Should I drive with my car to turn off forgotten lights?

I forgot to turn off the lights in my office today. True story. And it's Friday, so unless the cleaning personel turns them off, the lights there will burn unnecessarily for 60 hours until Monday morning. This is a bit embarassing when you are doing research[1] and teaching[2] in sustainability and energy management.
So the question is, should I go there immediately and turn them off? Normally I would use my bike, but it's dark and cold outside so I consider using the car.

Let's crunch the numbers first. My car consumes about 5,5l Diesel per 100 km, so using it for a single person trip is far from contributing to a sustainable future. But the trip will save the energy that would be consumed by the office lights. The trip there and back is 11km, so this would use 0.6 l of Diesel. 1 liter of diesel contains chemical energy worth 9.85 kWh, weighs 835 g, and contains 86% carbon. This 720 g carbon would be mostly burned to CO₂, resulting in 2640 g of CO₂ [3].

Burning 0,6 l Diesel would thus generate about 1,5 kg of CO₂ and waste 5,9 kWh of energy.

What if I let the lights burn? Unfortunately the office lights are not LED-based, but they are fluorescent tubes. I would guess all together the lighting has a power consumption of 100 W. Letting them burn for 60 h would thus waste 6 kWh, basically the same value that we calculated for the used fuel.

About 3/4 of Austria's "Strom-Mix" come from hydropower, wind, waste and solar sources, the remaining part from fossil fuels like gas, oil and coal. I'm lucky that Austria has no nuclear power, first because it is a dangerous technology and second because the effective CO₂ emissions of nuclear power are hard to estimate :-).

Coal is the worst source, it comes with 882 g CO₂ per kWh[4]. All together Austria's electric energy comes with emissions of 181 g/kWh[5]. So the 6 kWh of electrical energy from the "let's the lights burn" scenario are a bit more than 1kg - less than the scenario where I drive with the car to turn the lights off.

So I should feel bad about the environment, but at least I have my lazyness supported. I might go there by bike tomorrow :-)

Photovoltaics Energy Payback Time

Photovoltaic systems are great in producing clean energy without CO2 emissions. A question that remains however, is the amount of energy invested into production and transport of the materials, cells and panels. To answer this question, we had a look into the annual Photovoltaics Report of the Fraunhofer Society (German: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e. V.).

To give a short summary: The energy payback time for current modules is around one to two years. Considering a lifetime of 20 years, this means that photovoltaic systems are quite effective in providing clean energy. The energy payback time depends mainly on three parameters: (i) the  material usage for the system, (ii) the effiency of the cells and panel, and (iii) the irradiation striking onto the panel. Regarding the first aspect, the report shows that material usage for silicon cells went down by a factor of 2.5 over the last ten years due to increased
efficiencies and thinner wafers. Efficiency is improving slower, currently the best multicrystalline modules provide an efficiency of 18.5%, panels with monocrystalline cells a 22.9% and upcoming thin film technologies have a range between 10.9% and 17.5%.

The largest influence for the energy payback time currently is the place where you put your module: In regions with an annual irradiation of around 1000 kWh/m² - this is basically the value for PV panels installed in Germany, they energy payback time is 2 years, while in sunny areas, the annual irradiation can be double or more, leading to an energy payback time of around 1 year.

Energy payback time for typical PV systems in different regions of Europe

Call for Papers 1st Workshop on Middleware for a Smarter Use of Electric Energy

CALL FOR PAPERS

MidSEE 2015

1st Workshop on Middleware for a Smarter Use of Electric Energy

in conjunction with NetSys 2015, Cottbus, Germany

https://www.netsys2015.com/workshops-tutorials/midsee/

MOTIVATION & WORKSHOP SCOPE

Smart energy meters are increasingly installed in newly constructed buildings worldwide, as regulated by, e.g., the European Union's Energy Services Directive. Their combination with the vision of an Internet of Things, in which billions of embedded devices will continually monitor the environment, enables the fine-grained monitoring of household and office energy usage and hence a large range of novel services. While many such functions have been devised so far (e.g., advice how to save energy or the disaggregation of electricity bills), these solutions commonly rely on the availability of hard- and software systems by a single manufacturer. Interoperability, including the potential to integrate new energy metering devices, is mostly unsupported due to the wide variety of (non-compatible) standards and communication protocols.

This workshop provides a platform to present current research activities in communications and processing of energy consumption data, with its primary focus on electric energy usage. The scope of the workshop includes contributions that address the integration of energy metering equipment from different manufacturers into a single middleware system which operates on a building level, as well as novel means to collect, process and visualize these data. Accepted papers will not only present novel research results in these domains, but also comprise an evaluation in which their merits are assessed.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Novel energy metering hardware designs and experiences
• Data collection and command distribution protocols for energy  management systems
• Middleware systems for energy data, including novel local data processing algorithms
• Control of alternative energy sources to increase their production efficiency
• Innovative tools to model and visualize energy expenditure and production
• Sensing and actuation of electrical loads
• Privacy and security in energy management middleware systems
• User interfaces for energy display, management and control

PAPER SUBMISSION

Authors are invited to submit papers of up to 6 pages in IEEE two-column format. Submissions must be original and should not have been published previously or be under consideration for publication while being evaluated for this workshop. Accepted papers will be published in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library. More details about the ubmission process can be found on the website.


IMPORTANT DATES

Submission:   Sep. 26th, 2014
Notification: Nov. 17th, 2014
Camera Ready: Dec. 10th, 2014
Workshop:     Mar. 12th, 2015


WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS

Andreas Reinhardt, The University of New South Wales, Australia
Christian Renner, Universität zu Lübeck, Germany
Delphine Christin, University of Bonn & Fraunhofer FKIE, Germany


PROGRAM COMMITTEE

Matteo Ceriotti, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Alexander De Luca, LMU München, Germany
Paul Dunphy, Newcastle University, UK
Wilfried Elmenreich, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Austria
Stefan Fischer, Universität zu Lübeck, Germany
Hannes Frey, University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany
Stefan Katzenbeisser, TU Darmstadt, Germany
Marco Ortolani, University of Palermo, Italy
Oliver Parson, University of Southampton, UK
Daniele Puccinelli, SUPSI, Switzerland
Christian Steger, TU Graz, Austria
Volker Turau, TU Hamburg-Harburg, Germany
Sebastian Zöller, TU Darmstadt, Germany

Workshop on Human Centered Energy Management

1st Interdisciplinary Workshop on Human Centered Energy Management
to be held from 7th to 11th of July 2014
at Lakeside Science & Technology Park, Klagenfurt, Austria.

An inter-faculty research field “Energy Management and Energy Technologies”, staffed by academics from a wide range of disciplines, has recently been established at the Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt (AAU Klagenfurt). Research efforts focus on energy management and energy innovation, networked and de- central energy systems. Together with the Faculty of Technical Sciences (TeWi), the Faculty for Management and Economics (WiWi) and the Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies (IFF), this new research area will be further developed in cooperation with external partners such as the Lakeside Park.







The Lakeside Park is a platform for cooperation between enterprises and university institutions in the information and communication technology (ICT) sectors. A place of interdisciplinary research and development, training, production and services. The focus of the Lakeside Park is on selected topics of information and communication technology and complementary technologies such as energy systems. In the Interreg IV projects “Smart Energy” and “Efficient, Effective, Smart” the Lakeside Park establishes inter-regional contacts to strengthen collaborative research and development. Therefore, the Lakeside Park and the AAU introduce this novel interdisciplinary workshop with focus on “Human Centered Energy Management”.

Lakeside Park Klagenfurt with a view to the Wörthersee

Human Centered Energy Management

To ensure an efficient production, supply and consumption of energy, it is necessary to introduce novel technologies. Energy monitoring units, new smart control and managing techniques shall improve energy efficiency in the smallest entities of the common power grid – the Smart Building with its inhabitants and its neighborhood. In that respect the individual human being plays a crucial role for energy management tasks. On the one hand it is necessary to improve the energy efficiency of the costumer’s home to reduce energy consumption and costs. On the other hand also the decrease of environmental pollution by optimal utilization of energy resources is a major task of future energy systems.

The proposed workshop “Human Centered Energy Management” takes up these tasks and tries to identify problems and solutions for human centered energy management tasks in an interdisciplinary manner.

Format and Objectives

The aim of the workshop is to give regional experts, such as local professors and young researchers of the AAU, the opportunity to discuss and elaborate ideas with world-wide experts and to introduce and to discuss further ideas in an interdisciplinary setup. Therefore, participants with academic backgrounds and an interest on novel smart energy management systems as well as companies and research institutes are welcome to present and to discuss their research tasks and ideas.

The workshop will have a dedicated “industry day” providing the companies a platform to introduce their problems and to elaborate possible solutions and ideas with experts in the field of energy systems from different disciplines. The general format of the workshop lasts one week with key-speaker inputs and group work with discussions and presentations. Therefore, the event provides an excellent platform for scientific exchange, networking, establishment of international collaboration and the initiation of joint research projects.

Addressed Topics:

• ICT solutions and approaches for smart home management and systems for integrated energy management.
• Integration of smart and legacy appliances, renewable energy sources and storage systems in buildings to improve energy efficiency and awareness of inhabitants.
• Identification, modeling and simulation of energy systems and human behavior
• Energy data analysis and feedback approaches and behavior influencing information systems
• Economics and law aspects of human centered energy managements systems in respect to smart homes, smart metering and energy data analysis as well as for renewable energy production and storage systems.
• Market and business models for ICT-based energy services designed to improve the recent power grid and homes.

For more information about the workshop and how it is possible to participate, please contact dominik.egarter@aau.at.

Energiewende - the Game

"Energiewende" is a computer game about the transition of our energy system from fossil fuels to renewable and sustainable energy sources. The game was developed by Manuel Herold, Matija Kucko, Andrea Monacchi, John N. A. Brown, and Wilfried Elmenreich as contribution to the CROSMOS GameJam. At this event teams had to develop a computer game to a topic just revealed at the contest in just two days - 2014 the topic was related to the services of Stadtwerke Klagenfurt. 

The game Energiewende let's you try out the strategic and tactical aspects of an electrical energy system that is mostly powered by renewable energy sources. Unlike a coal power plant, photovoltaic or wind power plants cannot save fuel in times of low load for using it later. Therefore, it is necessary to plan the distribution and placement of power plants well according to the expected power demands of their users - in the game they are modeled as houses with an energy consumption behavior of typical households. After placing power plants and transmission lines, the game features a real-time mode, where your system is simulated throughout three phases of a day (night/morning, daytime, evening). In case there is not enough energy in one phase, you must prevent a blackout (otherwise you loose the game) by balancing the grid. This is done by turning off devices in the houses. But be aware - user might not like this, especially if you turn off a device the user was about to use right now. A "complain-o-meter" is showing the aggregated dislikings of the users - once the complain-o-meter runs over, the game is lost.
Thus, one learns also about the typical consumption of devices and their potential for balancing the grid. The method shown in the game called demand response is currently a frequently discussed method for the future smart grid.

Got everything? Try out the game by clicking the image above. Have fun!

Wind power or photovoltaics?

Wind power is an interesting option for producing renewable energy. In contrast to Photovoltaics, wind generated energy costs less but it requires transmission infracstructure between wind parks and the consumers.Germany has more than 32 GW of installed wind power capacity and is now building transmission lines to transport the energy to the south.

How predictable is wind in comparison to PV output? The yield of both depend on some meterological factors which are hard to predict. However there is one big difference: you can easily calculate the maximum amount of solar intensity that your PV system has to cope with. With wind speed, it is hard to define a maximum possible wind speed, since on rare occasions wind speed can be significantly higher than the expected value.

Which could be dangerous: If the generator spins faster and faster, large forces produced could cause a wind turbine to self destruct:

Luckily, todays wind turbines have an overspeed control (a braking or featherin mechanism) and a cut-out mode. Still, I don't want them in my garden :-)

Impressions from BuildSys 2013

The 5th ACM Workshop On Embedded Systems For Energy-Efficient Buildings (BuildSys) 2013 were hold from the 13th to 14th of November in Rome, where the two researcher Dominik Egarter and Andrea Monacchi participated in. According to the general BuildSys chair the Workshops' aims can be summarized as follows:

The entrance of La Sapienza University, Rome, where SenSys and BuildSys were held

"BuildSys is a venue for discussing new directions in the monitoring, control, and management of energy consumption in buildings, and the generation of awareness and sustainability for an efficient energy market. BuildSys brings together researchers from a multitude of disciplines with a common goal to develop energy saving strategies that can have a major impact worldwide. BuildSys 2013 follows four successful predecessors held in Berkeley, Zurich, Seattle, and Toronto."

This year the workshop had 7 different season such as:

• Energy Efficiency in Homes,
• Data Analysis,
• Occupancy Detection, Monitoring & Use,
• Sensing for Energy,
• Energy and Water,
• HVAC, Modeling and Control and
• Thermal Comfort Management,

Andrea and Dominik at their posters 

where in total 22 papers were presented. In addition to the general paper presentation, the workshop offers a poster and demo session, where 10 posters and 8 demos were presented. The Smart Grid Group not only visited workshop, Dominik and Andrea were presenting two posters. Dominik showed his current result of Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) techniques with the title Appliance State Estimation Based on Particle Filtering. In this paper he showed how it is possible to apply Particle Filtering to the problem of aggregated power loads and how beneficial this approach can be. Moreover, Andreas poster has the title Insert Coin: turning the household into a prepaid billing system and propose an approach for raising energy awareness by combining appliance-level consumption information with prepaid billing so as to turn appliances in pay-as-you-go devices.

D. Egarter, Venkata Pathuri Bhuvana, W. Elmenreich. Appliance State Estimation Based on Particle Filtering, 5th ACM Workshop on Embedded Systems For Energy-Efficient Buildings, Rome, Italy, 2013.

A. Monacchi, W. Elmenreich. Insert Coin: turning the household into a prepaid billing system,5th ACM Workshop on Embedded Systems For Energy-Efficient Buildings (BuildSys'13), Rome, Italy, 2013

Open Professorship on Sustainable Energy Management

Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt invites applications for a Full Professorship on

Sustainable Energy Management

prospectively to be filled by January 1, 2014.

The professorship is limited according to §99 UG to a duration of 5 years. After that duration, it is planned to establish a tenured professorship on Sustainable Energy Management.

The successful candidate has an international reputation in research on business economics and energy management, experience in the management of projects and interest in setting up multidisciplinary projects together with industry and research institutions. Furthermore, candidates should be committed to excellence in undergraduate/graduate teaching and in supervising PhD students. Candidates are expected to have good language skills in English and German.

A full list of requirements and expected qualifications can be found here (in German language).

With more than 10000 students, the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt is a vibrant and innovative university in the southern part of Austria, a region with top quality living conditions at the confluence of Alpine and Mediterranean culture. The position is located at the Faculty of Management and Economics. 

In order to increase the number of women in leading academic positions, we specifically encourage women to apply.

Applications should be sent by September 18, 2013 to Sabine Tomicich (sabine.tomicich@aau.at) and should be accompanied by a descriptive summary of at most 5 pages. The complete call for applications (in German) can be found at https://energy.aau.at/wordpress/?p=72.

For more details contact Univ.-Prof. DI. Dr. Erich Schwarz (Tel.: +43 463/2700-4050 or erich.schwarz@aau.at).