Rural electrification systems based on renewable energy: The social dimensions of an innovative technology

Many areas in rural non-Western regions are installing electrification systems based on renewable energy. Although these projects are usually welcome, they sometimes fail. Explanations for failures often cite technical reasons. In this research, partly based on the results of the SOPRA_RE project, we focus on the users, studying the relationships between technology and society. By analysing potential sources of failures, we identify the root of the problem as how a new technology is received by the local society. In this paper we introduce dimensions that we consider to be especially important in the process of technology integration. We defend the importance of combining the technical outlook with the sociological one, based on the idea that the latter is often indispensable as a complementary element of technical explanations of system failures, which in turn provides a better basis for solving them. We use specific examples to bolster our insistence on the need to achieve convergence between the technical and the sociological outlooks.     

新能源领域的质子交换膜研究与应用进展

质子交换膜作为燃料电池和液流电池的关键材料之一,近二十年来得到世界各国科学家的广泛关注和深入研究,先后研究开发出含氟高分子类、碳氢聚合物类、芳香烃聚合物类,以及有机/无机杂化材料的质子交换膜.在总结归纳这一领域的研究成果基础上,结合本课题组在液流电池领域的质子交换膜研究进展,论述质子交换膜技术在新能源技术领域未来若干年的研究开发重大需求,展望质子交换膜材料设计与可能的绿色合成技术路线.     

Meso-scale life-cycle impact assessment of novel technology policies: the case of renewable energy

Assessing the environmental risk of novel technological systems and of the European Union (EU) policies supporting them and regulating their implementation requires good understanding of (i) the pressure on the environment posed by the large-scale use of new technology, and (ii) the vulnerability of the receptor of this pressure. Generic life-cycle assessments (LCAs) provide exhaustive accounting of environmental pressure, yet they do not take into account the vulnerability of the receiving ecosystem. Generic studies of technology externalities fail to produce conclusions on the impacts in a certain area of the systems envisaged due to lack of site-specific information. The combined use of generic (LCA) and spatially referenced data offers new opportunities for comprehensively analysing the environmental impact of novel technologies. A novel information fusion methodology is suggested. Example applications are presented herein focusing on the evaluation of renewable energy technologies as an example of the implementation of meso-scale LCA for integrated environmental risk assessment of EU technology policies.     

Assessing the sustainability of energy technological systems in Southern Africa: A review and way forward

The field of technology assessment is not new, but it continues to be relevant today more than ever, especially in the energy sector. Issues related to climate change, energy security and sustainability in general are at the core of all energy policies and strategies. The development of new and more sustainable energy technologies are needed to address these challenges. As part of this, energy technology assessment tools can help decision-makers with the identification of sustainable energy solutions, in order to integrate them in long-term energy policies and strategies. The concept and practice of sustainable development has subsequently manifested in the technology assessment field. This implies the re-classification of technology assessment into ecological, economic and social (and other) goals. In the Southern African context, specifically, there is no formal and coherent approach to energy technology assessment from a sustainability perspective. Governments in the region are finding it challenging to establish national policies concerning energy technology assessment. Indeed, the review reveals the limited use of the term “technology assessment” in energy evaluation studies in Southern Africa. Energy sustainability assessments may be reported, but certainly not from the perspectives of the technology management community, and, although a number of studies have discussed the issues of sustainability in technology assessment, none account for technology sustainability assessment from a holistic perspective. The paper argues that it is in this area that further research is needed.     

Economic performance,environmental concerns,and renewable energy consumption: drivers of renewable energy development in Sub-Sahara Africa

This paper analyzes the drivers of renewable energy development and consumption in Sub-Sahara African countries for the period, 1980–2011. The fully modified ordinary least squares, dynamic ordinary least squares, and fixed-effects estimation techniques are used to evaluate the statistical significance of the determinants of renewable energy consumption. Results indicate that income has the desired positive, albeit statistically insignificant contribution to renewable energy consumption growth. This indicates that recent economic strength in the region has not been accompanied by increased development and consumption of renewable energy, in contrast to empirical evidence in other developing economies. A review of the possible reasons for this incongruence is presented. Also, increased consumption of renewable energy is associated with heightened concerns for climate change caused by pollutants such as carbon dioxide. Population and industrial expansion are statistically significant determinants of renewable consumption, and oil prices correlate negatively with renewable energy consumption.     

Severe accidents in the energy sector: comparative perspective

This paper addresses one of the controversial issues in the current comparative studies of the environmental and health impacts of energy systems, i.e. the treatment of severe accidents. The work covers technical aspects of severe accidents and thus primarily reflects an engineering perspective on the energy-related risk issues, though some social implications are also touched upon. The assessment concerns fossil energy sources (coal, oil and gas), nuclear power and hydro power. The scope is not limited to the power production (conversion) step of these energy chains but, whenever applicable, also includes exploration, extraction, transports, processing, storage and waste disposal. With the exception of the nuclear chain the focus of the work has been on the evaluation of the historical experience of accidents. The basis used for this evaluation is a comprehensive database ENSAD (Energy-related Severe Accident Database), established by the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI). For hypothetical nuclear accidents the probabilistic technique has also been employed and extended to cover the assessment of economic consequences of such accidents. The broader picture obtained by coverage of full energy chains leads on the world-wide basis to aggregated immediate fatality rates being much higher for the fossil chains than what one would expect if only power plants were considered. Generally, the immediate fatality rates are for all considered energy carriers significantly higher for the non-OECD countries than for OECD countries. In the case of hydro and nuclear the difference is in fact dramatic. The presentation of results is not limited to the aggregated values specific for each energy chain. Also frequency-consequence curves are provided. They reflect implicitly the ranking based on the aggregated values but include also such information as the observed or predicted chain-specific maximum extents of damages. This perspective on severe accidents may lead to different system rankings, depending on the individual risk aversion.     

Factors affecting renewable energy technology adoption policies of 50 states and district of Columbia in the USA

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Renewable energy policies and adoption of new renewable energy technologies in different states of the USA are not uniform. The factors affecting the...     

Analysis of the Spanish scientific and technological output in the ICT sector

Summary This study presents a general view of the scientific and technological production in the ICT sector in Spain during the period 1990-2002 and its relative weight in the international production, as well as the identification of the main institutional actors and the performance patterns of the researchers in this scientific community through bibliometric techniques, with the aim of exploring the character of its outputs, both in terms of publications and patents. Indicators at macro-meso level are presented by: geographic regions, thematic areas at different aggregation levels, institutional sectors and research centres. Bibliometric indicators may help focus attention on the position and contribution of Spanish ICT science and technological capabilities.     

川西可再生能源利用的探讨

利用可再生能源已成为解决能源短缺和环境污染的必然选择.重点对川西地区存在的太阳能、地热水能、生物质能资源的分布以及利用的可行性进行分析,并对各个能源的利用潜力和利用方式进行了研究.针对可再生能源的利用现状,提出了一些建议.     

Educating systems engineers in the university sector

The education of systems engineers has usually been a task left to chance or, at best, the postgraduate sector of universities. Recently, a new course at Loughborough University has set out to change this and has met with considerable success. However, establishing such a programme has been a substantial systems challenge in itself, not least because new methods of teaching needed to be introduced, and a systems friendly means of managing the programme had to be established. This paper looks at the issues behind the successful educating of systems engineers for the aerospace and related industries     

Impact of renewable energy on rural electrification in Malaysia: a review

Malaysia is rich in renewable energy (RE) resources. Hybrid systems of these resources can contribute strongly to the electrification and sustainable development of rural areas that do not have access to electricity grids. The integration of the generation of hybrid renewable power in remote and rural areas supplies the required power demand and mitigates emissions. Thus, this study reviews the latest literature (theses, journals articles, and conference proceedings) on the need for electricity in remote rural communities, on hybrid RE systems, on environmental impact, and on economic regulation in Malaysia. Power in this country is mainly generated by fossil fuels that emit high concentrations of greenhouse gases. Thus, RE is a potential alternative for to electrify rural areas, to meet current and future energy demands, and to mitigate emissions. Moreover, Malaysia has pledged to reduce its carbon-emission intensity by a maximum of 40 % (2005 level) by the year 2020. Therefore, the implementation of RE technologies in this country is significantly aided by RE projects, research and development activities, technologies, energy policies, and future direction. This review concludes that solar, wind, hydro, and biomass energy, as well as a hybrid of these, can effectively electrify rural areas.     

The firm in the Information Age: organizational responses to technological change in the processed foods sector

The transformation of production processes that occurred acrossa range of manufacturing industries during the Industrial Agegenerated new and more complex requirements for the processof intermediation as well as for the production systems themselves.The development of hierarchical organizations provided firmswith the ability to oversee directly many of these new tasksand to create markets that supported them. In contrast, theadvent of the Information Age has tended not so much to requirethe creation of markets de novo but has rather altered the natureof existing relationships of intermediation in ways that havefacilitated a much wider collection of organizational forms.     

Efficiency assessment of green technology innovation of renewable energy enterprises in China: a dynamic data envelopment analysis considering undesirable output

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - The rapid development of renewable energy enterprises has produced important benefits for contemporary efforts to address serious environmental...     

Load management as a smart grid concept for sizing and designing of hybrid renewable energy systems

Optimal sizing of hybrid renewable energy systems (HRES) to satisfy load requirements with the highest reliability and lowest cost is a crucial step in building HRESs to supply electricity to remote areas. Applying smart grid concepts such as load management can reduce the size of HRES components and reduce the cost of generated energy considerably. In this article, sizing of HRES is carried out by dividing the load into high- and low-priority parts. The proposed system is formed by a photovoltaic array, wind turbines, batteries, fuel cells and a diesel generator as a back-up energy source. A smart particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm using MATLAB is introduced to determine the optimal size of the HRES. The simulation was carried out with and without division of the load to compare these concepts. HOMER software was also used to simulate the proposed system without dividing the loads to verify the results obtained from the proposed PSO algorithm. The results show that the percentage of division of the load is inversely proportional to the cost of the generated energy.     

Privatization and technological capability development in the telecommunications sector: a case study of Sri Lanka Telecom

This paper presents a framework for examining the development of the technological capability in a telecommunications firm after privatization. The framework is based on the value chain concept, which identifies the primary and support activities of a telecommunication service provider. It uses a three-step procedure to analyze the technological capability needs and develops indicators to measure the extent to which such technology capabilities have developed after privatization. The elements and indicators were determined from an in-depth understanding of the technical, managerial, and operational processes in telecommunications firms.The framework is then applied to Sri Lanka Telecom. Information on the firm's technological capabilities was collected through in-depth interviews with top and middle management. This information was analyzed to compare technological capabilities before and after privatization. Based on the comparison, we find that technological capability development in Sri Lanka Telecom progressed substantially after privatization. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.     

Informativity of monitoring in the testing of technological systems

We propose a system approach which takes into account all elements of monitoring and the selection of appropriate number of checkpoints.Translated from Izmeritel'naya Tekhnika, No. 6, pp. 3–4, June, 1993.