Lower Total Cost Of Ownership Research Articles

The Feasibility and Environmental Impact of Sustainable Public Transportation: A PV Supplied Electric Bus Network

Limited fuel resources and the huge negative impact on the environment from using fossil fuels have led to an urgency to utilize the most energy efficient solutions for public transportation. Environmentally sustainable solutions can deliver the same benefits of traditional systems, but without the negative impacts. The Bus Rapid Transit Project of Amman (Amman BRT) is used as a case study. Proposed measures include using electric buses instead of diesel ones, and installing elevated photovoltaic systems above buses parking and routes, in addition to using LED street lighting. The feasibility study of applying the proposed measures on the Amman BRT project showed that only 7.1 years is needed to payback the incremental investment throughout this transformation. Capital expenditure (CAPEX) is higher than the baseline buses, while operational expenditure (OPEX) is much lower, resulting in a 32% lower total cost of ownership (TCO). In addition, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are reduced by 27,203.68 metric ton of CO2 per year and 408,055.26 metric tons for the 15-year lifetime of the project.

Techno-Economic Comparison of Total Cost of Ownership of Electric and Diesel Vehicles

Despite their low environmental impact, electrical vehicles have low penetration in the automotive market. Consumers are reluctant for technical reasons (limited driving range and long charging time) but also for an economic reason (high investment costs). Electric vehicle total cost of ownership (TCO) is often perceived as higher than for a thermal car, especially in Europe where diesel cars have a lower TCO than gasoline cars. Accurate TCO estimations are critical, but most of the techno-economic studies of electrified vehicles are based on very simplified energy models. In this paper, a techno-economic model is developed using an accurate technical model of an electric vehicle and a diesel car of the same segment. These technical models are validated by experimental measurements on real cars using real driving cycles. These models are then coupled to economic models to calculate TCO for a French case study. The total cost of ownership of the studied electric car is lower than for the equivalent diesel car by about 1000€ for a 5-year ownership period. Of particular importance is the finding that using real driving cycles instead of standard driving cycles decreases the TCO of electric cars while simultaneously increasing the TCO of diesel vehicles. This has implications for techno-economic models, suggesting that the typical TCO approach that uses manufacturer-reported standard cycle data may be systemically biased towards thermal vehicles. In order to understand how TCO may change in different locations, a sensitivity analysis varies different technical and economic factors. Government subsidy, ownership duration, and vehicle depreciation are the most important factors for the TCO of electric vehicles. However, TCO of the electric cars can be lower than the TCO of equivalent diesel cars under a wide range of reasonable inputs.

State of the Art and Research Challenges in the Security Technologies of Network Function Virtualization

In recent years, network function virtualization (NFV) has drawn considerable attention due to its potential for service agility and low total cost of ownership. As the core of an NFV implementation, security issues in the management and control platform must be comprehensively addressed—from architectural concept to deployment. In this article, we first analyze the state of the security architecture based on ETSI-NFV, and then propose useful security practices for an NFV-based management and control ecosystem. To encourage future research, we also identify the ongoing research challenges and open security issues relevant to the NFV.

Assessment of Total Costs of Ownership for Midsize Passenger Cars with Conventional and Alternative Drive Trains

The number of alternatively powered vehicles in Poland and EU is growing steadily. Different type of vehicle drive trains determine variations in their performances from economical and environmental technological aspects. The aim of this paper was to investigate the cost efficiency and environmental aspects of midsize passenger cars equipped with different drive train technologies: conventional, hybrid, electric and LPG fueled engine. To this purpose, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) method was used. Calculations were carried out by AFLEET Tool. The results show that the LPG fueled car has the lowest TCO, while the cars equipped with electric drivetrain indicate the highest TCO. However the electric car recorded the lowest cost of air pollutant emissions and externalities costs.

Towards High-Voltage Sodium-Ion Batteries Based on Aqueous Electrolytes

Water-in-salt electrolytes enable the operation of batteries at higher voltage than previously possible with conventional aqueous electrolytes.[1,2] High-voltage aqueous batteries are potential candidates for stationary electricity storage where low total cost of ownership is more important than high energy density. To date, most water-in-salt studies have focused on enabling aqueous lithium-ion batteries. However, considering the high salt content of water-in-salt electrolytes, sodium-ion batteries appear particularly interesting for this approach as sodium salts are typically significantly less expensive than their lithium analogues, but typically exhibit insufficient solubility due to the lower charge density of Na+ compared to Li+.[3] Recently, we discovered that NaFSI displays very high solubility in water, enabling a wide electrochemical stability window.[4] Although S-F bonds present in the FSI anion are known to be relatively weak and hence make FSI prone to hydrolysis, we demonstrate a 2 V class NaTi2(PO4)3/Na3(VOPO4)2F cell with an excellent capacity retention of 85% after 500 cycles at 1C. To the best of our knowledge, the specific energy of our cell of 65 Wh/kg (based on the active masses of both electrodes) is the highest reported to date for an aqueous sodium-ion battery. Using strategies to prevent electrolyte crystallization, we also demonstrate stable cycling at temperatures as low as -10 °C. [1] L. Suo, O. Borodin, T. Gao, M. Olguin, J. Ho, X. Fan, C. Luo, C. Wang, K. Xu, Science 350 (2015) 938. [2] Y. Yamada, K. Usui, K. Sodeyama, S. Ko, Y. Tateyama, A. Yamada, Nat. Energy 1 (2016) 16129. [3] D. Reber, R.-S. Kühnel, C. Battaglia, Sustainable Energy Fuels 1 (2017) 2155. [4] R.-S. Kühnel, D. Reber, C. Battaglia, ACS Energy Lett. 2 (2017) 2005.

시나리오기법 및 선택실험법 기반 한국 전기차 시장 수요예측 연구

This study presents a scenario-based, long-term forecasting model of electric vehicle (EV) sales. A simulated choice experiment using the multinomial hybrid choice model was estimated, where consumer utility was dependent on vehicle type, total cost of ownership (TCO), and personal variables. Results show that lower TCO, lower range-anxiety, and greater environmental concern lead to greater choice probability for EVs. Using the parameters of the TCO variable and the intercept, an initial probability of choosing an EV over an internal combustion engine car was derived. To this initial estimate, macro factors were incorporated, including charging infrastructure, oil prices, battery technology, and government incentives. Charging infrastructure was modeled as the convenience factor; battery technology and government incentives were modeled as affecting vehicle costs; and oil prices as affecting the operating cost. Based on long-term changes in the macro factors, three scenarios were selected: the reference scenario, the low-battery cost scenario, and the high oil price scenario. The forecasting model shows that long-term changes in oil prices are much more important than long-term changes in battery cost in terms of determining the adoption of electric vehicles. This is because fuel cost, over time, has a bigger impact on TCO, whereas the importance of battery prices on TCO decreases. Results also indicate that convenience is the main inhibitor of EV adoption, implying that the government’s policy should transition from providing cash-back incentives to building better charging infrastructure.

Hybrid ground-source heat pump systems for cooling-dominated applications: Experimental and numerical case-study of cooling for cellular tower shelters

Techno-economic performance of hybrid ground-source (geothermal) heat pump systems for cooling-dominated applications has been investigated. An experimental hybrid ground-source heat pump system, providing an average cooling load of 11 kWth for a cellular tower shelter in Varna, New York, United States (“Varna Site”), was commissioned in 2014 and has been extensively monitored. An air-economizer and dry-fluid cooler provide supplemental heat rejection and limit thermal imbalance in the subsurface. Measurements and analysis showed that over its first two years of operation, the average total system coefficient of performance was 4.8. Various hybrid and non-hybrid ground-source and air-source heat pump configurations have been studied using TRNSYS, calibrated with data measured at the Varna Site. Simulations indicate that for the Varna Site weather and operational conditions, ground-source heat pump-based systems allow the owner to save up to 30% of lifetime electricity consumption in comparison with air-source heat pump-based systems. However, air-source heat pump-based systems can have up to 10% lower total cost of ownership, mainly because of lower upfront capital costs. In the base-case scenario, the hybrid configuration of ground-source heat pump with air-economizer has the lowest lifetime energy consumption of 222 MWhe; the hybrid configuration of air-source heat pump with air-economizer has the lowest lifetime total cost of ownership of $54,000.

Conditions for electric vehicle taxi: A case study in the Greater Stockholm region

This study investigates the usability of electric vehicles (EVs) in a taxi company in Greater Stockholm, Sweden. By investigating cost and revenue data of both electric and conventional taxi vehicles, as well as by interviewing taxi drivers and carriers, an assessment has been made of the financial and operational implications of using EVs in a company’s taxi fleet. Both the drivers’ and the carriers’ perspectives have been examined. The main findings are that the investigated e-taxis have a similar or lower Total Cost of Ownership and slightly higher profitability than the investigated conventional taxis. For taxi drivers, using e-taxis implies more advanced planning and revenue service time being sacrificed for charging. However, certain customers’ preferences for EVs, as well as benefits such as corporate clients favoring e-taxis and a zero emission priority queuing system at Stockholm’s main international airport (partly) compensate for time devoted to charging. In order to facilitate increased use of e-taxis, more fast charging facilities should become available at strategic locations. Besides that, there are signs that carriers’ lack of information about the opportunities and consequences of shifting towards e-taxis hamper a wider deployment of e-taxis.

Leveraging Hybrid Cloud Workflows in Media and Entertainment

Production, broadcast, and distribution companies are increasingly collecting high-resolution content from every stage of the workflow. Studios are struggling to find efficient infrastructure solutions to create and maintain comprehensive digital libraries that will support a global organization. By leveraging hybrid cloud storage and processing resources to make the workflow more efficient, media and entertainment (M&E) companies can leverage the C4 standard, interconnected oriented architectures, and object storage solutions to create a content platform with indelible metadata. This paper talks about use cases of how M&E companies are using the cloud and on-premise object storage to cost-effectively store all captured footage and accelerate its production workflow. It explores infrastructure technologies that are effectively being used to improve productivity and lower total cost of ownership for 2K, 4K, 6K, high frame rate, and ultra high definition workflows.

Total Cost of Ownership Improvement of Commercial Electric Vehicles Using Battery Sizing and Intelligent Charge Method

In order to democratize electric vehicles, automakers have to give a solution to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) and bring it lower than thermal vehicles one. This paper presents results of works on cost improvement of a 3.5 t light-duty commercial electric vehicle. TCO was separated into investment costs and operating costs. The batteries of an electric vehicle were the most expensive element of the powertrain, which can represent up to 45% of the vehicle price. What's more, contrary to the life of thermal vehicles, electric energy storage systems have a limited life of around five years, which is highly dependent on conditions of use. Thus, study of batteries represents a capital step toward TCO improvement. Inspired by the literature, a battery aging model is proposed and identified by the calendar and cycling aging tests. A multiphysical model of the battery, including aging, was identified and incorporated inside the energetic vehicle model. Charging strategies were developed and adapted to operate according to the influence of the conditions of use. These models and strategies are integrated in a software tool. Taking into account the intended use of the vehicle, this tool first designates the most suitable battery solution dimensions, and then associates the charging strategy to the requirements of use in order to ensure the best battery life or the lowest TCO.

The changing nature of media and entertainment workflows

Production, broadcast and distribution companies are increasingly collecting high-resolution content from every stage of the workflow. Studios are struggling to find efficient infrastructure solutions to create, maintain and preserve comprehensive digital libraries that will support a global organisation. By leveraging hybrid cloud storage and processing resources that make the workflow more efficient, media and entertainment companies can leverage the C4 standard and object-based storage solutions to create a video platform with indelible metadata. This paper describes how media and entertainment companies are using the cloud and on-premises object storage to cost-effectively store all captured footage and accelerate production workflows. Also discussed are the infrastructure technologies being used to improve productivity and lower total cost of ownership for 2K, 4K, 6K, high frame rate (HFR) and ultra high definition (UHD) workflows.

Chemical EOR - A Multidisciplinary Effort to Maximize Value

Management Production from oil fields can be increased by enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques. Among several other EOR methods, the injection of chemicals has been studied since the 1970s. In that time, anionic polyacrylamides (PAM) have proven to be efficient viscosifiers for moderate field conditions to reduce mobility of the displacement fluid, thus increasing reservoir sweep efficiency. Surfactants mobilize oil that is trapped in formation rock pores by lowering the oil/water interfacial tension. Polymer flooding is now considered an established technology, which is applied on a commercial scale in several countries. In contrast, the commercial use of EOR surfactants is still limited despite more than 50 years of research history in this area. This can be partly explained by the technical complexity of EOR surfactant projects and the higher cost. The implementation of a chemical EOR (cEOR) project is often a significant endeavor that not only poses technical challenges but also represents substantial financial risk. In recent years, cEOR projects also target challenging conditions such as high temperatures, high salinity, and demanding locations such as offshore fields. A multidisciplinary and integrated approach is vital to managing technical, regulatory, and economic challenges with a team of geoscientists, engineers, chemists, and mathematical modelers working together to achieve an increase in incremental oil recovery at the lowest total cost of ownership. From Laboratory to Full Field Once the operator has verified that injection of chemicals is a viable option to enhance oil recovery in one of its assets, a laboratory-screening program will start to identify a suitable chemical solution that not only will perform under specific reservoir conditions but also meet financial targets. The principal workstreams of a cEOR project are illustrated in Fig. 1. EOR-specific application test work is needed, such as rheology evaluations for polymers, or phase-behavior and interfacial-tension measurements for surfactants. The quality of the work will rely considerably on the collaboration of an experienced multidisciplinary team mainly because the experimental evaluations cover a broad range of knowledge fields such as chemistry, physical chemistry, and reservoir and petroleum engineering.

The effect of fiscal incentives on market penetration of electric vehicles: A pairwise comparison of total cost of ownership

An important barrier to electric vehicle (EV) sales is their high purchase price compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. We conducted total cost of ownership (TCO) calculations to study how costs and sales of EVs relate to each other and to examine the role of fiscal incentives in reducing TCO and increasing EV sales. We composed EV-ICE vehicle pairs that allowed cross-segment and cross-country comparison in eight European countries. Actual car prices were used to calculate the incentives for each model in each country. We found a negative TCO-sales relationship that differs across car segments. Compared to their ICE vehicle pair, big EVs have lower TCO, higher sales, and seem to be less price responsive than small EVs. Three country groups can be distinguished according to the level of fiscal incentives and their impact on TCO and EV sales. In Norway, incentives led to the lowest TCO for the EVs. In the Netherlands, France, and UK the TCO of EVs is close to the TCO of the ICE pairs. In the other countries the TCO of EVs exceeds that of the ICE vehicles. We found that exemptions from flat taxes favour big EVs, while lump-sum subsidies favour small EVs.

Life cycle costing of diesel, natural gas, hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell bus systems: An Australian case study

The transit authority in Perth, Western Australia, has put several alternative fuel buses, including diesel-electric hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell buses, into revenue service over the years alongside conventional diesel and natural gas buses. Primary data from this fleet is used to construct a Life Cycle Cost (LCC) model, providing an empirical LCC result. The model is then used to forecast possible scenarios using cost estimates for next generation technologies. The methodology follows the Australian/New Zealand Standard for Life Cycle Costing, AS/NZS 4536:1999. The model outputs a dollar value in real terms that represents the LCC of each bus transportation technology. The study finds that Diesel buses deliver the lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The diesel-electric hybrid bus was found to have a TCO that is about 10% higher than conventional diesel. The premium to implement and operate a hydrogen bus, even if industry targets are attained, is still substantially greater than the TCO of a conventional diesel bus, unless a very large increase in the diesel fuel price occurs. However, the hybrid and hydrogen technologies are still very young in comparison to diesel and economies of scale are yet to be realised.

3D Optical Data Storage in Organic Film using Single Photon Absorption

AbstractOptical data storage is being investigated for use in enterprise archival data storage due to its stability, low energy consumption and low total cost of ownership. Here we present results on a method for manufacturing optical discs with dozens of writable layers using polymer coextrusion. This can greatly increase the capacity with low fabrication cost. Data are written by modulating the fluorescence of an organic dye, and exhibits a threshold dependence on the laser power, allowing the bits to be welllocalized in the intended layers. This is a result of the heat generated from the absorbed laser power, and is realizable with a continuouswave laser.We also discuss the lifetime and photostability of the dyes. These combined results promise a media that is lower in cost and higher in capacity than current commercial options.

Determinants of economic performance of environmental technology-based offers: a cross-sectional study of small Swedish firms

The paper examines the association between offer differentiation based on environmental orientation and economic performance. The analysis consists of an ordinary least-squares regression based on accounting data and a survey of the leaders of small environmental technology-based firms in Sweden. The results indicate that eco-efficiency creating a low total cost of ownership is more strongly associated with offer performance than is regulatory support, eco-branding, eco-quality differentiation and provision of strategic environmental information. This suggests that environmental differentiation of offers is the most successful when it is associated with a low total cost of ownership for customers.

Cost-benefit Analysis and Exploration of Cost-energy-performance Trade-offs in Scientific Computing Infrastructures

In this work, we demonstrate how a cost-benefit analysis of different scenarios reveals insights into trade-offs between cost, performance, and energy for specific scientific computational work- loads. We leverage simulation to find a cluster configuration that will offer the lowest total cost of ownership for a scientific cluster. We also analyze at what point in time a hardware upgrade becomes beneficial, taking into account performance/watt improvements and hardware devaluation. This knowledge enables a person responsible for planning, designing, and managing the life cycle of a scientific computing infrastructure to find a cost-effective solution tailored to their specific applications and resource utilization patterns. We demonstrate that quite substantial cost savings can be achieved by using this methodology.

Rack-Scale Storage Fabric: A Practical Way to Build Best-Fit Infrastructure for High-Performance Data Processing

This paper is to address the resource utilization problem for high-performance data processing applications in a large IDC (Internet Data Center) environment. On one hand, each application calls for a best-fit infrastructure with a specific compute-storage ratio, to achieve the highest resource utilization while meeting its performance requirement. And such a ratio varies among applications. On the other hand, IDCs have always been trying to unify the infrastructures for lower TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). Therefore, it’s getting harder and harder to adapt infrastructures to application needs. This issue results in significant waste of investment in large IDCs. Furthermore, the high-performance data processing applications always require the infrastructure to offer as high compute-storage performance as a DAS (Direct Attached Storage) server, which remains as a great challenge when addressing the resource utilization problem. This paper, as part of Baidu-Intel joint research program, first evaluates the state-of-the-art solutions, and then introduces a more practical infrastructure, the core of which is rack-scale storage fabric . This infrastructure disaggregates compute units and storage units by a SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) fabric, and allows to compose logical servers with arbitrary computer-storage ratios within a rack. And the experiments in Baidu’s research environment show that the logical servers exhibit the similar throughput/IOPS as DAS servers, and also their compute-storage ratios can best-fit the needs of different Hadoop applications.

Methodology for assessing electric vehicle charging infrastructure business models

The analysis of economic implications of innovative business models in networked environments, as electro-mobility is, requires a global approach to ensure that all the involved actors obtain a benefit. Although electric vehicles (EVs) provide benefits for the society as a whole, there are a number of hurdles for their widespread adoption, mainly the high investment cost for the EV and for the infrastructure. Therefore, a sound business model must be built up for charging service operators, which allows them to recover their costs while, at the same time, offer EV users a charging price which makes electro-mobility comparable to internal combustion engine vehicles. For that purpose, three scenarios are defined, which present different EV charging alternatives, in terms of charging power and charging station ownership and accessibility. A case study is presented for each scenario and the required charging station usage to have a profitable business model is calculated. We demonstrate that private home charging is likely to be the preferred option for EV users who can charge at home, as it offers a lower total cost of ownership under certain conditions, even today. On the contrary, finding a profitable business case for fast charging requires more intensive infrastructure usage.

Case Study Application of Determining End of Asset Physical Life Using Survival Analysis Cincinnati and Milwaukee

Includes EoAL Tool. Utilities are about investment; the most significant management cycle is the annual operational and capital budget cycle. Budgets can be thought of as the financial characterization of those management strategies and plans an agency intends to deploy over the course of the fiscal year. The core management objective is to develop a budget investment strategy that represents the best integration of maintenance, operations, and capital investment where this integration delivers sustained performance at an acceptable level of service, at the lowest total cost of ownership, and at a level of risk the community is willing to tolerate. Determining which investment strategy (that is, what mix of operations, maintenance, and capital investment) should be deployed for a given asset and when that strategy should change across the life cycle of the asset lies at the heart of asset management. Considerable progress has been made over the past decade, especially the last five years, in understanding how infrastructure assets actually fail. While much remains to be done, a body of refined techniques for assessing condition and predicting failure has emerged, based largely on the improved understanding of failure mechanics. This progress has focused on predicting remaining physical life. Physical life is only one of several types of important “asset lives”. Service level/capacity life and economic life play critical roles in determining which management strategies are most cost effective and at what point to transition those investment strategies from maintenance/operations to capital reinvestment for a given asset. The optimal investment strategy is directed at minimizing total cost to the utility - including deferral or avoidance of the consequences to customers and community of failure (alternatively, maximize benefit to the community). This research draws on concepts and techniques from advanced risk analysis, the reliability sciences and microeconomics to provide for the development of a web-based tool to guide the asset management practitioner in meeting the challenge of developing an investment strategy that represents the best integration of maintenance, operations, and capital investment. A copy of the manual will be supplied to you and the order confirmed by email. This email is to be sent to Gina Street at WERF on gstreet@werf.org as proof of purchase and copy of the tool will be supplied to you at no additional cost. This title belongs to WERF Research Report Series ISBN: 9781780406770 (eBook)