which can lead to irreversible negative consequences for humans and the environment. Greenhouse gases are caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as crude oil, coal, and natural gas, but livestock farming, and agriculture are also to blame. In addition, deforestation contributes to more greenhouse gases. Of the natural greenhouse gases, water vapor is the main cause of the greenhouse effect, accounting for 90%. The remaining 10% is caused from high to low by carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen oxides, chlorofluorocarbons, and ozone. In addition, there are industrial greenhouse gases such as fluorinated hydrocarbons, sulphurhexafluoride and nitrogen trifluoride that contribute to the greenhouse effect too. Greenhouse gases are a major cause of climate change, with far-reaching consequences for the welfare of humans and animals. In some regions, extreme weather events like rainfall are more common, while others are associated with more extreme heat waves and droughts. Sea level rise caused by melting ice and an increase in forest fires are undesirable effects of climate change. Countries in low lying areas fear that sea level rise will force their populations to move to the higher lying areas. Climate change is affecting the entire world. An estimated 30-40% o f the carbon dioxide released by the combustion of fossil fuels dissolves into the surface water resulting in an increased concentration of hydrogen ions. This causes the seawater to become more acidic, resulting in a decreasing of carbonate ions. Carbonate ions are an important building block for forming and maintaining calcium carbonate structures of organisms such as oysters, mussels, sea urchins, shallow water corals, deep sea corals and calcareous plankton.
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This report describes the creation and use of a database for energy storage technologies which was developed in conjunction with Netbeheer Nederland and the Hanze University of Applied Sciences. This database can be used to make comparisons between a selection of storage technologies and will provide a method for ranking energy storage technology suitability based on the desired application requirements. In addition, this document describes the creation of the energy storage label which contains detailed characteristics for specific storage systems. The layout of the storage labels enables the analysis of different storage technologies in a comprehensive, understandable and comparative manner. A sampling of storage technology labels are stored in an excel spreadsheet and are also compiled in Appendix I of this report; the storage technologies represented here were found to be well suited to enable flexibility in energy supply and to potentially provide support for renewable energy integration [37] [36]. The data in the labels is presented on a series of graphs to allow comparisons of the technologies. Finally, the use and limitations of energy storage technologies are discussed. The results of this research can be used to support the Dutch enewable Energy Transition by providing important information regarding energy storage in both technically detailed and general terms. This information can be useful for energy market parties in order to analyze the role of storage in future energy scenarios and to develop appropriate strategies to ensure energy supply.
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The research explored how a Dutch energy cluster embedded within a larger context of European and global developments reflected complex dynamics due to changes in its context. The case study explored Energy Valley of the Netherlands, a peripheral region that meets the challenge of energy transition, regional development and national economic interests. The research engaged complex adaptive systems approach to gain insights into complex cluster dynamics to contribute to cluster study and policy.The research captured insights into increased complexity of an energy cluster due to energy transition and other developments in the cluster context, exacerbated by differences in perceptions and responses of stakeholders to the new challenges. Findings on cluster developments included insights into cluster context, cluster condition, cluster dynamics and cluster transformations, and the interconnectedness of such developments based on Energy Valley and supplementary cases of Karlstad and Silicon Valley. The research findings led to insights into cluster systems developments and a model capturing cluster emergence.The research contributed to cluster theory by developing a CAS approach for cluster study that developed a whole systems approach to understand cluster dynamics, offering to the field of cluster study a qualitative understanding of cluster systems developments. Insights into interconnected developments at the micro, macro and inter-systemic levels, and into energy clusters in the context of energy transition were results of the research. The broad scope and nature of the study meant limitations were inherent and therefore recommendations for future research were included. EU Cluster Policy motivated the research and hence recommendations for policy developments were also part of the research contribution
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There are a plethora of drivers of change in energy systems until 2015. The role of social and political actors is likely to be more noticeable. In Europe, locally, high-impact ideas like green consumerism and limited acceptance of energy systems that result in trade-offs will be important. Nationally, the empowerment of individuals and communities and the politicization of energy-related issues will be drivers of change. Internationally, energy issues will become more important in the foreign and security policies of state and non-state actors.
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