Energy-saving Policies Research Articles

Load forecasting via Grey Model-Least Squares Support Vector Machine model and spatial-temporal distribution of electric consumption intensity

Load forecasting analysis plays an important role for regional electric power project planning as well as consumption management. For improving the long-term load forecasting accuracy and usability, this paper proposes a new residual-type combined Grey Model-Least Squares Support Vector Machine forecasting model for the component loads by extracting the load characteristics. In this model, each component decomposed load is forecasted using characteristic-matched model. Meanwhile, Moran's I and α convergence are used to identify the spatial-temporal distribution characteristics and levels of electric consumption intensity from the perspective of spatial econometrics. The results show that the proposed model can improve the forecasting accuracy, and can avoid the poor usability in the application phase. According to a case study for Beijing, the electric consumption intensity of the city has a positive spatial correlation, and the low electric consumption intensity districts are mainly concentrated in the central region, which reveals a trend of spreading from the center to periphery. The overall electric consumption intensity shows a downward trend, but the internal differences increase with time. The results may help to carry out electric construction planning, and to formulate regionally energy-saving policies.

The heterogeneity in energy consumption patterns and home appliance purchasing preferences across urban households in China

The heterogeneity in energy consumption between households has long been neglected, leading to the low effectiveness of one-size-fits-all demand-side policies. Here, we investigate energy consumption patterns and home appliance purchasing preferences of different urban households. In this study, 1921 urban households in China were empirically classified into four groups based on their socio-demographic characteristics. It is found that low- and middle-income small-size households have a latecomer energy consumption pattern and a rational home appliance purchasing preference, low-income large-size households correspond to an old-fashion pattern and an economic preference, middle- and high-income large-size households show a moderate pattern and a neutral preference, and high-income small-size households perform a modern pattern and a pro-environmental preference. The inter-group comparison indicates that income increase will promote energy consumption patterns to be more low-carbon and modern. Meanwhile, the demographic transition to small-size family may lead to a carbon-intensive energy lifestyle for middle-income households, while high-income households can have a more saving and green energy consumption pattern. In addition, the scenario analysis indicates that one-size-fits-all policies failed to account for everyone. The findings presented here can inform authorities of the necessity and directions of designing common but differentiated household energy-saving policies.

Measurement of China’s Building Energy Consumption from the Perspective of a Comprehensive Modified Life Cycle Assessment Statistics Method

This paper proposes a new life cycle assessment (LCA) statistics method to calculate the energy consumption of Chinese buildings from the perspective of LCA under the sustainable supply chain system. We divide the life cycle of buildings into the materialization stage, the construction stage, and the operation stage. Based on the new LCA statistics method, we obtain the following findings. First, the growth of total building energy consumption has slowed down since 2014, and its share of the Chinese total energy consumption levels off, remaining at about 40%. In 2018, the stages of materialization, construction, and operation account for about 34.02%, 4.65%, and 61.33% in total building energy consumption, respectively. Second, the materialization and operation stages are the main sources of energy consumption in the whole supply chain. Energy consumption in the materialization stage has been declining year by year since 2014, due to the impact of energy-saving policy. Moreover, we find that energy consumption in the operation and construction stages has been increasing year by year. Finally, in the life cycle of Chinese buildings, energy consumption in the operation stage plays a dominant role. This paper puts forward some managerial suggestions to relevant departments and provides some measures to optimize energy consumption in the Chinese building industry.

Government Performance Evaluation in the Context of Carbon Neutrality: Energy-Saving of New Residential Building Projects

The government’s supervision of new residential building projects’ (NRBPs) energy-saving can promote carbon neutrality policies within its jurisdiction. A scientific and systematic evaluation of NRBPs energy-saving reflects a government’s management performance. However, achieving accurate and reasonable results with unitary evaluation standards without considering regional characteristics is not easy. This study proposes an evaluation method of intelligently evaluating the effectiveness of government energy-saving supervision with regional characteristics weighted in. Consequently, these evaluation indicators can reveal the key issues in carrying out local energy-saving policies and provide concrete guidance for local governments to manage the energy-saving of NRBPs better. The method was tested with ten projects and found to be effective.

Cost-related analysis of implementing energy-efficient retrofit measures in the residential building sector of a middle-income country – A case study of Bosnia and Herzegovina

This study presents an in-depth analysis of the cost structure when planning EE retrofit measures in the residential sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The analysis showed that implementing EE retrofit measures would result in substantial energy savings in single-family houses, however, the specific cost of implementing EE retrofit measures per resident for single-family houses is on average 2.8 times higher than for the other three categories; multi-family houses, apartment buildings, and high-rise buildings. When considering the ratio between the investment costs and GDP per capita showed that the citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina have four times lower ability to finance EE retrofit measures compared to three other representatives EU members and therefore government subsidy schemes may be inevitable for successfully implementing EE retrofit strategies. The general conclusion based on the cost-effective analysis is that EE retrofit investments, may not be financially viable in single-family houses, multi-family houses, and apartment buildings even if supported by government subsidies due to the very low prices of energy sources (coal and wood) used in these specific building prototypes. On contrary, high-rise buildings, that are mainly driven by natural gas and light distillate fuel oil, show a great EE retrofit-driven profitability in. Looking at the financial assessment outcomes, the most significant benefits are mainly related to retrofit scenario that accounts for improvement in the external wall insulation, window glazing, and improving the heating station efficiency. Looking at the carbon emission outcomes, the most significant benefits in reducing the relative and averaged CO2 emission are strongly related to replacing the existing partly coal-burned furnaces (80% firewood + 20 % coal) in single-family houses with exclusive firewood fueled heating systems. This measure may have an enormous impact on reducing the CO2 emission from single-family houses (minimum 83.1 %), which cover 93.1 % of the total residential building stock in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This study may benefit low and middle-income governments in their aim to translate potential EE retrofit measures in the residential sector to a nationwide economic energy-saving policy.

An investigation of the determinants of energy intensity in emerging market countries

With the rapid economic growth in most Emerging Market Countries, the energy intensity showed a striking decline. To explore this energy puzzle, we evaluated energy intensity reduction in 30 Emerging Market Countries, which were referred to as E30 in this paper. A combined conceptual analysis framework was proposed and two main procedures were involved: 1) the aggregate energy intensity of E30 was decomposed into activity mix and national intensity, applying the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) approach; 2) regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between energy price and national intensity following Cobb–Douglas cost function, where the energy price of each country was measured using energy depletion and Brent oil price (as a robust check). The results indicated that national intensity was the main factor of aggregate energy intensity reduction with a contribution share of more than 100%, whether in 27 countries from 1971 to 2016 or 30 countries from 1990 to 2016. With respect to the impact of energy price on national intensity, we concluded that the relative energy price increased by more than 170% between 1971 and 2016. But the corresponding average decrease in national intensity was limited because the absolute value of negative elasticity between energy price and national intensity was less than 0.07. So, some energy-saving policies can also be used to achieve energy efficiency goals.

Evaluation of Features Generated by a High-End Low-Cost Electrical Smart Meter

The problem of energy disaggregation is the separation of an aggregate energy signal into the consumption of individual appliances in a household. This is useful, since the goal of energy efficiency at the household level can be achieved through energy-saving policies towards changing the behavior of the consumers. This requires as a prerequisite to be able to measure the energy consumption at the appliance level. The purpose of this study is to present some initial results towards this goal by making heavy use of the characteristics of a particular din-rail meter, which is provided by Meazon S.A. Our thinking is that meter-specific energy disaggregation solutions may yield better results than general-purpose methods, especially for sophisticated meters. This meter has a 50 Hz sampling rate over 3 different lines and provides a rather rich set of measurements with respect to the extracted features. In this paper we aim at evaluating the set of features generated by the smart meter. To this end, we use well-known supervised machine learning models and test their effectiveness on certain appliances when selecting specific subsets of features. Three algorithms are used for this purpose: the Decision Tree Classifier, the Random Forest Classifier, and the Multilayer Perceptron Classifier. Our experimental study shows that by using a specific set of features one can enhance the classification performance of these algorithms.

Multiple-steps scenario optimisation for pumping plants activation in water supply systems

Abstract Economic aspects concerning the high costs related to energy requirements for managing complex water supply systems need a robust strategy, particularly considering the activation of pumping plants. Considering hydrological uncertainties, the definition of strategic rules can ensure energy savings and the well-timed activation of costly water transfers for shortage risk alleviation. The modelling approach has been developed aiming at defining strategic rules of pumps activation thresholds. It considers the need for seasonal variations of activation and the different costs of energy in diverse time slots, according to the usual cost rules adopted by the authorities. Starting with the traditional scenario analysis approach, a new algorithm has been developed considering a multiple-steps scenario optimisation implemented using GAMS interfaced with CPLEX solvers. The results should allow the water authority to establish a robust strategy for pumping activation to guarantee the fulfilment of water demands and to ensure an energy-saving policy.

A Literature Review of Energy Efficiency and Sustainability in Manufacturing Systems

Climate change mitigation, the goal of reducing CO2 emissions, more stringent regulations and the increment in energy costs have pushed researchers to study energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Manufacturing systems are large energy consumers and are thus responsible for huge greenhouse gas emissions; for these reasons, many studies have focused on this topic recently. This review aims to summarize the most important papers on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources in manufacturing systems published in the last fifteen years. The works are grouped together, considering the system typology, i.e., manufacturing system subclasses (single machine, flow shop, job shop, etc.) or the assembly line, the developed energy-saving policies and the implementation of the renewable energy sources in the studied contexts. A description of the main approaches used in the analyzed papers was discussed. The conclusion reports the main findings of the review and suggests future directions for the researchers in the integration of renewable energy in the manufacturing systems consumption models.

PREDICTING THE EFFECTS OF ENERGY SAVING POLICIES IN BUILDING SECTOR IN CONSIDERATION OF BUILDING OWNERS’ AND TENANTS’ DECISION MAKING

Following the Paris Agreement adopted in 2015, Japan has set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 26% from 2013 by 2030. In this context, the business sector is required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40%. The government has been promoting energy saving by some measures. Predicting the effects of each energy-saving policies will make it possible to consider a more effective combination of policies, and it will be useful for studying future policy making. In this study, we developed a simulation that modeled the behavior of tenants and building owners and we used the simulation to predict the effect of energy saving policies on buildings. We also examined changes in energy consumption when tenants prefer energy-efficient buildings. Chapter 2 explained a model in detail. This is a Multi-Agent Simulation model that simulates the behavior of building owners and tenants, who are stakeholders of office buildings. One thousand building owners and about 10,000 tenants act in order to satisfy their own profits. In particular, building owners change their rent, reconstruct and renovate so that they can get more their lifecycle profits. If they think that energy-efficient building is profitable, they change their buildings to the green ones. On the other side, tenants often move to a new office in order to satisfy their utility. If tenants prefer the energy-efficient office, their intention affect the owners’ decision making indirectly. Parameters of utility are estimated so that calculated rental value of buildings simulates the actual value. Using this simulation, we predicted the policy effects of energy saving in building sector from 2020 to 2050 in Chapter 4. The considered policy is “energy-efficiency standard compliance”, “subsidy for new buildings” and “subsidy for renovation”. As a result, we knew some important findings. For example, making energy-efficiency standard compliance severe is effective. It was also found that subsidies for new buildings require a large amount of subsidies to achieve an effect because building a new office requires a lot of money and little amount of subsidies cannot distribute properly to new buildings. Furthermore, we found that subsidies for renovation can be effective at an early stage, but the effects will not continue over the long term because renovated buildings are often reconstructed to the new buildings and the effects of subsidy will end at that time. In addition to those policies, we studied the scenario the tenant's intension increases to save energy consumption in Chapter 5. As a result, tenants’ intension to energy-efficiency makes energy consumption greatly reduced in the end, but it takes time for the effect to appear. We also studied the combination between tenants’ intention and the policies in Chapter 4. The combination with the standard compliance is not very effective. Otherwise, there were the synergistic effect with subsidies for new buildings. It was also clarified that there is a possibility that energy conservation will continue to progress if properly combined with subsidies for renovation. As a future task, it is conceivable to consider specific measures for tenants to intend energy-saving when selecting a building. However, since this simulation is constructed with limited information and includes assumptions and simplifications, there remains a problem in its prediction accuracy. It is also necessary to consider a method for verifying the prediction accuracy while aiming for a more detailed model construction.

How Does Target-Based Performance Evaluation Affect the Accuracy of Energy-Saving Data: Evidence From China

Energy intensity measured by energy consumption per unit of GDP has always been the main assessment indicator for the design of energy-saving policies, but its accuracy is highly dependent on the reliability of GDP data. This paper finds that the indicator accuracy is improving after the central government has included energy intensity into the performance appraisal system for local officials. This means that the energy-saving target-based performance evaluation has restrained the data misrepresentation behavior of local officials. Further mechanism analysis shows that the pressure of energy saving restricts the development of the industrial sector, which weakens the ability of local governments to manipulate GDP data, thus improving the accuracy of energy intensity statistics. These findings provide some insightful references for China’s future green development and policy design.

The Effect of Energy Saving and Emission Reduction of Semi-External Window Installation

As an important part of passive ultra-low energy building envelope structure, exterior windows play a very important role in lighting, heat gain, and thermal insulation. Passive doors and windows are currently mostly installed externally, and high installation costs, material costs, and safety have become obstacles in the promotion of energy-saving policies. We calculated and simulated the linear heat transfer coefficient of the window opening based on the software flixopro8, and obtained the window installation position with the smallest linear heat transfer coefficient between the door and window and different wall structures and the decisive factors affecting the linear heat transfer coefficient of the door and window opening.

Identifying and Comparing Obstacles and Incentives for the Implementation of Energy Saving Projects in Eastern and Western European Countries: An Exploratory Study

This comparison study of the implementation of energy-saving projects in buildings was conducted in order to consider the diversity of experiences between Western European countries, which have experience and expertise in this area, and those countries in Eastern Europe that are in the beginning stages. The goal of this paper is to analyze obstacles and incentives for investment in energy conservation in buildings by comparing European countries with a diverse landscape of institutional and economic developments, social-cultural values, and environmental framework conditions in order to understand if these differences are influencing the implementation of energy saving measures and how this can be used to overcome the existing obstacles. The study is based on survey results received from experts in Eastern and Western European countries. The main value of the research is that it offers an overview of the potentials and constraints (barriers) to energy efficiency in Europe, based on data from a sample of western and eastern European countries. Among the most important incentives that were implemented to stimulate energy-saving measures are costs savings and the need to meet regulatory requirements. The main obstacles that still restrict the number of already implemented projects in Europe are a lack of proper financial incentives and that many Eastern countries are still struggling to develop the market of Energy Saving Services (ESS) and to operate better energy waste control systems. The paper concludes with the successful incentives that were implemented to stimulate the energy-saving measures and the main obstacles that still restrict the number of already implemented projects in Europe. Additionally, a set of indicators related to the environmental friendliness and social significance of energy-saving measures was proposed for evaluation of the project results. These were used based on the fact that they may be measured and cater for comparisons. This paper can help improve policy-makers’ selections in order to improve economic instruments appropriate to energy-saving policy objectives and specific national contexts.

Design matters: New insights on optimizing energy consumption for residential buildings

In this paper, we construct a unique database for 1228 residential buildings in Hong Kong to investigate how the spatial features of these residential buildings affect the electricity consumption in the communal area. We choose Hong Kong for this analysis as the city owns a large number of standard-type residential buildings managed by the public institution, which could be affected strongly by environmental policies. Both the machine learning method, based on the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO), and econometric regressions are adopted to analyse the data. We first utilize the machine learning LASSO technique to identify the most relevant factors for the subsequent econometric analysis. Our results show that the electricity demand for relatively low consumption building types, such as Twin Tower, is 6% lower than that of the high consumption building types. Newly constructed buildings usually belong to the medium consumption types, with the estimated monthly electricity consumption per apartment in communal areas to be around 50.2 kWh on average in 2020. These findings shed light on the nexus between spatial features and energy use for complex buildings, potentially contributing to the better crafting of energy-saving policy and the improvement of residential building programmes.

Spillover of different regulatory policies for waste sorting: Potential influence on energy-saving policy acceptability

An emerging body of research has contributed to understanding the spillover effect of pro-environmental behavior. However, most of the previous studies focused on the spillover effects of initial PEBs but neglected the spillover effects of different regulatory policies. This study conducts an experiment through survey questionnaire in Shanghai and Beijing to compare the spillover effects of two different kinds of waste sorting policy, i.e. voluntary participation policy and penalty policy. This study examines the spillover effects of these two policies on people’s energy-saving policy acceptance. The examined energy-saving policy include price increase policy and subsidy policy. Results show that initial penalty policy targeted at waste sorting significantly decreases people’s acceptability of price increase policy through negative spillover effect, while initial voluntary participation policy significantly increases people’s acceptability of price increase policy through positive spillover effect. Nonetheless, no spillover effects are observed for subsidy policy acceptability. It indicates that penalty policy should not be used easily since there is a risk of resulting in negative spillover effects, while the voluntary participation policy should be better made use of in the future policy designment. The findings are meaningful for the local governments to better select and design their regulatory policies for waste sorting, while the Chinese government is going to promote the waste sorting behaviors nationwide. Results can also be used to inform policy development and revision in private and public pro-environmental spheres to achieve overall environmental goals by driving a broader shift in behaviors.

System Dynamics Modeling of Water–Energy Nexus for Resource-Saving Policy Assessment

One of the key issues in managing water and energy systems is to incorporate the links between these systems to ensure security of resources. In this research, using system dynamics (SD) approach for simulating water–energy (WE) nexus, SD-WE model was developed for 16 sub-basins of Gavkhuni basin in central Iran. Various water- and energy-saving policies were simulated and their effectiveness in improving resource security was evaluated using water- (WSI) and energy-saving (ESI) indices. The results indicated that the share of water-related energy consumption (20%, 6%, and 2% of total electricity, crude oil, and natural gas consumption) is higher than the energy-related water withdrawal (17% of industrial water withdrawal) in the basin-wide resource usage. The water-saving policies had a significant impact on both the basin’s energy and water resources. In contrast, energy-saving policies had a negligible influence on the basin’s water resources but a notable impact on the water resources used in the energy sector outside of the basin. In addition, SD-WE model simulations showed that agriculture was the most effective end-user on resource saving, by improving WSI and ESI as much as 22% and 5.7%, respectively. Finally, the results of this study indicated that SD-WE model can be used as a tool to illustrate the inter-linkages, synergies, and trade-offs between water and energy systems, where limited water and energy data are available and also can be used as a platform for water–energy nexus modeling in other basins.

The motivation and development impact of energy saving to sustainability in the construction of green campus: a case study of the Zhejiang University, China

The construction of green campus is related to the global sustainable development. Under the guidance of campus energy-saving policy, China’s green campus mainly focuses on campus’ energy saving. In contrast, the green campus in the USA pays more attention to environmental problems. This study focuses on the impact of “energy saving” on the sustainable development of green campus. On the one hand, it puts forward targeted optimization suggestions for the Chinese universities. On the other hand, it provides the experience reference and new development ideas for the global campus sustainability. Based on the characteristics of the development mode of green campus in China and the USA, this paper studies the motivation of “energy saving” to “sustainability” in the construction of green campus in China. In terms of research methods, this paper selects Zhejiang University a typical representative of China’s green campus that combined with the comparative group of four American universities and conducts a quantitative analysis of G-value and S-value that represented energy consumption and sustainability, respectively. Zhejiang University’s G-value (0.019) in 2016 is one-sixth of that of the comparative group in the same period, indicating that the implementation effect of the energy-saving monitoring platform is remarkable. From 2014 to 2017, the G-values are basically stable at 0.02, indicating that its future development potential is insufficient. Zhejiang University’s scores in the four categories of S-value are significantly lower than those in the comparative group, showing that there are great differences in the construction achievements of the five universities. According to the score rate of 17 sub-items of S-value, the five universities have different advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, the green campus construction of China’s case university is too one-sided and only stays at the level of energy conservation. The diversification of construction and the balanced development of all aspects should be paid more attention in the future.

Investigating the Finance-Energy-Growth trilogy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from the NARDL framework

This paper analyzes the relationship between financial development, energy consumption, and economic growth in twenty-one (21) sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries by using the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) framework during the period 1990Q1-2014Q4. First, the study reveals that financial development and energy consumption have asymmetrical effects on economic growth in most countries in the short and long-term. Second, positive shocks to financial development favor economic growth in only a few countries than the short-term negative shocks, whereas they have mixed effects in the long-term. Third, we found that negative shocks to energy consumption boost economic growth in most countries in the short-term, unlike the positive shocks, but the scenario has reversed in the long-term. Therefore, our study suggests that energy-saving policies, such as the use of renewable energies, should be implemented in specific SSA countries to promote sustainable development. In addition, policymakers should adopt an efficient allocation of credit to the private sector supporting productive investments. They should also consider these asymmetrical effects in the conduct of economic policies across SSA countries.

Improving the Energy Efficiency of Cyclone Dust Collectors for Wood Product Factories

Dust collection systems represent a significant portion of a wood product manufacturer’s total electricity use. The system fan works against the static pressure of the entire system—the blast gates, the ductwork, and the upstream or downstream cyclone and/or baghouse. A poor system design (e.g., sharp elbows or undersized ductwork) increases the total amount of static pressure in the system, the fan’s performance curve shifts, increasing the total brake horsepower required by the fan (up to the maximum point on the curve). Additionally, system designers may oversize a dust collection system to ensure adequate dust capture and transport, either to accommodate system expansion or simply to be conservative. Since theoretical fan energy use increases with its velocity cubed, this can be an expensive safety net. This paper presents a comprehensive literature review about industrial cyclone dust collectors energy saving in relation to management, technologies, and policies. Energy-saving technologies like high-efficiency motors (HEMs), variable-speed drives (VSDs), leak detection, and pressure drop reduction have all been examined. Based on energy saving technologies results, it has been found that in the industrial sectors, a sizeable amount of electric energy, and utility bill can be saved using these technologies. Finally, various energy-saving policies were reviewed.

Research on driving factors of China’s carbon emissions based on structural decomposition

After further processing the input-output tables of 2007, 2012 and 2017, the carbon emissions are decomposed into four driving factors: energy intensity effect, Leontief technology effect, final demand structure effect and final total demand effect through IO-SDA model. The results show that the energy intensity effect has a significant negative effect, which is the main factor to promote the reduction of carbon emissions. The Leontief technical effect and the final total demand effect are positive effects, and the total final demand effect is the main factor leading to the increase in carbon emissions, and the effect of the final demand structure effect is not significant. In addition, the results of the influence coefficient and the inductance coefficient show that: metal smelting and rolling manufacturing, petroleum processing and coking and nuclear fuel processing, coal mining and processing, and oil and gas mining and processing industries are high-energy-consuming industries, but the status of the basic industry makes it possible to formulate energy-saving policies only in terms of technological progress.