Energy-related occupant behaviour in the built environment is considered crucial when aiming towards Energy Efficiency (EE), especially given the notion that people are most often unaware and ...disengaged regarding the impacts of energy-consuming habits. In order to affect such energy-related behaviour, various approaches have been employed, being the most common the provision of recommendations towards more energy-efficient actions. In this work, the authors extend prior research findings in an effort to automatically identify the optimal Persuasion Strategy (PS), out of ten pre-selected by experts, tailored to a user (i.e., the context to trigger a message, allocate a task or providing cues to enact an action). This process aims to successfully influence the employees' decisions about EE in tertiary buildings. The framework presented in this study utilizes cultural traits and socio-economic information. It is based on one of the largest survey datasets on this subject, comprising responses from 743 users collected through an online survey in four countries across Europe (Spain, Greece, Austria and the UK). The resulting framework was designed as a cascade of sequential data-driven prediction models. The first step employs a particular case of matrix factorisation to rank the ten PP in terms of preference for each user, followed by a random forest regression model that uses these rankings as a filtering step to compute scores for each PP and conclude with the best selection for each user. An ex-post assessment of the individual steps and the combined ensemble revealed increased accuracy over baseline non-personalised methods. Furthermore, the analysis also sheds light on important user characteristics to take into account for future interventions related to EE and the most effective persuasion strategies to adopt based on user data. Discussion and implications of the reported results are provided in the text regarding the flourishing field of personalisation to motivate pro-environmental behaviour change in tertiary buildings.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
As microgrids have gained increasing attention over the last decade, more and more applications have emerged, ranging from islanded remote infrastructures to active building blocks of smart grids. To ...optimally manage the various microgrid assets towards maximum profit, while taking into account reliability and stability, it is essential to properly schedule the overall operation. To that end, this paper presents an optimal scheduling framework for microgrids both for day-ahead and real-time operation. In terms of real-time, this framework evaluates the real-time operation and, based on deviations, it re-optimises the schedule dynamically in order to continuously provide the best possible solution in terms of economic benefit and energy management. To assess the solution, the designed framework has been deployed to a real-life microgrid establishment consisting of residential loads, a PV array and a storage unit. Results demonstrate not only the benefits of the day-ahead optimal scheduling, but also the importance of dynamic re-optimisation when deviations occur between forecasted and real-time values. Given the intermittency of PV generation as well as the stochastic nature of consumption, real-time adaptation leads to significantly improved results.
Unlocking flexibility on the demand side is a prerequisite for balancing supply and demand in distribution networks with high penetration levels of renewable energy sources that lead to high ...volatility in energy prices. The main means of fully gaining access to the untapped flexibility is the application of demand response (DR) schemes through aggregation. Notwithstanding, to extract the utmost of this potential, a combination of performance-, financial-, and technical-related parameters should be considered, a balance rarely identified in the state of the art. The contribution of this work lies in the introduction of a holistic DR framework that refines the DR-related strategies of the aggregator towards optimum flexibility dispatch, while facilitating its cooperation with the distribution system operator (DSO). The backbone of the proposed DR framework is a novel constrained-objective optimisation function which minimises the aggregator’s costs through optimal segmentation of customer groups based on fairness and reliability aspects, while maintaining the distribution balance of the grid. The proposed DR framework is evaluated on a modified IEEE 33-Bus radial distribution system where a real DR event is successfully executed. The flexibility of the most fair, reliable and profitable sources, identified by the developed optimisation function, is dispatched in an interoperable and secure manner without interrupting the normal operation of the distribution grid.
Given the ubiquity of mobile devices, understanding the context of human activity with non-intrusive solutions is of great value. A novel deep neural network model is proposed, which combines feature ...extraction and convolutional layers, able to recognize human physical activity in real-time from tri-axial accelerometer data when run on a mobile device. It uses a two-layer convolutional neural network to extract local features, which are combined with 40 statistical features and are fed to a fully-connected layer. It improves the classification performance, while it takes up 5–8 times less storage space and outputs more than double the throughput of the current state-of-the-art user-independent implementation on the Wireless Sensor Data Mining (WISDM) dataset. It achieves 94.18% classification accuracy on a 10-fold user-independent cross-validation of the WISDM dataset. The model is further tested on the Actitracker dataset, achieving 79.12% accuracy, while the size and throughput of the model are evaluated on a mobile device.
The GreenSoul project introduces an innovative energy-efficient platform which enhances traditional public-use buildings with various technologies, such as smart adaptors, energy analyzers, an ...occupant aware decision support engine, mobile applications, and interactive ambient interfaces. These enhancement aims to directly improve the interactions between occupants and energy-consuming assets in their environment. The GreenSoul framework is further enriched by the deployment of lightweight edgecomputing GreenSoul-ed devices, which reduce energy consumption by cooperating with other devices, smart metering equipment and, very importantly, with eco-aware users. The decision making process is supported by a socio-economic behavioral model, which provides the necessary understanding of occupant indoor behavior toward transforming energy consuming devices into active pro-sustainability agents that inform users how energy-efficiently they operate them, provide notifications as to improve that aspect, and even adapt their own functioning to reduce energy waste. These eco-wise devices, which are coined as GreenSoul-ed Things, are explained in detail throughout this paper as well as the sensor-based architecture that supports their operation. The deployment of the framework across six pilot buildings is addressed, as well as the designed experimental setting to corroborate the potential of such a collaborative approach to enhance energy efficiency in office buildings.
Summary
The improvement of the energy performance of buildings is identified as one of the core challenges toward achieving a carbon‐neutral built environment. In the 2018 recast of the Energy ...Performance of Buildings Directive, the European Commission has emphasized the need for improved schemes, to ensure the best possible evaluation of the actual energy performance of buildings, taking into consideration all the parameters related both to their construction and operation. Significant research efforts have been designated in this area, to identifying the additional information required to not only improve the energy performance certification process but also to provide more thorough reports to end‐users. To increase comprehension, awareness, and thus genuine involvement, cutting‐edge digital technologies are expected to be used. The research project entitled “Next‐generation Dynamic Digital EPCs for Enhanced Quality and User Awareness” (D^2EPC GA 892984) introduces a comprehensive approach to next‐generation Energy Performance Certificates that addresses the main challenges and gaps in buildings' energy assessment process, by introducing additional layers of information for the assessor and the user. A non‐exhaustive list of the novel set of Energy Performance Certificates indicators, proposed in D^2EPC includes energy, smart readiness, wellbeing, comfort, financial, and sustainability related indicators. In this study, aspects of employing advanced digital solutions, like Building Information Modelling and Geographical Information Systems for the certification process are also demonstrated, through a well structured, high‐level, detailed representation of the next‐generation Energy Performance Certificates system architecture. This framework elaborates on individual components and their interaction, toward delivering the envisioned final enriched cloud‐based platform, that will enable dynamic Energy Performance Certificates based on (near) real‐time field data. This study aspires to initiate the discussion within the scientific community of buildings' energy assessment on the required practices for digitizing and enriching the certification process of buildings, in compliance with Industry 4.0 practices.
Formation and accumulation of extracellular amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptide aggregates in the brain are associated with Alzheimer's disease, a widespread age-related form of dementia, for which there is no ...effective treatment at present. It is essential to discover ways of visualizing and monitoring the progress of aggregation toward amyloidic plaques while at the same time therapeutic methods inhibiting the aggregation can be explored. Iron oxide nanoparticles Fe 3 O 4 with size ~10 nm have been coated with silica SiO 2 and Thioflavin-T (ThT), a non-toxic fluorescent dye binding to the amyloid-β structures with a possible effect on fibril formation, and then added to Aβ 1-42 phosphate-buffered saline solution, incubated for 30 min and extracted by magnetic separation. The magnetic ThT silica-coated nanoparticles with size ~20 nm have been characterized structurally and magnetically by powder X-ray powder diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and vibrating sample magnetometer. Their affinity to Aβ 1-42 peptide, examined by fluorescence microscopy and protein concentration measurements using the BCA Protein Assay Kit has been verified. Successful binding of magnetic silica nanoparticles, doped with ThT, to Aβ 1-42 peptide provides a nanocarrier potentially exemplifying multiple functions, such as magnetic imaging, magnetic handling, drug delivery, fluorescence imaging, Aβ binding, and Aβ aggregation inhibition.
Summary
In this paper, an intelligent occupancy‐based, automated building control system is initially introduced, which has the capability of reducing energy consumption while respecting the ...occupants' comfort and actions inside building areas. Data stemming from a multisensorial network is combined with implicitly extracted information, since no direct feedback is expected by the users, towards unsupervised monitoring and control of building operation. However, due to significantly higher costs of actuating equipment and the reluctance that some end users show in accepting fully automated solutions, a new hybrid approach is conceptualized and presented; the automated decision support system is supplemented with a persuasion mechanism aimed at increasing energy savings, through raising user awareness. The persuasive methodology employs a continuous feedback mechanism in order to select the optimal incentive strategy by taking into account user success rates, in terms of requested actions, as well as available mechanisms, and daily harassment.
This study introduces an unsupervised occupancy‐driven decision support system for unobtrusive building automation, which offers energy efficiency while preserving end‐users visual and thermal comfort in tertiary buildings. The system was demonstrated and validated in real‐life conditions achieving savings from 18% up to 21.5%. Finally, a methodology for extra margins of long‐term savings was explored through end‐user persuasion to raise awareness and change occupant behavior.
Occupants of tertiary environments rarely care about their energy consumption. This fact is even more accentuated in cases of buildings of public use. Such unawareness has been identified by many ...scholars as one of the main untapped opportunities with high energy saving potential in terms of cost-effectiveness. Towards that direction, there have been numerous studies exploring energy-related behaviour and the impact that our daily actions have on energy efficiency, demand response and flexibility of power systems. Nevertheless, there are still certain aspects that remain controversial and unidentified, especially in terms of socio-economic characteristics of the occupants with regards to bespoke tailored motivational and awareness-based campaigns. The presented work introduces a two-step survey, publicly available through Zenodo repository that covers social, economic, behavioural and demographic factors. The survey analysis aims to fully depict the drivers that affect occupant energy-related behaviour at tertiary buildings and the barriers which may hinder green actions. Moreover, the survey reports evidence on respondents’ self-assessment of fifteen known principles of persuasion intended to motivate them to behave pro-environmentally. The outcomes from the self-assessment help to shed light on understanding which of the Persuasive Principles may work better to nudge different user profiles towards doing greener actions at workplace. This study was conducted in four EU countries, six different cities and seven buildings, reaching more than three-hundred-and-fifty people. Specifically, a questionnaire was delivered before (PRE) and after (POST) a recommendation-based intervention towards pro-environmental behaviour through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The findings from the PRE-pilot stage were used to refine the POST-pilot survey (e.g., we removed some questions that did not add value to one or several research questions or dismissed the assessment of Persuasive Principles (PPs) which were of low value to respondents in the pre-pilot survey). Both surveys validate “Cause and Effect”, “Conditioning” and “Self-monitoring” as the top PPs for affecting energy-related behaviour in a workplace context. Among other results, the descriptive and prescriptive analysis reveals the association effects of specific barriers, pro-environmental intentions and confidence in technology on forming new pro-environmental behaviour. The results of this study intend to set the foundations for future interventions based on persuasion through ICT to reduce unnecessary energy consumption. Among all types of tertiary buildings, we emphasise on the validity of the results provided for buildings of public use.
Alternating current (AC) microgrids are expected to operate as active components within smart distribution grids in the near future. The high penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources and ...the rapid electrification of the thermal and transportation sectors pose serious challenges that must be addressed by modern distribution system operators. Hence, new solutions should be developed to overcome these issues. Microgrids can be considered as a great candidate for the provision of ancillary services since they are more flexible to coordinate their distributed generation sources and their loads. This paper proposes a method for compensating microgrid power factor and loads asymmetries by utilizing advanced functionalities enabled by grid tied inverters of photovoltaics and energy storage systems. Further, a central controller has been developed for adaptively regulating the provision of both reactive power and phase balancing services according to the measured loading conditions at the microgrid’s point of common coupling. An experimental validation with a laboratory scale inverter and a real time hardware in the loop investigation demonstrates that the provision of such ancillary services by the microgrid can significantly improve the operation of distribution grids in terms of power quality, energy losses and utilization of available capacity.
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