A strategic roadmap for large-scale green hydrogen demonstration and commercialisation in China: A review and survey analysis

Hydrogen is gaining increased attention from industries and policymakers in China. However, most of the current demonstration projects in the country have relied on conventional energy sources, including industrial byproduct hydrogen and grey hydrogen produced from fossil fuels. Moreover, strategies and policy frameworks leading to a shift to green or low-carbon hydrogen have neither been explored in-depth nor been identified clearly in the context of China. This study aims at bridging such gaps. Roadmapping techniques enhanced by the Delphi method and SWOT analysis are used to survey hydrogen energy experts from government bodies, industries, and academia to achieve basic agreement on strategically enabling large-scale green hydrogen demonstrations followed by commercialisation in China. The outcome of two rounds of surveys showed that experts' opinions converged on a strategic roadmap with three stages of development. The corresponding policies needed in each stage are evaluated and selected to form a systemic framework.     

Distortion visualization techniques for 3D coherent sets: A case study of 3D building property units

In the fields of 3D cadastre and 3D property management system, numerous building property objects are adjacent as primary property units assemble into a 3D coherent set. During visualization process of the coherent set, occlusion, obscure, mazy spatial relationships and relative location relationships among the units of the coherent set cause difficulty in observing and understanding the set and its units. Common 3D objects viewing method, such as rotation and navigation obtaining desired visualization effects through adjusting the view angle and position of the camera's field of view, provides weak interactive experience and orientation control for the coherent set because of the neighbour relationships of the 3D objects inside the set. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to solve the prior problems with two basic distortion methods based on “focus + context” theory. The coherent set is first discretized into individual objects and changed them locations according to linear or orthogonal function, while keeping their relative location and dual topological relationships. To maintain both global context awareness (topology and locations) of 3D coherent set and highlight effect of the focus 3D building property object, three evaluation indexes are adopted to assess the corresponding distortion results. A case study based on the real clustered 3D property in Shenzhen was conducted to evaluate the performance of distortion functions, the result shows that the method proposed in this article can not only expand the visual area of focused object and create a clear line of sight (LOS) to the focal object previously obscured, but also maintain verticality and proximity in some degree to facilitate understand the spatial occupation and distribution of whole coherent objects.     

Wind energy deployment in wind farm aging context. Appraising an onshore wind farm enlargement project: A contingent valuation study in the Center of Italy

In many European countries, the most suitable onshore sites for wind installations are almost fully engaged. Furthermore, the existing onshore wind farm capacity should be replaced in the next 10 years because the existing wind power plants are progressively aging in terms of depreciation, degradation and technological obsolescence. Without an adequate policy intervention, the Italian installed wind power capacity would return to the size of 2011 by 2030. In this scenario, the main opportunity for further growth in wind energy generation is wind farm enlargement. The aim of this paper is to assess the welfare change due to the proposed enlargement project. First, we investigate whether existing wind farms affect respondents' attitude and perception toward the potential enlargement of the wind farm by using the contingent valuation method. Second, we investigate the perception of the risk associated with the enlargement of a wind farm. In this case, we explicitly consider respondents' heterogeneity in perceiving the new project externalities. To achieve this objective, we use willingness to pay and willingness to accept measure to appraise welfare change due to the enlargement project. Each of these measures has been elicited jointly regarding the respective appraised externality impact perceived by the respondents. The individual and aggregate findings of this research can offer useful insights for planning and design enlargement schemes to achieve further growth in wind energy generation.     

Economic gains and environmental losses from international trade: A decomposition of pollution intensity in China's value-added trade

Based on a multi-regional input-output model, this study explores the temporal changes and driving forces of China's environmental losses relative to its economic gains from international trade with each of its 45 trading partners from 1995 to 2015. We find that China suffered larger environment losses per $US value-added through exports than almost all of its trading partners. Over time, the environmental losses paid by China declined quicker than that of its bilateral trading partners. The decomposition results of our research further show that the technology effect played a dominant role in this decline. Moreover, the phenomenon that developed economies have outsourced dirty intermediate production stages to emerging economies via trade in intermediate goods, has led to the emerging economies suffering greater environmental losses over time for certain economic gains from international trade.     

计及多类型电储能的综合能源系统优化运行对比分析研究

综合能源系统是泛在电力物联网的重要组成部分，多种类型的储能设备在其中发挥了重要作用。目前的多数研究只考虑了单一类型电储能对综合能源系统优化运行的影响，或是通过对多种能量形式的储能进行联合优化调度展开研究。至于多种类型电储能在综合能源系统中的优化运行结果以及定量对比分析工作还开展的较少。鉴于此，文中提出了计及飞轮储能、电化学储能和超导储能等多类型电储能的综合能源系统优化运行模型，以系统日运行成本最低为目标，并采用人工智能算法来保障预测数据的准确性，利用混合整数线性规划方法进行求解，同时设置了3种运行场景，对不同场景下的优化结果进行了定量分析对比。算例分析表明，采用电化学储能可获得最低的系统运行成本以及最为显著的售电交易量；而超导储能具备充放调度灵活性高，充放潜力大的特点。     

Economic viability and regulation effects of infrastructure investments for inter-regional electricity transmission and trade in China

The transition of energy structure to renewable energy is a social and systematic engineering that requires complex regional power interconnection as a support. Thus, an assessment of the economic viability of infrastructure investments for supporting such transmission expansion is crucial. This study presents a multi-regional power system optimization model to evaluate the potential economic benefits of infrastructure investments for the national inter-regional electricity network in China under various scenarios in the context of low-carbon transformation. Key factors influencing economic benefits are analyzed specifically and regulation barriers associated with inter-regional electricity trade are given particular attention. The results show that approximately 140 Giga Watt (GW) of infrastructure construction for the inter-regional electricity trade network is economically viable during the planning horizon. These new interconnections would lead to 250–440 billion RMB of economic benefits. Regional electricity trade barriers caused by imperfect market mechanisms have a negative impact on the economic benefits of transmission infrastructure investments, although they promote scale and utilization efficiency in the power sector of electricity-importing regions. Improving the national grid coordination mechanism to break the grid isolation between the State Grid Corporation of China and the China Southern Power Grid is crucial, because a large number of transmission lines connecting these two national-level power grids are economically viable.     

An effective method of bulk materials moisture measurement using capacitive sensors

When we speak about capacitance moisture meters for bulk materials we have to face with different values of dielectric permittivity for different bulk materials in dehydrated state, what causes a method error that can be named ‘type uncertainty’. Besides, different varieties of the same material have different values of dielectric permittivity, which depend from geographical origin, processing conditions etc. It can be hardly predicted automatically and type uncertainty can be compensated only in separate situations with the help of preliminary calibration. Main tasks of the research are to develop new comparison principle of moisture measurement with better accuracy due to effective compensation of physical, chemical and granulometric composition influence on the result of moisture measurement, develop new primary and secondary instrument transducers. Moisture sensor consists of four measuring capacitors. Two of them should be filled with a sample, which moisture content should be determined, and other pair of measuring capacitors should be filled with a same substance, but previously dehydrated. Mathematical models, developed to take into account granulometric composition of a bulk material were used to carry out a comparison analysis for three types of instrument measuring transducers. Obtained results proved that suggested principle of moisture measurement provides effective compensation of granulometric composition influence. Developed measuring principle had been experimentally tested what helped to confirm that it provides two times better compensation of different physical and chemical composition for different materials in comparison with the direct comparison method.     

Assessing the cost-effectiveness of electric vehicles in European countries using integrated modeling

Electric vehicles (EVs) are considered alternatives to internal combustion engines due to their energy efficiency and contribution to CO₂ mitigation. The adoption of EVs depends on consumer preferences, including cost, social status and driving habits, although it is agreed that current and expected costs play a major role. We use a partial equilibrium model that minimizes total energy system costs to assess whether EVs can be a cost-effective option for the consumers of each EU27 member state up to 2050, focusing on the impact of different vehicle investment costs and CO₂ mitigation targets. We found that for an EU-wide greenhouse gas emission reduction cap of 40% and 70% by 2050 vis-à-vis 1990 emissions, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are cost-effective in the EU only by 2030 and only if their costs are 30% lower than currently expected. At the EU level, vehicle costs and the capability to deliver both short- and long-distance mobility are the main drivers of BEV deployment. Other drivers include each state’s national mobility patterns and the cost-effectiveness of alternative mitigation options, both in the transport sector, such as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) or biofuels, and in other sectors, such as renewable electricity.