Energy Utilization, Storage and Distribution

Energy Conservation

• Efficient energy use is an important consideration for designers in today's society.
• Energy conservation and efficient energy use are pivotal in our impact on the environment.

• A designer's goal is to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products or services using newer technologies or creative implementation of systems to reduce usage.
  • For example, driving less is an example of energy conservation, while driving the same amount but with a higher mileage car is energy efficiency.

Energy Conservation Tools

Embodied Energy

• The total energy required to produce a product.
• The embodied energy of a product is the sum of the total energy consumed in the production from cradle to product delivery.
• Calculating the embodied energy is highly useful to find out how successfully or effectively a product or services produces or saves energy.

• Embodied energy is the sum of all the energy required to produce any good or service, considered as if that energy was incorporated into the product itself.
• It does not consider the energy used throughout the lifecycle.
• Stages it considers are:
  • Pre-production
  • Production
  • Distribution (including packaging)
• Stages it does not consider are:
  • Utilization
  • Disposal

Life Cycle Analysis (LCA)

• The assessment of the effect a product has on the environment through the five stages of its life cycle.
• The five stages are:
  • Pre-production
  • Production
  • Distribution (including packaging)
  • Utilization
  • Disposal

Design For Environment (DfE) Software

• Software that allows designers to perform life cycle analysis on a product and assess its environmental impact.

Distributing Energy

Definitions

Energy Utilization

• The method with which energy is used.

Energy Storage

• The method with which energy is stored for later use.

Energy Distribution

• The method with which energy is transported from a source to where it is used.

Energy Distribution Methods

Electrical Grids

• Electricity is generated in a power station, such as a nuclear power plant.
• Electricity is sent over high-voltage transmission lines.
• Transmission towers carry the lines.
• Substations lower voltage and send it to:
  • Residential customers
    • Transformers on distribution poles lower voltage for use in homes.
  • Industrial customers
  • Commercial customers

Distribution Networks

• An electrical supply distribution network can be national or international.

National

• Power nationally distributed is sent for domestic, commercial and industrial use including electric vehicles.
• This is a highly centralized grid system.

International

• International grids allow electricity generated in one country to be used in another.
  • For example: Egypt’s Aswan Dam produces sufficient electricity for Egypt to sell part of it to Sudan.
  • On the USA and Mexican border there are three locations where power is sent across the border.

Local Combined Heat and Power

• CHP plants that generate heat and power for a local community.
• The plant is close enough to the community so that the heat generated can be dispersed through the community efficiently.

• Combined heat and power (CHP) integrates the production of usable heat and power (electricity), in one single, highly efficient process.
• CHP generates electricity whilst also capturing usable heat that is produced in this process.
• This contrasts with conventional ways of generating electricity where vast amounts of heat are simply wasted.
• In today’s coal and gas fired power stations, up to two thirds of the overall energy consumed is lost in this way, often seen as a cloud of steam rising from cooling towers.

• As an energy generation process, CHP is fuel neutral.
  • This means that a CHP process can be applied to both renewable and fossil fuels.
• It reduces the negative impact to the environment, because of reduced energy use and reduced emissions.
• It also saves the consumer money, because of reduced energy costs compared to separate heat and electrical generation systems.

Individual Energy Generation

• The ability of an individual to use devices to create small amounts of energy to run low-energy products.
  • For example a smart watch powered by body heat or cross trainers to generate electricity at home.

Systems for Individual Energy Generation

• Systems for individual energy generation is small-scale generation of heat and electric power by homes (also small businesses and small communities) to meet their own needs.
• Also known as micro-generation.
  • Micro-generation is an alternative or can supplement traditional centralized grid- connected power.

• The idea of a personal energy system is very useful.
• You can put a few solar panels on the roof and harness excess electricity for use at night.
• Your home could be completely detached from the energy company.

• It is the small-scale generation of heat and electric power by homes (also small businesses and small communities) to meet their own needs.
• It is an alternative or can supplement traditional centralized grid-connected power.
• It has a lower negative impact on the environment.
• It has lower costs for the consumer in the long run.
• It requires high initial capital costs.

Carbon Emissions

Quantification of Carbon Emissions

• Defining numerically the carbon emissions generated by a particular product.
• Record carbon emissions to discover how much is being produced and who/ where it is produced.
  • This allows you to track your carbon footprint.

Mitigation of Carbon Emissions

• Man's intervention in the reduction of carbon emissions.
• Carbon emissions contribute to global warming.
  • Resulting in melting polar caps, rising seas, desertification.
• This can be done by providing ‘sinks’ that can reabsorb carbon emissions.
  • Examples of ‘sinks’ are the ocean, forests, vegetation or soils.

Batteries, Capacitors and Capacities

• A battery is a device consisting of two or more electrochemical cells that convert stored chemical energy into electrical energy.
• A capacitor is an electronic component that temporarily stores electrical energy.
• Capacity is the amount of electric charge a battery/capacitor can deliver (measured in amp-hours).

Batteries

• Battery storage has enabled an array of consumer electronic devices and has enabled us to have smaller and smaller gadgets.
• Batteries have had a huge impact on the portability of electronic products.
• Through the development of new technologies, batteries have become more efficient and smaller.

• Batteries are limited to:

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

• High costs
• Medium efficiency
• Low environmental impact

Lithium Button Cells

• Medium costs
• High efficinecy
• Low environmental impact

Nickel Cadmium Batteries

• High costs
• Medium efficiency
• High environmental impact

Lead Acid Batteries

• Low costs
• Low efficiency
• High environmental impact

Lithium Ion Polymer Batteries

• High cost
• High efficiency
• Low environmental impact

Additional Types

• Silver oxide button cells
• Zinc manganese carbon cells