Internet of Things(IoT) are becoming common. These are the objects that connect to Internet by themselves to carry out their duties with no human intervention. One possible application that can help us to save money and to reduce greenhouse gasses emissions is the remote control of domestic devices featuring thermostats. These devices are the conditioning air, electric heaters, fridges, heat pumps and heating. While heat pumps are not common in many European countries, gas heating is widespread. Although the latter is not electricity driven, the same ideas can be applied because it relies on a thermostat. The important feature shared by all those devices is that they have thermal inertia, which means there is no significant effect if they are switched off for a reasonable period.
The first step is to connect to Internet the devices. There is technology available in the market to do this, like the Siemens’ Synco Living series or the devices manufactured by Greenwave Systems. This technology enables users to remotely access the aforementioned devices.
The next step is to allow the electricity company to control the thermostats, so they will be able to change the temperature set-point when some conditions are hold. For instance, in the case of the air conditioning, it means they will be able to increase the set-point up to certain threshold or for a certain amount of minutes every hour. In return for allowing changing set-points, the customer will have discount in his electricity bill.
Dryer connected to a smart switch
We have to consider companies do not participate in this scheme for the love of humankind, but because of the benefits they gain. What the company is really doing is to buy the customer’s flexibility. The flexibility is the energy the customer is willing to save if there is a return. When the company aggregates the flexibility of many clients, they find they do not need to produce or to buy a huge amount of energy which leads to big economic savings, in particular under unforeseen circumstances like some weather events.
But these programs that are profitable both for the companies and the customers have an even more interesting side; they foster the integration of renewable energies in the grid. The problem with renewable energy is that it cannot be scheduled, as it occurs with conventional sources. As a result, we have energy when there is no demand or the demand can concentrate when the wind does not blow. Demand response programs, this is the name for the described scheme, enables companies to use the aggregated customer’s flexibility to reduce energy demand when renewable sources are weak. In this way there is no need to build CO2 emitting reserve power stations, which are very expensive because they are not continuously running.
Demand response programs can be seen as a case of Internet of Things (IoT) and they are not common in Europe, at least among domestic customers, as it occurs in the USA. These programs allow citizens to be directly engaged in the promotion of renewable energies and in the reduction of greenhouse gasses production. They are a kind of everyday life perturbation, and some people could perceive it as an intolerable intromission. However, we have to consider almost all of us have a product called flexibility we can sell to the electricity companies and, at the same time, it is a personal involvement in climate change mitigation.
In the European Union 40% of the total final energy is consumed in residential and tertiary buildings. That is reason behind several European Directives established with the aim that the Member States develop long-term strategiesencouraging the renovation of residential and commercial buildings applying specific energy efficiency criteria. In order to define efficient strategies they have to be established in a holistic way; beyond individual buildings and thinking in wider terms of districts and cities. For this reason, several research projects are nowadays exploring the best way to perform retrofitting activities with those results in mind.
Nonetheless, the definition of a retrofitting strategy for any neighbourhood or any city is a trivial issue. There are many factors that must be analysed before proceeding with such intervention. Although the objectives to be achieved are often clear (reduction of energy consumption, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, including renewable energies, etc.), the method to achieve those objectives is variable and different measures can be applied to the same scenario with varying degrees of success. The analysis of the most effective measures in cost-benefit terms requires of a considerable amount of information about the considered area and carrying out a series of complex calculations that allow to obtain indicators associated with the several possible interventions that may take place.
So it is at this point that the use of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) adds value: performing calculations through simulation tools (including energy, costs and environmental aspects among others) the analysis of the different scenarios is more accurate and also tedious manual processes prone to failures are automated. However, although different simulation tools are available in the market a single specific tool that fully automates retrofitting interventions just does not exist nowadays.
In this regard, CARTIF is currently working on several projects aimed at creating such tools for designing retrofitting projects in cities such as the new project Nature4Cities or OptEEmAL, started in 2015. Both projects are funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 R&D programme.
Nature4Cities aim is the development of a tool to support design of energy retrofitting projects in urban environments by applying Nature Based Solutions (NBS). This type of solutions has already been covered by my colleagues in a previous post.
On the other hand, OptEEmAL project focuses on developing a design platform for energy retrofitting projects at district level. Working with input data provided by the user (BIM, CityGML and other type of data) the OptEEmAL platform automatically generates and evaluates possible retrofitting scenarios based on implementing a set of measures for energy conservation.
Such measures are contained in a catalogue according to a data model based on standards (such as IFC). The solutions included in this catalogue are both passive (envelope improvements, change of windows) and active (concerning energy generation systems, renewable energies or control strategies) and are applied both at building and district level. These measures may be generic solutions with default values or specific solutions provided by commercial entities.
In order to evaluate the various potential scenarios, a set of performance indicators are analysed and then categorised into different categories: energy, comfort, environmental, economic, social and urban. Once the optimisation has taken place, the OptEEmAL platform shows to the user the solution with better results in terms of indicators. As a result of the process OptEEmAL provides the user with very detailed information on the retrofitting project.
CARTIFwill continue working in this area of knowledge with our strong commitment to support energy efficiency and ultimately improve the cities and places where we live.
Currently, the 54% of world population lives im cities, and it is foreseen this figure rises by 70% in the middle of this century. Cities have been converted in denatured places in which is difficult to find interconnected nartural surroundings. Current urbanistic model presents one of the most serius global challenges by 21th Century: rapidly and changing development of industrial activities as well as the un controlled urban sprawl cause many social, environmental and health problems.
Cities are facing to environmental challenges related to poor air quality, heat island effect, increasing of flood risk, increasing of extreme phenomena frequency and intensity, the industrial areas derelict and the issues of social context (increasing of criminality, social exclusión, inequality, marginality, poverty, and urban surroundings degradation). Effects of the population concentration in cities are generally invisible for the mayority of cictizenship, however these risks remain latent and it appear in media and public opinión when it have caused seriuos problems and the environmental restoration is more difficult.
In many of the cities of the world the air quality has improved considerably in the past decades. Nonetheless, air quality is affecting to health of people and sorrounding. In Europe, the air pollution from industry has been replaced by the road traffic and heating pollution. Therefore, Air Quality is a common environmental issue in large and medium-size cities around the world.
Another consequence of climate change and population accumulation in cities is the “heat island effect”: urban areas hotter than nearly rural zones due to the urban topography and materials of building and pavements. Annual average temperature in a big city could be 1 – 3 oC higher than surroundings areas. Likewise, during nights in summer time, the variation in temperature can reach 12 oC. This effect has important consequences, but we will talk about them another time.
Regarding urban spaces management, the different kinds of abandoned and deteriorated places in cities imply an important challenge. In these areas, the environmental conflict is focussed on environmental issues like soils pollution and specific emissions, which just searches the not adaptive reuse of these spaces. This situation forgets the social side of the problem, which induces scepticism and rejection in the citizens.
All of these problems can be dealt at the same way as the nature would do it, via solutions developed for thousands of years (Nature Based Solutions, NBS). In this way, it will achieve to reconvert urban areas in places in which nature can be present again and the citizen can enjoy it.
NBS will foster the sustainable urbanism, it will retrofit degraded areas, it will develop climate change adaptation and mitigation actions and it will improve the management of climate change risks. The NBS like actions inspired in the Nature present a huge potential to be energy sustainable and to be resistant to climate changes, however their success will depend on their adaptation to local conditions.
Deployment of green corridors, carbon sinks, vegetal paths, urban farming activities, sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS), green roofs and walls, urban green filters, water spaces, pollinator’s modules, etc. in cities will be common the coming years, in order to achieve a sustainable urbanism and the re-naturing of our cities.
Few days ago, the European project LIFE DIOXDETECTOR was closed in CARTIF. The main objective was the application of a new analytical technique for the quantification of dioxins and furans, being this new technique, mainly, more sensitive and faster with respect to technical traditional.
Dioxins and furans are compounds that form part of a group of dangerous chemicals called Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).
When the word “dioxin” is heard, a certain alarm is created, and it is no wonder, because they are “worrying” compounds because of its high toxic potential as well as its persistence in organisms. The half-life of dioxins in an organism is between seven and ten years.
Big catastrophes such as, the serious accident in 1976 at a chemical factory in Seveso (Italy) or high concentrations of dioxins were found in poultry and eggs from Belgium in 1999 or market exit of tons of meat pork and pork products in late 2008 in Ireland, since amounts of dioxins were detected 200 times above the limit prescribed, among others…have been used to study the effects of long term dioxins and furans cause on health and the environment.
Dioxins and furans emission sources are mainly, solid waste incineration, industrial processes (paper mills, foundries, etc.) and road traffic, but also can also be generated naturally (forest fires, etc.).
And it is that although, the problem of dioxins and furans appear that it is so far, because it is possible that you do not live near an incinerator, due to the generalized presence of these compounds, all people have background exposure, which is not expected to affect human health. The effects on human health depend on the time of exposure to these pollutants.
These compounds can cause reproduction and development problems, affect the immune system, interfere with hormones, and in this way cause cancer.
In the environment, studies show that soil and vegetation near incinerators, can become contaminated by the release of dioxins and heavy metals at levels above normal background concentrations. The dioxin levels found in the soil and vegetation depend on the distance to the incinerator.
As cited above, solid waste incinerators are one of the main emissions sources of dioxins and furans. The European Directive for hazardous waste 2000/76, transposed into Spanish law in RD 653/2003, establishes as limit total emissions of dioxins and furans 0.1 ng/Nm3.
Undoubtedly, the most effective measures to prevent or reduce human exposure to these compounds are those taken at the root, i.e., in the own emission sources, with more stringent controls industrial processes in order to minimize the formation of dioxins and furans.
The analysis of these compounds is one of the most complicated in the world. The high toxicity of these compounds at very low concentrations, makes necessary the development of highly sensitive analytical techniques, as the technology proposed in the DIOXDETECTOR project, which is able to detect concentrations below the level of part per quadrillion (ppq).
It is clear that an improvement in air quality, it is quality of life. Just have to take a look at the latest news related to air quality: “Madrid exceeds the limits for nitrogen dioxide and active phase 2 of the protocol anti-pollution City” or “The poor air quality in Aviles forces to decree the pre-pollution alert”, among others, to realize the consequences that entails poor air quality in our daily lives.
It is not easy to find a definition for Smart Grid that summarizes every objective, topic and technology included under this concept. Searching and surfing the web, one can find long and detailed descriptions including many of the Smart Grids related topics, or other very brief and simple that are only focused in the points that the author of the definition is interested in. It is out of the scope of this post to deeply analyze those definitions, so assuming the risk of being too simple in our description; we can say that a Smart Grid should include at least these four topics:
– Distributed generation: improving grid management when a great number of small and medium power sources are present in the grid and when renewable sources have an increasing weight in the generation system. – Demand response: allowing final users, specially domestic users, to make decisions about changing their consumption habits thanks to the information that they could receive about energy price or because they can use local generation or storing systems to support their own demand. – ICT: for data acquisition and management in the different grid levels, from users to generation systems and including transformation centres. – Reliability: using data and information acquired from the grid to improve management strategies and also maintenance politics of every element in the grid, including predictive maintenance what guarantee an increase in the reliability of the whole grid.
If the Smart Grid becomes true in every level of the electric system, there will be a great number of benefits for the different actors in the grid, for example:
– To increase the capacity of using renewable power sources at user and global level – To reduce of the electricity bill for the users as they have enough information to shift their demand to the hours of the day when the electricity cost is cheaper. – To increase the capacity of the distribution system operator for generation and demand balancing – To ease the maintenance of the equipment installed in the grid extending their life and avoiding unexpected faults, with the logic economic and management benefits for the distribution system operator
To achieve these goals it is needed to develop or deploy the suitable technology for every challenge, knowing that many of these technologies are already available. These technologies must be focused mainly on three topics:
– Power sources: including renewable power sources and batteries of different scale and power rates. These will allow a better use of the available energy in every site and for every user. – Equipment and devices for grid operation: including smart meters, remote operated devices and drives, smart appliances… To help accessing the grid data and information and also for a quick and remote operation of the devices that will deploy the management decisions in the grid. – Decision support systems, to help in the generation and demand balancing taking into account the different objectives that must be satisfied in the grid.
But it would be a big mistake to think that a grid will become smart when all these technologies are available or that these technologies will introduce the intelligence in the grid automatically. As an example we can notice that in Spain , the company Iberdrola has installed a smart meter to a 76% of its clients but it is difficult to find someone that has changed his electricity consumption habits thanks to the information that they can obtain from that devices. Even though when this could imply to reduce the cost of their monthly bill.
Without any doubt, we will deploy really smart grids only when everyone involved in the generation, demand, design, tools deployment or grid management could be part of a smart network of people working together for the same goal.
This imply not only to be smart for developing the best tools and technologies needed in every application, but also to be smart in selecting the final goals that we want to obtain. In this sense we can call “smart grid” that network in which everyone share the same sustainability objectives, environment care and optimal exploitation of available renewable power resources. Of course that economic profit is also needed to mobilize the required investment and involve many of the actors, but if this is the only goal in the short-term probably will not able to build a really smart grid. In our opinion, a smart grid will be the one in which:
– the users understand that participating in demand response strategies not only reduce their electricity bill, but also will contribute to build a system where renewable resources could be better exploited. In this way they could offer their flexibility in energy demand even though when their economic benefit could not be high, but they will be contributing to the environmental care. – the distribution system operator assume that their investment in the grid besides the economic profit should also search for a social and environmental benefit even though when the economic one could be limited. – the government facilitate the use of those technologies that increase the energy independence of the domestic users and that allow to take advantage of all the available renewable resources.
To sum up, a smart grid will be the one in which the common benefit of the society in the mid and long term is the main goal of every decision, either in the strategic ones made by humans or in the automatic ones made by the smart devices during the grid management. Because the intelligence is not only in the developed knowledge but mainly in the way we use it.
There is no doubt that the snack food market is one of the strongest in the food industry, as is evidenced by its increasing market value. The snack category of food used to meaning snack chips, nuts and other traditional snacks (extruded snacks, popcorn, nachos etc.). However, the snack category is currently expanding to a large number of products that often has nothing to do with what we knew as snacks.
Historically, the snacks were something that we consumed around the daily main meals and that made us feel guilty about eating too much calories. We used to tell to our children “don´t fill up on snacks” before lunch or dinner. However, consumption of snacks has become increasingly common and is no longer between meals, is the food!.
Certainly, the culture of food is in constant motion (and who said for the better?) adapting to new lifestyles (cooking less, spend more time away from home) and in this new attitude there is room enough for more varieties of products that are easy to eat, with no-needed or very little preparation needed and a size easy to take away.According to Nielsen, the nowadays picture in Spain is that 45% of consumers regularly eat a snack as an alternative to one or more meals daily. Out of this value, 52 % do it for breakfast, 43 % on luch time and 40 % at dinner moment.
But consumes become more aware of nutritional values and claim for snacks to be healthy (or make us feel less guilty of eating out of the three-meals patron …) and to provide some health benefit. This is driving the food industry to spread the wings of innovation and create all kind of products rich in nutrients (proteins, vitamins, minerals, etc), fresh (or minimally processed, but packaged and ready to use), products high-density, low-glycemic index, low sugar, salt and fat among others. Here is a small sample of what is already in the market and what is coming soon:
Cereals, pulses, vegetables and fruits. The healthy snack category
The perception of the snack as something unhealthy and loaded with calories fades with launched products to cover this category. We found a wide variety of dehydrated fruits and vegetables (whether or not coated and with more or less sugar content), cereals of all shapes and colors, but mostly whole grains, either alone or mixed with goji berries, berries or dry fruits. Very present, the so-called “ancient grains” (chia, sorghum, quinoa, millet ..) cooked and ready to eat in bars or expanded products. Probiotics have migrated and are no longer in yogurt .
Now they are provided by fermented vegetable, or cereals, proteins, rice and chia with probiotic cultures. There is also a great tendency to germination process: cereal flour and sprouted legumes that are attributed interesting nutritional properties and are considered more easily digestible. And undoubtedly coming hard, combinations of cereals and vegetables or fruits and vegetables that add flavor, color and above all … nutrients, especially vitamins A, C E and D.
Dehydrated fruit and vegetable snacks
Pulses (white bean and pinto beans and lentils) and germinated cereals snacks
Fruit smoothies
Proteins: the meat snacks
Considering meat and fish as a protein source, different types of snacks and even innovation formats for consumption processed meat products are arising. Some examples are shavings of ham or corned beef, the so-called jerkies (dehydrated or marinated meat), seasoned with all kinds of spices and aromas.
Seasoned jerkies
And coming to snack market: meat sticks or bars. High protein content, veal, lamb, pork, bison… or insects.
Beef and vegetable and insect flour bars
Beef, chicken, pig, turkey, salmon or…bison bars
One size cured meat product
The dairy snack market
The dairy snack development is mainly focused on children. Thus, we find a wide variety of packaging formats such pouch or bag to take away. Healthy solutions for children through the development of dairy sticks (e.g. with the calcium content equivalent to a glass of milk, rich in protein and low in calories) but above all, innovation in the packaging presentation: single dose or ready for consumption, mainly at school break or at the playground time.
Small formats for cheese
It is very clear that the snack development offers great opportunities and there are many companies who see in the snackificationan opportunity to develop a palatable, healthy and ready to eat between meals or as a meal. Of course, according to the consumer criteria of what they percive as healthy, sustainable and what they are willing to pay for it. Of course, a reflection exercise must be done by the food industry to combine all these keys and consider that innovation happens largely by new or unusually ingredients and new production processes or technologies.
