Добірка наукової літератури з теми "Operational Energy (OE)"

Urban analyses demand simplifications that balance modelling level of detail and scope broadness. Thus, classification by archetypes is a promising methodological approach. Such an approach is common for energy studies but rarely applied for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) purposes. When archetypes are used in urban LCA, they generally result from previous studies for classification and characterization according to parameters that directly affect the operational energy performance of buildings. This paper tackles two research questions: i) Is it appropriate to aggregate building stocks based on operational energy (OE) variables when life cycle impacts are investigated? ii) When integrated LCA (OE + embodied impacts) is pursued, would variables describing both interests simultaneously result in better representation than using operational energy-based clustering to predict embodied impacts and vice versa? Thus, we aim to confirm that, combining variables that govern OE and embodied impacts offers a better result than using OE to predict materials groupings, even if some adherence is lost relatively to single-objective clustering. Clustering experiments were carried out for the campus of the University of Campinas, Brazil. After unsupervised k-medoid (PAM) grouping, the data were submitted to a supervised learning (neural networks) classification method. Generated confusion matrices demonstrate how adherent the clustering is when considering one interest to predict the other in three situations. Results indicate that an operational energy-driven archetype fails to represent buildings from the embodied impacts viewpoint, and that merging operational energy and embodied impact variables would better support integrated life cycle impact predictions.

The Israeli Standard SI5282 rates buildings according to the operational energy (OE) used to support their heating, cooling, and lighting needs. When it was proposed, OE was generally considered to be derived from fossil fuels, such as coal. However, at present, Israel is in the process of transitioning to cleaner energy sources, such as natural gas and renewables. In light of this change, the question that guided this study was as follows: should the production (P) stage of external shading devices be taken into account alongside the OE stage? In this study, we aimed to evaluate the P (environmental damage) and OE (environmental benefit) of five external shading devices with equivalently high energy rates that were installed in a typical office building using cleaner OE sources. We evaluated the environmental impacts using the ReCiPe2016 method. The results indicated that the P stage of the five shading devices led to significantly different degrees of environmental damage, thus reducing the environmental benefits related to the OE stage. Therefore, the five similarly rated shading devices could no longer be considered as equivalent sustainable alternatives. As such, we recommend that the energy rating be supplemented with a P stage environmental evaluation.

Purpose Many studies have focused on embodied energy (EE) and operational energy (OE), but a shortage of studies on decision making, which involves several decision makers whose decisions can affect the energy performance of buildings, is evident. From the stages of the project life cycle, the design stage is identified as the ideal stage for integrating energy efficiency into buildings. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to revisit the role of professionals in designing energy-conscious buildings with low EE and OE. Design/methodology/approach This study administered a qualitative approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews only with 12 experts, due to the lack of expertise in the subject matter. The data were analyzed using manual content analysis. Findings The outcomes revealed the necessity to revisit the role of construction professionals in terms of adopting energy-efficient building design concepts from the project outset. The roles of the key professional groups (i.e. architects, structural engineers, services engineers and quantity surveyors) were identified through this research. Common issues in designing energy-efficient buildings and the means of addressing such problems were outlined. Originality/value This study contributes to the knowledge by revisiting the roles of construction professionals and proposing how they could leverage their strengths to play the important role and contribute collectively to design buildings with both low OE and EE.

This work assesses the energy requirements and CO2 emissions of a building made of Lime Hemp Concrete (LHC) with alternative unfired binders as lime replacement, compared to buildings made of standard LHC, and several conventional building materials. The assessment is based on ISO 14040, which deals with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and examines two aspects: energy, including pre-use phase Embodied Energy (EE), and use phase Operational Energy (OE); and CO2 emissions, including pre-use phase Embodied Carbon (EC), and use phase Operational Carbon (OC). The EE and EC calculations are based on published databases, while OE and OC were obtained with EnergyPlus simulations. The assessment refers to a specific case study in an arid region, with extreme diurnal and seasonal fluctuations of temperature and relative humidity. Using LHC with 100% unfired binder as lime replacement was shown to save up to 90% of the total energy consumption and CO2 emissions, as compared to conventional building materials. The findings of this research clearly demonstrate the high potential of LHC with unfired binders as lime replacement, which possesses the lowest energy requirements and CO2 emissions, illustrating the potential for a building with significantly low environmental impact over its life cycle, i.e., when calculating both EE and EC, and OE and OC.

Many studies concerning lowering the Operational Energy (OE) of existing dwellings have been conducted. However, those studies barely cover its collateral Embodied Energy (EE). As the Circular Economy is gaining momentum and the balance between OE and EE is shifting, the Life Cycle Energy Performance (LCEP) is becoming increasingly relevant as an indicator. LCEP accounts for all the OE and EE a building consumes during its lifespan. However, clear insights into the LCEP are still to be investigated. This study focuses on developing a circular and energy-efficient renovation solution for a common terraced dwelling typology in the Netherlands. The energy-efficient renovation is based on three circular strategies: Biomimicry, Urban Mining, and Design for Disassembly (DfD), covering the aspects of EE and future reuse of building materials and components. The developed renovation solution reduces 82% of the LCEP compared to the existing scenario. With additional photovoltaic (PV) modules, the dwelling reduces 100% of the LCEP. Applying biomimicry, urban mining, and DfD-based renovation can significantly lower the overall LCEP and its collateral environmental impacts to achieve a Life Cycle Zero Energy circular renovation.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for successful implementation of Operational Excellence (OE) by the organisations in the Sudanese aviation industry, as well as to determine the resulted impacts in the improved organisational performance and competitive advantage, and to quantify the benefits.Design/methodology/approach: The Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of OE were provided and dissected to reveal its integrated components and their importance levels. These factors include leadership, people management, continuous improvement, operational strategy, and asset optimisation. Also, the impacts (outcomes) further categorised in the four financial results, quality of products or services, efficiency, and satisfaction groups were presented, while the weight of each outcome was highlighted.Findings: With the OE's conceptual framework, the critical success factors to achieve OE were identified. Hence, from the five main factors, the expert panel members suggested the leadership factor to be the most important to achieve OE in the Sudanese aviation industry. Ranking of the five critical success factors and the forty sub factors provided a better understanding of the Sudan situation, specifically concerning the effective implementation of OE philosophy.Research limitations/implications: The findings of the sub-factors reported in this study were not enough. As a result, the future studies must focus on the detailed descriptions of sub-factors that are related to each of the critical factor identified. Practical implications: Efficiency in the organisations is generated and enhanced when the organisations become efficient in reducing the waste of time, raw materials, unnecessary processing, in addition to the energy used in transportation, storing, and operating plant. Besides, the state of effectiveness is achieved when the organisation achieves its long-term goals through increased customer satisfaction and is able to prove its reason for being. OE is critical as it assures both the efficiency and effectiveness of organisationsOriginality/value: The past research activities have relatively over-emphasised in the unilateral "result-driven" perspective of OE that corresponds with the limited concern for enablers, the critical forms and focus of OE. Thus, this issue is a shortcoming that this paper attempts to address.

Four wall technologies used for residential building in Israel (concrete, lightweight concrete block, autoclaved aerated block, and concrete block) were evaluated for their total environmental damage. The production and construction (P&C) and operational energy (OE) stages were considered. Influences of the climate (the four climate zones of Israel), building type (regular and low-energy), and primary fuel source [natural gas and photovoltaic (PV) for energy production] on the selection of the best wall technology were analyzed. EnergyPlus software was used to evaluate building heating and cooling needs for the OE stage. The ReCiPe method was used for both the P&C and OE stages to evaluate environmental damage via human health, ecosystem quality and resource depletion damage categories. It was determined that both concrete block walls and concrete walls were the best choices when natural gas was used, while the concrete block and autoclaved aerated block walls were the best choices when PV was used. The following two conclusions were reached: wall technologies with high thermal mass are environmentally preferred when natural gas is used, whereas wall technologies with reduced cement quantity are environmentally preferred when PV is used.

The purpose of this study was to explore green office building certification strategies in Shanghai. The 45 LEED-CI v4 gold-certified office space projects were sorted by energy and atmosphere credit (EAc6, optimize energy performance) into two groups: 15 projects with the lowest EAc6 achievement (Group 1) and 15 projects with the highest EAc6 achievement (Group 2). To reach the gold certification level in Group 1, high achievement in EAc6 is associated with low achievement in two indoor environmental quality credits (EQc2, low-emitting materials, and EQc8, quality views), while in Group 2, low achievement in EAc6 is associated with high achievement in EQc2 and EQ8. For the life-cycle assessment (LCA), the functional unit was designated as follows: production (P) stage: production of building materials needed to ensure the requirements of EQc2 and EQc8 for 1 m2 of the building area; and operational energy (OE) stage: OE of 1 m2 of the building area over 50 years of the building’s lifetime. For the OE stage, two fuel source scenarios were used: 71.07% coal + 28.08% natural gas + 0.81% wind power (WP) + 0.04% photovoltaic (PV) (Scenario 1) and 50% WP + 50% PV (Scenario 2). The results of the LCA (P + OE) showed that under Scenario 1, the LEED certification strategy in Group 1 was greener than that in Group 2. When using Scenario 2, no differences were found between the two groups.

This study discusses the assessment of OE (operational efficiency) and RTS (returns to scale) over a time horizon. Many previous DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) studies have discussed how to measure OE/RTS. However, their works did not consider the measurement over time. The important feature of the proposed approach is that our models are different from standard ones in terms of factor (inputs and outputs) unification. A problem with standard models is that they produce different efficiency measures for input and output orientations. Consequently, they yield different OE and RTS estimates depending upon which production factor is used for measurement. To handle the difficulty, we develop a new DEA formulation whose efficiency measure is determined after combining inputs and outputs, and then we discuss how to measure the types of RTS. The other methodological feature is that the proposed model incorporates a time horizon. As an empirical application, this study considers electricity generation and transmission across Chinese provinces from 2006 to 2019. The first key outcome is that the performance of China’s electricity generation and transmission system tends to improve with an annual growth rate of 0.45% across time. The second outcome is that, during the observed periods, China has more occurrences of decreasing rather than increasing RTS. As an implication, some provinces (e.g., Jiangxi and Hainan) need to increase their generation sizes to enhance their OE measures, while other provinces (e.g., Jiangsu and Zhejiang) should decrease their generation sizes. Finally, this study confirms significant technological heterogeneity across Chinese provinces and groups.

Life-cycle assessments (LCAs) were conducted to evaluate sculptured cement mortar tiles, proposed by Hershcovich et al. (2021), and conventional cement mortar flat tiles for thermal insulation of a typical residential building in Mediterranean climate. The production (P) and operational energy (OE) stages were compared between the sculptured tiles and the conventional flat tiles. The P stage used Portland cement with 95% clinker (CEM I) and Portland limestone cement with 65% clinker (CEM II). The OE stage used 31% coal, 56% natural gas, and 13% photovoltaic (PV) (adopted in 2020) and 8% coal, 57% natural gas, and 35% PV (planned for 2025). The ReCiPe2016 single-score method was used to assess environmental damage over short (20 years), long (100 years), and infinite (1000 years) time horizons of living pollutants. The results show that the use of sculptured tiles caused environmental damage in the short time horizon and environmental benefits in the long and infinite time horizons in the 2020 scenario, while it led to environmental benefits only in the infinite time horizon in the 2025 scenario.

Abstract In view of the mounting attentiveness on the global warming phenomenon and the rapid evolution of the renewables and sustainables, energy transition is inevitable and oil and gas producers and companies should respond instantly to ensure business resilience. Such a transition puts the fossil fuel industry under unprecedented pressure to cope with serious environmental, technical and economical challenges. The leaders of the industry are in critical need to develop efficient protocols to produce clean energy, reduce costs and improve performance to secure the assets’ value. They also have to effectively respond to the diversified drivers of change through performing holistic and systematic analyses to cover their strategies, operating model and capabilities and collaboration with other industry stakeholders. Operational Excellence (OE) is a thorough, systematic and collaborative approach that addresses the cultural, behavioral and technical transformation within organizations to enable them to streamline operations, perform at optimum limits to achieve their strategic objectives. OE approach, in general, is to be derived from cutting-edge technical advancements needed to improve the ecosystem of the business and to be performed in alignment with a top view on the organization to accommodate the multiple upcoming waves of innovation. Evidently, there is a definite correlation between excellence, innovation and organizational success in growing organically and inorganically. This growth has played a prominent role in shifting activities more toward decentralizing decision making to enable lower-level management and frontline employees to take more ownership of the operations they are responsible for. This paper will share the key elements of an OE model and will demonstrate the impact of unleashing these elements on the performance of oil companies to embark on the journey of energy transition and stay the course.

Abstract Khurais Producing Department, as one of Saudi Aramco's producing facilities, is sharing this paper to highlight implemented breakthrough innovative solutions and technologies with massive positive impact on the environment. These technologies were introduced to increase the operation reliability, reduce the Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions and carbon footprint, and promote circular economy by optimizing power consumption, generating clean power, and eliminating daily routine flaring towards Saudi Aramco's ambition of achieving net-zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gases emissions by 2050, which is a step towards achieving Saudi Arabia's commitment to net-zero by 2060. Driven by the commitment of Khurais managements toward the Saudi Aramco defined environmental protection policies through Khurais Environmental Management System (EMS) that meets the requirements of ISO 14001:2015 and strives for continual improvement, Khurais has set its objectives for protecting the environment and reducing the impact of its day-to-day operation on the surrounding environment. To achieve these objectives, Khurais has developed different plans, such as the Flare Minimization Plan and GHG Assurance Plan, and established key performance indicators (KPIs) through the Operational Excellence (OE) system to track and enhance the environmental performance of the facility. To achieve the objectives identified by Khurais managements and to support their commitment plan for protecting the environment, different initiatives and technologies were deployed at Khurais facility which have significantly contributed to GHG emission reduction. The implemented initiatives include: a) construction of steam turbine generator (STG) part of the combined cycle cogeneration plant to generate clean power, b) installing flare gas recovery system to recover daily routine flaring from the facility, c) deploying the first worldwide Advanced Process Control (APC) for oil production wells for conventional oilfield for optimizing energy consumption, d) installing a swing line connecting all five oil trains’ HP Compressor suction lines to share the feed gas, e) flare minimization during running Oil Train-4 with bypassing damaged stabilizer which was a patented solution deployed to achieve the facility MSC post the attack on Khurais facilities, f) deployment of nonmetallic resin thermal pipe (RTP) material technology for over 60% of the massive crude pipeline network, and g) full deployment of closed draining systems through the construction of WOSEP blowdown system and automatic crude tank dewatering system. This paper will share Khurais efforts in implementing these initiatives and technologies, which touch base on different sources for GHG emission from the facility such as power consumption, flared gas, and material release to the atmosphere. Identifying a plan and implementing these initiatives have contributed to reducing the GHG emissions from Khurais facility.

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is conducting research in cooperation with the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) regarding Operating Experience of digital Instrumentation and Control (I&C) systems in US nuclear power plants. The primary objective of this work is to extract insights from US nuclear power plant Operating Experience (OE) reports that can be applied to improve Diversity and Defense in Depth (D3) evaluations and methods for protecting nuclear plants against I&C related Common Cause Failures (CCF) that could disable safety functions and thereby degrade plant safety. Between 1987 and 2007, over 500 OE events involving digital equipment in US nuclear power plants were reported through various channels. OE reports for 324 of these events were found in databases maintained by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO). A database was prepared for capturing the characteristics of each of the 324 events in terms of when, where, how, and why the event occurred, what steps were taken to correct the deficiency that caused the event, and what defensive measures could have been employed to prevent recurrence of these events. The database also captures the plant system type, its safety classification, and whether or not the event involved a common cause failure. This work has revealed the following results and insights: - 82 of the 324 “digital” events did not actually involve a digital failure. Of these 82 non-digital events, 34 might have been prevented by making full use of digital system fault tolerance features. - 242 of the 324 events did involve failures in digital systems. The leading contributors to the 242 digital failures were hardware failure modes. Software change appears as a corrective action twice as often as it appears as an event root cause. This suggests that software features are being added to avoid recurrence of hardware failures, and that adequately designed software is a strong defensive measure against hardware failure modes, preventing them from propagating into system failures and ultimately plant events. 54 of the 242 digital failures involved a Common Cause Failure (CCF). - 13 of the 54 CCF events affected safety (1E) systems, and only 2 of those were due to Inadequate Software Design. This finding suggests that software related CCFs on 1E systems are no more prevalent than other CCF mechanisms for which adherence to various regulations and standards is considered to provide adequate protection against CCF. This research provides an extensive data set that is being used to investigate many different questions related to failure modes, causes, corrective actions, and other event attributes that can be compared and contrasted to reveal useful insights. Specific considerations in this study included comparison of 1E vs. non-1E systems, active vs. potential CCFs, and possible defensive measures to prevent these events. This paper documents the dominant attributes of the evaluated events and the associated insights that can be used to improve methods for protecting against digital I&C related CCFs, applying a test of reasonable assurance.