Share Of Capacity Research Articles

Carrying capacity-based benchmarks for Belgian residential buildings

Environmental benchmarks are a means to stimulate lowering environmental impacts of buildings. These benchmarks may be based on a bottom-up or top-down approach. While bottom-up benchmarks are derived from the analysis of reference buildings and represent current building practice, staying within the Earth's carrying capacity requires top-down benchmarks representing long-term environmental goals. Top-down benchmarks are derived by allocating a share of the global carrying capacity to objects, e.g. buildings, using so-called sharing principles. Various sharing principles exist, which significantly influence benchmark values. This study applies a wide range of sharing principles, including novel principles, to define top-down benchmark values for Belgian residential buildings based on global carrying capacities. An environmental budget was first allocated to Belgium, then to households and finally to the housing function. In each step, multiple sharing principles were applied, resulting in 32 combinations of sharing principles. For a single-person household, the minimum and maximum budget resulting from the combinations differ by a factor 42. Based on data availability and quality as well as ethical considerations, the authors of this paper give preference to “right to development” for the allocation to Belgium; “household composition” for the allocation to households and “final consumption expenditures” for the allocation to the housing function. The comparison of the top-down benchmark values with bottom-up benchmarks reveals that various measures are required to remain within the Earth's carrying capacity. The top-down benchmark values presented in this paper can hence guide policymakers in establishing environmental targets and related roadmaps for residential buildings in Belgium.

Empowering Indigenous-Led Contaminant Monitoring through Collaborative Partnerships and Two-Way Capacity Sharing

Climate-driven landscape change, legacy waste and ongoing infrastructural investment are leading to concerns about contaminant release in Arctic Indigenous and Local communities. Sustainable development that considers threats posed by accelerating environmental change requires accessible, appropriate, and sustained environmental data to inform strategic decision-making. Collaborative partnerships and capacity sharing are necessary to promote resilient and sustainable environmental monitoring approaches, however effective collaboration has been hindered by mismatches in priorities and timelines between communities and research programs. We outline the development and later evolution of a community-based environmental research program focused on monitoring contamination threats posed by legacy infrastructure sourced from industry, transportation and domestic waste sites. Capacities and insights from diverse knowledge systems guided each stage of our research approach. Reflections provided by an Indigenous and non-Indigenous Early Career Researcher (ECR) share insights into different aspects of the research process. We highlight how cross-cultural partnerships and capacity sharing have enabled evolving and reflexive community-based contaminant monitoring. Our approach facilitates a structural shift from collaborative monitoring with external analysis to autonomous monitoring that supports equity in research outcomes. Appropriately considered and resourced co-development at regular points of the research process has been critical to developing a complete and effective Indigenous-led research project.

Water resiliency score – Is relying on freshwater to generate electricity a good idea?

One commonly-used argument against fluctuating renewables is their unpredictability. In contrast, thermal power generation and hydropower are regularly presented as reliable and dispatchable. However, droughts and floods can render useless the share of the power generation infrastructure that directly depends on freshwater. In this work, the global power sector is analysed from an energy-water nexus perspective to evaluate its reliability in case of severe water scarcity on a per-power plant basis, proposing a new method for combining it with water stress scores. At a country level, known individual thermal and hydropower plants are paired with regional water stress projections from 2020 to 2030 and their water source as a bottom-up approach to account for the capacities at risk and identify the points where water dependence could render a power system unreliable. The results show that, globally, about 65 % of generating capacities are directly freshwater-dependent. Moreover, the share of capacities placed in the low-resiliency group increases from 9 % of the total installed in 2020 to over 24 % in 2030 in all scenarios. The findings could help guide the development of the global power sector towards a less water-dependent system and accelerate the deployment of low water-demand power generation technologies.

Determining sediment deposition dynamics influenced by check dams in a semi‐arid mountainous watershed

AbstractSemi‐arid environments are characterized by infrequent large magnitude rainfalls that produce flash flood events with high sediment concentration. Control structures such as check dams are widely used in this environment for mitigation. However, their impact on the overall sediment balance of watersheds, particularly those severely affected by anthropogenic activity, is sparsely documented. This study used topographic measurements, sediment analysis, and fallout isotope techniques to assess the effectiveness and service life of 18 rock and masonry check dams that were constructed in the 1930s for controlling sediment fluxes in an 11 ha mountainous watershed in southern Arizona. All of the dams are currently filled with sediment resulting in reduction of local channel gradients by 35 to 71% to between 0.04 and 0.28 depending on location within the reach. Sedimentation occurred over multiple decades at a relatively slow average rate of 0.59 t ha−1 y−1 indicating low instantaneous retention efficiency. The smaller headwater dams were filled soon after construction; however, their share of the overall storage capacity was minor. Although evaluation of 137Cs was an effective method for dating sediment, the 210Pb dating method was not satisfactory because of sediment sorting effects and complex deposition patterns. The abundance of similar control structures in the region points to the opportunity to better understand the process impacts of check dams over multiple decades to inform planning and design of their use in future mitigation projects.

Collaborative Production Scheduling with Multi-Enterprise Idle Capacity Sharing

Collaborative Production Scheduling with Multi-Enterprise Idle Capacity Sharing

From Local Energy Communities towards National Energy System: A Grid-Aware Techno-Economic Analysis

Energy communities are key actors in the energy transition since they optimally interconnect renewable energy capacities with the consumers. Despite versatile objectives, they usually aim at improving the self-consumption of renewable electricity within low-voltage grids to maximize revenues. In addition, energy communities are an excellent opportunity to supply renewable electricity to regional and national energy systems. However, effective price signals have to be designed to coordinate the needs of the energy infrastructure with the interests of these local stakeholders. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the integration of energy communities at the national level with a bottom–up approach. District energy systems with a building scale resolution are modeled in a mixed-integer linear programming problem. The Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition is applied to reduce the computational time. The methodology lies within the framework of a renewable energy hub, characterized by a high share of photovoltaic capacities. Both investments into equipment and its operation are considered. The model is applied on a set of five typical districts and weather locations representative of the Swiss building stock. The extrapolation to the national scale reveals a heterogeneous photovoltaic potential throughout the country. Present electricity tariffs promote a maximal investment into photovoltaic panels in every region, reaching an installed capacity of 67.2 GW and generating 80 TWh per year. Placed in perspective with the optimal PV capacity forecast at 15.4 GW peak at the national level, coordinated investment between local and national actors is needed to prevent dispensable expenses. An uncoordinated design is expected to increase the total costs for residential energy systems from 12% to 83% and curtails 48% of local renewable electricity.

Competing and Sharing: An Analysis of Optimal Pricing and Capacity Sharing Decisions in a Competitive Market

This research investigates the possibility for firms competing in the same market to willingly and profitably share their capacity. We consider two firms selling substitutable products in four different scenarios, according to their competition (non-competing or competing) and capacity sharing (with or without capacity sharing option) situations. In each scenario, each firm’s optimal capacity sharing and retail pricing strategies are characterized. Our results indicate that the two firms are willing to share their capacity only when the capacity selling firm has sufficiently large capacity while the capacity buying firm has sufficiently small capacity. The firms’ relative capacity in turn determine the optimal capacity sharing price, the exchanged capacity sharing quantity, and their retail prices in the market. Going against the common intuition, our results show that it can still be optimal for a firm to sell her capacity to her direct competitor even when she sets a capacity price lower than her retail price (i.e. she makes less per unit of capacity when selling it to the competitor rather than selling it in her own market). Furthermore, capacity sharing can cause the selling firm to willingly lower her retail price despite the smaller capacity she has left after selling some capacity to the competitor. Overall, our research suggests that capacity sharing is a viable and profitable mechanism to help firms selling substitutable products gain more profits and more effectively match their supplies with demand in the market.

Ongoing Waste Issue Towards the Development of Photovoltaic Module Recycling Regulations

In this paper, solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, that play an essential role in reducing fossil energy resources, are considered from a sustainability perspective. Solar PV systems, accounting for a significant capacity share among renewable energy sources, will have environmental and economic repercussions in the future. Despite photovoltaic (PV) modules contributing to the production of renewable energy for an average of 25 to 30 years, they pose a threat to the global environment. Policies should support the significance of initiatives. This will ensure that PV manufacturers, users, governments, and R&D researchers assume responsibility for PV module waste, which is expected to be encountered more frequently and rapidly in the near future. Prioritizing global awareness and policy development in the field of solar PV recycling will inspire future work. Furthermore, the prospect of other solar PV technologies consolidating their market position in the future will necessitate a solar PV recycling industry. This industry should encompass all developing PV technologies.

A two‐step machine‐learning approach to statistical post‐processing of weather forecasts for power generation

By the end of 2021, the renewable energy share of the global electricity capacity reached 38.3% and the new installations were dominated by wind and solar energy, showing global increases of 12.7% and 18.5% respectively. However, both wind and photovoltaic energy sources are highly volatile, making planning difficult for grid operators; thuss, accurate forecasts of the corresponding weather variables are essential for reliable electricity predictions. The most advanced approach in weather prediction is the ensemble method, which opens the door for probabilistic forecasting. However, ensemble forecasts are often underdispersive and subject to systematic bias. Hence, they require some form of statistical post‐processing, where parametric models provide full predictive distributions of the weather variables at hand. We propose a general two‐step machine‐learning‐based approach to calibrating ensemble weather forecasts, where, in the first step, improved point forecasts are generated, which then together with various ensemble statistics serve as input features of the neural network estimating the parameters of the predictive distribution. In two case studies based on 100 m wind speed and global horizontal irradiance forecasts of the operational ensemble prediction system of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, the predictive performance of this novel method is compared with the forecast skill of the raw ensemble and the state‐of‐the‐art parametric approaches. Both case studies confirm that, at least up to 48 hr, statistical post‐processing substantially improves the predictive performance of the raw ensemble for all forecast horizons considered. The variants of the proposed two‐step method investigated outperform in skill their competitors, and the suggested new approach is well applicable for different weather quantities and for a fair range of predictive distributions.

End-to-end active queue management with Named-Data Networking

The innovative information-based Named-Data Networking (NDN) architecture provides a good opportunity to rethink many of the design decisions that are taken for granted in the Internet today. For example, active queue management (AQM) tasks have been traditionally implemented in the routers to alleviate network congestion before their buffers fill up. However, AQM operations could be performed on an end-to-end basis by taking advantage of NDN features. In this paper, we provide an implementation of an AQM algorithm for the NDN architecture that we use to drive a classical AIMD-based congestion control protocol at the receivers. To accomplish this, we take advantage of the 64-bit Congestion Mark field present in the link layer of NDN packets to encode both rate and delay information about each transmission queue along a network path. In order to make the solution scalable, this information is delivered stochastically, guaranteeing that receivers get accurate and updated information about every pertinent queue. This information is enough to implement the well-known controlled delay (CoDel) AQM algorithm. Simulation results show that our client-located CoDel implementation is able to react to congestion when the bottleneck queuing delay surpasses the 5ms target set by the usual in-network CoDel implementation and, at the same time, get a fair and efficient share of the available transmission capacity.

Mixing tank hydrodynamics and mixing efficiency for propeller impellers

In this study, the distribution of axial and radial velocities with the use of a PIV laser system was determined and the mixing power in a mixing tank with narrow and wide propeller impellers was measured. The pumping capacity and secondary circulation values in the mixing tank were calculated and on this basis, the energy efficiency of the operation of both types of propeller impellers was determined and compared with the efficiency of turbine impellers with inclined blades. It turned out that propeller impellers with wide blades are most effective as regards the amount of energy that should be supplied to the mixing tank to achieve the required mixing time. It was found that the share of pumping capacity in the total secondary circulation is almost twice as high as the share of induced circulation. Correlation equations for the dependence of the mixing power and dimensionless flow numbers on the pitch of the propeller blade were also formulated. All the results obtained were compared with the works of other authors. The paper also found that propeller impellers with a variable angle of inclination of the blade α depending on the current radius do not meet the theoretical assumption of a constant axial velocity of the liquid flowing out from of the impeller zone. For small radii of the impeller the explanation for this observation is the presence of the hub and shaft in the axis of the mixer and the effect of liquid slip for the steep agitator blades near the hub. For radii close to the radius of the stirrer, the reason is generation of induced circulation as the expense of the kinetic energy of the liquid flowing out of the impeller area.

Impacts of Kuwait’s proposed renewable energy goals on grid operations

ABSTRACT Kuwait’s policy of achieving 15% renewable energy by 2030, announced in 2012, has been diverted from its original intent. Today, Kuwait’s renewable energy goal is to meet 15% of its projected peak load by 2030. To examine the actual outcomes, a comparison is offered between the original policy: annual energy share, the current policy: peak capacity share, and two other policies: installed capacity share and peak load share. The results demonstrate how these policies lead to drastically different outcomes. The total installed renewable energy capacity ranges from 4 GW to 27 GW; the total produced energy from renewables ranges from 8 TWh to 44 TWh; and the flexibility requirements ranges from 1.6 GW to 20 GW per hour.

Using flexible energy system interactions amongst industry, district heating, and the power sector to increase renewable energy penetration

Sweden’s goal of 100% renewable electricity generation by 2040 requires investments in intermittent electricity production (e.g. wind power). However, increasing the share of intermittent electricity production presents challenges, including reduced flexibility of electricity production. A strategy for overcoming this issue is developing flexibility in electricity consumption. This study analyses the potential for using flexible industrial processes, heat pumps (HP), and combined heat and power (CHP) plants in Swedish district heating systems to increase the share of wind power capacity without compromising grid stability. The simulation tool EnergyPLAN was used to assess the potential contribution of these strategies. The analysis includes a range of annual wind power production between 45 and 60 TWh. The required electricity imports and critical excess electricity (that can neither be used nor exported due to transmission line limitations) were used to evaluate the system’s stability. Managing the operation of CHP plants, HPs, and industrial processes in a flexible way is challenging, but these strategies may still play a decisive role in increasing the share of renewable electricity production and reducing demand peaks in cities. Whilst HP regulation is better at reducing excess electricity production at lower wind power capacities (from 32 to 15% for the analysed interval of wind power production), CHP regulation becomes more relevant when wind power capacity increases (from 14 to 39%). Like HP regulation, flexibility in electricity demand in industrial processes had a greater percentage contribution at lower wind power capacities. Combining HP, CHP regulation, and flexible electricity demands in industry can reduce excess electricity production by 68–80% and electricity imports by 14–26%. Wind power contributing to grid stabilisation reduces excess electricity production but does not reduce electricity imports.

A Multi-Case Study of Business Innovation Models for Manufacturing Capacity Sharing Platforms, Based on a Resource Orchestration Perspective

The sharing economy and the manufacturing industry are integrating and promoting the transformation of the manufacturing industry. However, scholars have not yet conducted many studies about this area. This paper selects four typical cases of platform-based business innovation as research objects to reveal the mechanism of digital technology, resource orchestration and platform-based business model innovation. The study found that the four types of capacity-sharing business model innovations were achieved by manufacturing enterprises using digital technology and adopting specific resource orchestration to promote the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. The perspective of digital technology empowerment and resource orchestration can provide insights to achieve a match between digital technology, resource orchestration strategies and business model innovation, and to provide insights to engineering managers in manufacturing companies.

Trust and Reciprocity in Firms’ Capacity Sharing

Problem definition: We study the use of nonmonetary incentives based on reciprocity to facilitate capacity sharing between two service providers that have limited and substitutable service capacity. Academic/practical relevance: We propose a parsimonious game theory framework, in which two firms dynamically choose whether to accept each other’s customers without the capability to perfectly monitor each other’s capacity utilization state. Methodology: We solve the continuous-time imperfect-monitoring game by focusing on a class of public strategy, in which firms’ real-time capacity-sharing decision depends on an intuitive and easy-to-implement accounting device, namely the current net number of transferred customers. We refer to such an equilibrium as a trading-favors equilibrium. We characterize the condition in which capacity sharing takes place in such an equilibrium. Results: We find that some degree of efficiency loss (as compared with a central planner’s solution) is necessary to induce reciprocity. The efficiency loss is small when the two firms have similar traffic intensity even if they are different in service-capacity scale, whereas the efficiency loss can be considerably large when the two firms have significantly different traffic intensities. The trading-favors mechanism, surprisingly, can outperform the perfect-monitoring benchmark when the two firms exhibit high asymmetry in terms of service-capacity scale or traffic intensity because the smaller firm tends to deviate from collaboration. Managerial implications: Firms should consider engaging in nonmonetary reciprocal capacity sharing if regulations, transaction costs, or other market and operational frictions make it difficult to use a capacity-sharing contract based on monetary payments. The trading-favors collaboration can improve the firms’ payoff close to the centralized upper bound when the firms have similar traffic intensities. However, when their traffic intensities are highly different, firms are better off with a monetary-payment contract to induce more capacity sharing and are worse off investing in increasing their visibility to each other’s real-time available capacity, namely investing in perfect monitoring. Funding: X. Hu thanks Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Hong Kong and R. Caldentey thanks the University of Chicago Booth School of Business for financial support. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2023.1203 .

Trust and Reciprocity in Firms’ Capacity Sharing

Trust and Reciprocity in Firms’ Capacity Sharing

Frontiers in multi-benefit value stacking for solar development on working lands

Abstract Global solar power generation is predicted to expand significantly in the coming decades. Croplands and rangelands - commonly called working lands - will likely absorb a significant share of new utility-scale solar capacity due to land availability and proximity to existing load centers and transmission infrastructure. Beyond meeting energy needs, working lands already provide critical ecosystem services like food production, nature-based recreation, and biodiversity conservation. In the context of such competition for working lands, studies and real-world experiments have begun to investigate the co-location of solar with agriculture, habitat conservation, and water conservation, including through low-impact solar development. This has resulted in a patchwork of co-location approaches across multiple disciplines such as energy planning and policy, food systems science, and natural resources management. Prior work is also largely dominated by approaches to co-locate just one activity with solar development. However, beyond this patchwork lies a new frontier — an emerging need for broader and more deliberate consideration of multiple energy and non-energy activities on working lands. Therefore, in lieu of the current array of fragmented approaches and to facilitate a more systematic exploration of this new frontier, we offer a new Multi-Benefit Value Stacking (MBVS) framework to explore land use efficiencies from co-location of solar generation and non-energy uses on working lands, a clear conceptual definition of such opportunities and the scales at which they can be considered, a table of compiled examples, and key gaps for research and policy.

Flexibility Demand Analysis and Regulation Capacity Sharing Decisions Between Interconnected Power Systems Considering Differences in Regulation Performance

Flexibility Demand Analysis and Regulation Capacity Sharing Decisions Between Interconnected Power Systems Considering Differences in Regulation Performance

Feasibility of solar hybrid energy system at a conservation park: Technical, economic, environmental analysis

Access to clean, reliable, affordable energy has become vital for sustainable development. However, such energy facilities are still unavailable in many rural areas worldwide. The implementation of the clean energy system in remote locations is often challenging. This paper aims to design a hybrid energy system for a conservation park and analyze its technical, economic, and environmental performance. A campsite located in Royal Belum State Park, Malaysia, is chosen as a case study. HOMER Pro software is used to assess the feasibility of different system configurations. In terms of net present cost (NPC), the best system configuration is a 4.13 kW PV array, 11 kWh battery bank, and 0.85 kW converter. It is followed by a PV/DG/Battery system with an NPC of 12767.91 USD. A rise in battery capacity, energy generation, and the initial cost are observed with the increase in the share of PV capacity. It was understood that the PV/DG/Battery hybrid system is technically superior to the standalone diesel system in terms of renewable energy fraction and energy storage autonomy. In terms of economic performance, the PV/DG/Battery system fares better than other configurations with the lowest cost of electricity, payback period, and highest return on investment. High carbon avoidance and negligibly small carbon emission are the unique benefits expected from PV/Battery configurations. In this study, PV/Battery is expected to avoid around 3407.39 kgCO2 annually. This study is expected to shed light on designing an effective hybrid energy system at a conservation park.

Prospective climate change impacts on China's fossil and renewable power-generation infrastructure: Regional and plant-level analyses

The energy infrastructure has emitted massive GHGs and will suffer greatly from climate risks. Given China's largest installed capacity globally, assessing climate impacts on diverse power infrastructures will yield critical risk information and support climate-resilient policymaking. However, lacking detailed plant-level data and ignoring the integrated infrastructural management of adaptation and mitigation priorly impede an in-depth evaluation. By employing high-coverage and -resolution plant-level data and the outputs of six CMIP6 models, we evaluate the pending climate impacts on five power-production sources at the interprovincial and plant levels in China. We find a pervasive negative impact on China's power sector, and the adverse effects expand over time (short-term: 214–342 TWh, long-term: 268–397 TWh, 25–75% quantile). For different future scenarios, the greater the radiative forcing, the greater the loss of power generation. Fossil-related production loss will completely offset the gain in most provinces from renewable power, with an overall negative impact in these regions. Besides, two evident phenomena occur: First, spatial heterogeneity appears across diverse provinces; second, a critical minority of China's plants with a low capacity share contribute to the main body of climate impacts. We consider the need for a targeted coal decommissioning strategy for climate adaptation.