Kevin C. van Blommestein

Policies and Programs for Sustainable Energy Innovations: Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency

Preface.- Ch 1 Review of Policies Towards the Acceleration of the Adoption of Renewable Energy Technologies.- Ch 2 Renewable Energy Technology Adoption in the Pacific Northwest.- Ch 3 Evaluating Polices Towards the Adoption of Renewable Energy Technologies.- Ch 4 Assessment of Wind Potential in Kalar Kahar Region by Comparing On-Site Data with NREL Wind Resource Map of Pakistan.- Ch 5 Technological Assessment of Emerging Technologies in Conversion of Municipal Solid Waste of Energy.- Ch 6 Bio-fuel Adoption.- Ch 7 Assessing Alternatives for District Heating.- Ch 8 Technology Adoption.- Ch 9 Portfolio Optimization in the Electricity Market-Investors Perspective.- Ch 10 Energy Efficiency Technologies.- Ch 11 Evaluating Energy Efficiency.- Ch 12 Evaluating Consumer Preferences for Clothes Dryers.- Ch 13 Technology Intelligence on Clothes Dryers.- Ch 14 Furnace Fan Motor Technology Assessment.- Ch 15 Technology Assessment of Insulation Material for Home Construction.

Forecasting the Electric Transformation in Transportation: The Role of Battery Technology Performance

ABSTRACT In an effort to encourage consumers to purchase electric vehicles (EVs), the government has been funding battery research to solve some of these problems. This paper presents a study using technology forecasting using data envelopment analysis (TFDEA) to forecast future battery performance characteristics. The results were compared against the performance goals established by the US Department of Energy (DOE). We find that the foreseen progress of EV battery performance will be insufficient to meet the DOE projected goals for the range that EVs can travel before running out of power. Therefore, a new battery technology must be developed because the incremental improvements in current battery technologies leave EVs considerably short of the DOE performance specification for longer trip ranges.

Technology Assessment: Evaluating Personal Transportation Technologies

A hierarchical decision model was applied to the problem of consumer choice among single-person transportation technologies. Criteria and sub-criteria were pulled from literature and similar studies to objectively compare the vehicles. Pairwise comparison was used to rank the weights of each criteria and sub-criteria across four different cultural states: the USA, South Africa, India, and Kenya. For the USA the highest ranked criteria were economic and practicality, for South Africa safety and economic, for India safety, and for Kenya practicality. The lowest weight for all countries was for public use regulations. All countries preferred the simple human-powered bicycle to any more advanced technology. This data could be used to inform product development or marketing decisions within each country.

Furnace Fan Motor Technology Assessment

Understanding the barriers associated with the lack of adoption of energy efficient technologies in the residential sector has always been an area of major focus. In order to encourage the adoption of these technologies, it is important to first understand what is currently needed, what the current status to meeting these needs are, and then determining the gaps between the current status and needs. These gaps can be used to determine what is possibly restricting the adoption of the technology, and solutions can be determined that can potentially close these gaps. One such energy efficient technology that has been an area of focus is energy efficient furnace fan motors. This study looks at the current technical, organizational, and personal gaps associated with this technology and determines the positive and negative influences restricting adoption. Solutions to the gaps are then identified and are specified as guides to help change negative influences to positive influences. The second section of this study is a bibliometric analysis used to evaluate the current R&D status of the three main technologies currently available in the market. Both journal articles and patents are associated with the respective stages of R&D to determine the specialization of different countries with respect to the technology and to determine the progress over time of the technology in each of the first three R&D stages. The purpose of this study is therefore to evaluate the technology from the R&D perspective as well as the market perspective. Finally, a link between the current R&D status and the technical requirements of the market is identified.

Technology Adoption: Residential Solar Electric Systems

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the adoption and aggregated diffusion of solar electric systems in the residential sector. The goal of this paper is to try answer the following questions using an Agent-Based Model (ABM): 1. Is there evidence of a delay in the aggregate adoption of solar electric systems? If so, how can the adoption be improved? 2. What is the relationship between increasing electricity prices, price preference, and rate of adoption? 3. What impact does changing the incentive structure have on the overall electricity savings?

Technology Intelligence on Clothes Dryers

In the US in 2009, almost 80 % of households had clothes dryers, of which approximately 80 % of the clothes dryers were electric (ENERGY STAR Market & Industry Scoping Report: Residential Clothes Dryers, 2011). Due to the large market of clothes dryers and the current inefficient dryer options in the US, focus has shifted on improving clothes dryer efficiency. The Energy Star Market and Industry Scoping Report (ENERGY STAR Market & Industry Scoping Report: Residential Clothes Dryers, 2011) evaluated potential savings options for clothes dryers, which included the drum, motor, dryer control, heat recovery, heat generation, and several other options. These potential clothes dryer feature upgrades are discussed under the clothes dryer adoption study section of this report.

Evaluating Consumer Preferences for Clothes Dryers

Focus on encouraging the adoption of residential energy efficient appliances over recent years has resulted in major energy savings. Even though clothes dryers account for approximately 4 % of residential energy use in the USA, there is still no energy efficient clothes dryer in the market. There has been a lot of focus recently on the development of energy efficient clothes dryers; however, there is limited research on consumer preferences when purchasing a clothes dryer. These preferences should be taken into account when developing the new clothes dryer technology that may aid in encouraging adoption. This study utilizes the Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM) to capture consumer preferences and to capture the perception of manufacturers on what they think the consumer preferences are. Energy efficiency experts are used to quantify the sub-criteria for each technology and the resulting technology preferences are determined. The two highest consumer preferences were the purchase and installation cost and the operating lifetime. The results for the consumers and the manufacturers mainly align, except for the importance of potential savings, drying cycle time, and operating lifetime. It is determined that the most preferred technology is moisture and temperature sensors for clothes dryers; however, the overall scores for each technology were relatively close to one another.