Vangelis Marinakis

Local communities towards a sustainable energy future: needs and priorities

The local authorities demonstrate their willingness to implement sound local sustainable energy policies, especially through their participation in the Covenant of Mayors (CoM). However, in rural environments, namely areas outside of large cities and towns, fulfilling their CoM commitments, especially as regards the local energy planning at the medium- to long-term scale, can come with very different and sometimes challenging constraints. In this context, the main objective of this paper is the assessment of the local communities’ needs and priorities, so as to identify the key parameters that should be taken into consideration during the development of their Sustainable Energy Action Plan. The adopted approach was implemented in rural communities from four countries (Austria, Croatia, Greece and Portugal). From the results obtained, the need for a methodology, appropriately customised to the rural communities’ characteristics, was determined, addressing especially interested stakeholders who are not ‘experts’ in the field.

Does the CDM offer sustainable development benefits or not

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol has the explicit objective to both reduce greenhouse gases emissions and support sustainable development (SD) in developing countries. An important aspect that remains an open issue is how the CDM contributes to the three main dimensions of SD, namely environmental, social and economic. Although an extensive literature has emerged focusing on the different aspects of the CDM, the necessity for the sustainability assessment of the CDM projects still remains. Moreover, existing CDM analysis is dominated by studies of CDM projects in Brazil, Mexico, India and China. Within the thousands of CDM projects globally, Africa only has 251 projects in the CDM pipeline and accordingly limited research has been conducted. To cover this knowledge gap regarding sustainability performance in African countries, this paper presents a methodological approach for the SD benefits’ assessment of the CDM projects in developing countries. To this end, appropriate SD criteria and indicators were selected to measure the performance of the CDM projects according to SD dimensions. The proposed approach lays emphasis on the SD benefits of CDM projects in Kenya, which was selected as a priority country, in terms of its potential for CDM projects. The results from the SD benefits’ assessment of the CDM projects in Africa would be important, especially in policy-making and in countries where high CDM potential has been indicated.

Enabling local authorities to produce short-term energy plans

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the most appropriate multidisciplinary data sources related with energy optimization decision support as well as the related methodologies, tools and techniques for data capturing and processing for each of them. Design/methodology/approach – A review is conducted on the state-of-play of decision support systems for energy optimization, focussing on the municipal sector, followed by an identification of the most appropriate multidisciplinary data sources related with energy optimization decision support. An innovative methodology is outlined to integrate semantically modeled data from multiple sources, to assist city authorities in energy management. Findings – City authorities need to lead relevant actions toward energy-efficient neighborhoods. Although there are more and more energy and other related data available at the city level, there are no established methods and tools integrating and analyzing them in a smart way, with the purpose to support the...

An Advanced IoT-based System for Intelligent Energy Management in Buildings

The energy sector is closely interconnected with the building sector and integrated Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) solutions for effective energy management supporting decision-making at building, district and city level are key fundamental elements for making a city Smart. The available systems are designed and intended exclusively for a predefined number of cases and systems without allowing for expansion and interoperability with other applications that is partially due to the lack of semantics. This paper presents an advanced Internet of Things (IoT) based system for intelligent energy management in buildings. A semantic framework is introduced aiming at the unified and standardised modelling of the entities that constitute the building environment. Suitable rules are formed, aiming at the intelligent energy management and the general modus operandi of Smart Building. In this context, an IoT-based system was implemented, which enhances the interactivity of the buildings’ energy management systems. The results from its pilot application are presented and discussed. The proposed system extends existing approaches and integrates cross-domain data, such as the building’s data (e.g., energy management systems), energy production, energy prices, weather data and end-users’ behaviour, in order to produce daily and weekly action plans for the energy end-users with actionable personalised information.

Decision Support for Intelligent Energy Management in Buildings Using the Thermal Comfort Model

The main objective of this paper is to present a transparent Decision Support System (DSS) for the energy managers of buildings, which can assist them in setting indoor temperature set point, based on the feedback received by the occupants. Within the proposed DSS, the Thermal Comfort Validator (TCV) tool is introduced, a fully responsive and cross-platform web-app which exploits the Predicted Mean Vote comfort theory by considering real-time feedback of the occupants. The TCV facilitates the detection of the range of accepted temperature inside a building, by correlating “real” with “predicted” thermal comfort, to overcome the limits of the standardized approaches. The proposed system can reveal an important potential for achieving energy savings by means of dynamic event driven data collection and processing, while ensuring high levels of comfort.

OPTIMUS decision support tools: Transforming multidisciplinary data to energy management action plans

Making Smart Energy Cities (SEC) a reality requires an intelligent and integrated assessment and consideration of various data sets, as well as relevant intelligent systems in a transparent and accessible manner. The scope of this paper is to present an innovative package of decision support tools (entitled “OPTIMUS”) for energy managers and energy consultancies, in order to make cities more energy efficient and sustainable. OPTIMUS package includes the Smart City Energy Assessment Framework (SCEAF) Tool, the Tracker Tool and the Decision Support System (DSS). The purpose is to optimize the energy use in main citys buildings (municipal, office, educational and entertainment buildings, buildings for sports facilities, etc.), taking into consideration their interaction with energy systems, such as renewable energy production, smart district heating and cooling grids through CHP (Combined Heat and Power) and other energy sources.

Assessment of RES cooperation framework between the EU and North Africa: A multicriteria approach based on UTASTAR

Purpose The Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC of the European Union provides another element to cross-border cooperation by allowing Member States to fulfill their 2020 renewable energy sources (RES) targets by implementing joint projects in third countries through the cooperation mechanisms. The purpose of this paper is to assess the country risk, to support bilateral cooperation for RES electricity generation projects. Design/methodology/approach A multicriteria decision support methodology has been developed taking into account three evaluation parameters, namely, the investment framework, the social conditions and the energy and technological status. An additive value model has been constructed, and the UTilites Additives (UTA) – UTA* (UTASTAR) disaggregation method has been implemented to infer the criteria weights. The obtained ranking of alternatives has been subjected to robustness analysis, and finally the proposed methodology has been applied to five North Africa countries, so as to draw key results. Findings The pilot application of the methodological approach proposed and the model developed was fully compatible with the decision maker’s ranking on a set of fictitious countries and facilitated the assessment of a country’s current situation with regards to its investment, social conditions and energy and technological status. The results regarding the five North African countries examined, indicated the country’s investment framework as the most important factor, from foreign investors’ perspective, affecting a country’s suitability for the implementation of RES projects through a cooperation mechanism and Morocco, as well as Tunisia as the countries with the most suitable conditions for a successful implementation of such projects. Originality/value To the best of authors’ knowledge, there are only very few studies trying to assess opportunities and risks emerging from the implementation of joint projects between European and third countries in the field of electricity generation from RES. There are even less studies using (UTASTAR) method on real-world decision-making problems, and almost none are dedicated to energy sector-related problems.

Integrating a decision support system with smart grid infrastructures and ICT solutions towards energy cost reduction: An action plan to optimally schedule the operation of heating and electricity systems

Smart grid technology has recently attracted a lot of attention since it enables the effective use of widespread energy sources and supports that way actions towards energy optimization and cost reduction. The benefits of adopting and promoting such a technology becomes even more promising given the advances in the field of renewable energy and Information and Communications Technology (ICT), which allow managing the energy sources available according to the respective demand in a smart and environmental friendly way. The main scope of this paper is to present an action plan in order to schedule the operation of heating and electricity systems towards energy cost optimization by taking advantage of smart grid and ICT infrastructures. The action plan, which has been developed to operate within a Decision Support System, is currently tested in the University Campus of Savona (Italy) in order to indicate the usefulness of the solution in a real life application.

Assessing the socioeconomic effects caused by overvoltages to residential blocks: the case of Greece

One of the most important problems in the operation of electronic equipment in the residential blocks is the overvoltages. Direct damages of overvoltages lead to a loss of value (technical cost), whereas indirect damages result in the loss of opportunity (social cost). The assessment of these costs is of particular importance especially to countries, which are hampered by the current financial and economic crisis. In this context, the aim of the paper is the investigation of the socioeconomic effects caused by equipment-damaging overvoltages and the assessment of the total avoided cost, namely the technical and social cost, to existing residential blocks in Greece. Based on the results, these costs are significant and measures to reduce or avoid them are important for improving citizens’ well-being, especially under the current economic and financial crisis which hampers their income.

Expanding RES cooperation with West Balkans: from importing electricity to exporting RES

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the current energy status in the West Balkan countries and the related perspectives for renewable energy sources (RES) cooperation mechanisms, within the framework of RES Directive 2009/28/European Commission (EC), through the elaboration of a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. Particular emphasis is laid on the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. The SWOT analysis provides a clearer view of expanding RES in the West Balkans, as well as the level of utilization and potential of cooperation mechanisms and renewable energy in each country. Design/methodology/approach The adopted approach is mainly based on the context of a project co-financed by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme, titled “Bringing Europe and Third countries closer together through renewable Energies (BETTER)” (project number: IEE/11/845/SI2.616378). The adopted approach incorporates the steps of desktop analysis, stakeholders’ mapping and engagement, key factors’ identification and analysis of results. Findings The barriers to expand RES in the region are significant. Currently, the region is electricity importer and by far not in the position to efficiently exploit the large RES potentials. It remains to be seen whether and to what extent cooperation mechanisms may be used in the Western Balkans and the EU by 2020. The unification of the fragmented electricity system and market-oriented reforms aim to join regional power markets and then to integrate with the European Union power market. There is a multitude of market barriers for RES, resulting in a high risk perception n by investors. Cooperation mechanisms could strengthen the regions’ policy frameworks and be a starting point to integrate the region’s energy systems and to overcome the fragmentation of the past two decades. Originality/value The potential of West Balkan countries to make use of the cooperation mechanisms provides opportunities for RES exporting between West Balkan and other European countries. An analysis of these opportunities for cooperation will allow drawing clearer conclusions on cooperation potentials and business cases for the region.