•Overview of the current state of practise of GIS-based urban energy systems models.•A growing research interests in modelling urban energy systems using GIS.•GIS plays a significant role for ...planning sustainable energy systems in cities.•Using open source data and models can effectively replicate urban energy features.•Open GIS-based platform for the optimisation of flexibilisation technologies in cities.
Planning of sustainable Urban Energy Systems is a challenging task for the many involved stakeholders which requires optimal use of available knowledge for decision support. Therefore, systematic approaches integrating energy models and interactively linking them to real-world data are highly required. In this regard, Geographic Information Systems (called GIS) offer as a platform many advantages and can play a significant role in integrating renewable energy sources at the urban scale. The optimal integration and placement of different possible flexibilisation technologies such as storage can profit from the possibilities offered by GIS tools. In addition, GIS facilitate policy making, allowing for a realistic and multilayer representation of urban energy systems. This contribution first draws an overview of GIS-based models for urban energy systems by investigating the current state of modelling. It introduces in a second step, an outline of a transferable GIS-based platform for the optimisation of storage and other flexibilisation technologies in urban areas. The model is composed of three main components and deals with the optimal integration of flexibilisation technologies. The fields of applications of the model are, but not restricted to, analysis of the emergence of sustainable cities, self-consumption at the urban levels, autarky measures, capacity demand and economic efficiency, and the integration of flexibility options. The method developed by the authors and presented here deals with the first component of the proposed model which is setting up the spatial framework. The framework relies mainly on spatial features of urban objects extracted from the open source OpenStreetMap database. The different steps involved in the spatial framework set-up are extraction and filtering of the data sets and their algorithmic steps which will be introduced here in details. A central finding of this contribution illustrates the feasibility and effectiveness of using open source data and tools to replicate urban energy features.
A large part of the energy demand in industry can be attributed to the provision of heat. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the energy demand must be reduced and renewable energies must be ...integrated. Since the capacity of renewable heat sources is often limited, the electrification of processes is a promising solution. Due to the increasing share of fluctuating renewable energies in the electricity mix, it is advantageous if consumption can be flexibly controlled. Thus, in-house energy management in industry faces many challenges. On the one hand, general consumption must be reduced through the efficient use of energy; on the other hand, load shifting and flexible use of energy may reduce both, emissions and costs. Often, however, both alternatives interfere with each other, and an either-or decision is the result. A practical efficiency and electrification measure is the use of heat pumps. This can reduce the final energy demand for heat generation, but the constant mode of operation due to the coupling of heat sources and heat sinks leaves little room for grid-serving operation. Other electrification options, such as an electric boiler, offer greater flexibility in combination with thermal storage, but have lower efficiency. To quantify the energy requirements as a basis for comparison, the heat pump as an energy efficiency option and an electrode boiler in combination with a thermal storage tank as a flexibility option are simulated along a typical demand profile in the animal feed industry. To ensure maximum heat recovery, the heat pump is optimised using pinch analysis and designed for the respective process. For the flexibility option, an operational optimisation is carried out using Linear Programming. In addition, a hybrid variant is considered using Mixed Integer Linear Programming. While no electrification measure is currently more economical than the gas reference case, the electric boiler option is significantly more expensive than a Very-High-Temperature Heat Pump. The hybrid can reduce the size of the heat pump and get a further benefit from flexible prices, which gives it cost advantages.
The article reviews China’s changing labour environment since the 1990s. These include the disappearance of the old working class inherited from the socialist era; the emergence of a new working ...class comprised of rural emigrants (worker-peasants or mingong); and, more recently, the consequences of economic tertiarisation and flexible working. It also highlights the main issues currently being debated in academic litterature. Workers’ propensity for conflict and resistance to the domination of capital interests has sparked a variety of interpretations as well as vigorous debate. The very existence of a Chinese working class, in the Marxist sense of the term, remains highly debated.
Following the economic crisis of 2008/2009, the European Union developed the Youth Guarantee (YG) Action Plan to tackle youth labour market disengagement by 'fostering employability' and 'removing ...barriers' to employment. The current study adopts a Geographical Political Economy approach to analysing the YG's underpinnings and the conditions that differentiate its application on a regional level to explore whether - and, if so, how - the YG helps young people in the Southern EU to enter the labour market. The article introduces the first comparative, cross-regional investigation of the YG programme, targeting the NUTS-II regions of Spain and Italy. It uses mixed methods, supplementing quantitative analysis with in-depth interviews with key informants. We show that in Spanish and Italian regions the YG is closely entwined with socio-spatial inequality and labour precarity, which is reflected in the growing rates of temporary employment and inactive youth. Crucially, we conclude, such outcomes are not simply the result of the institutional/operational misapplications of the YG, as is often assumed. Rather, these misapplications are systematically reinforced by the mechanics of labour flexibilisation within a recessionary and crisis-prone environment, one whose geographical unevenness means that the YG is playing out in quite different ways in different places.
This article discusses the main changes introduced to the Portuguese labour market following the adoption of the Memorandum of Understanding of 2011. The intent behind the Memorandum's demands was to ...reduce the costs related to employment contracts, to expand both internal and external flexibility, and to relaunch collective bargaining under a new and more decentralised framework. However, several measures ended up being at odds not only with the Portuguese Constitution, but also with ILO Conventions and the (Revised) European Social Charter. We address the changes to wage policies, working time, employment protection legislation, and collective bargaining, which gave way to a new ‘flexibility-oriented’ labour relations model, characterised by a global reduction of labour protection levels. We argue that not only were these measures unable to fix the problems of the Portuguese labour market, but they also had crippling effects on social rights in general and, most particularly, on workers’ rights. Moreover, despite the overcoming of the economic crisis, as well as the changes to the political scene, the most significant alterations were maintained. This demonstrates that bailout reforms leave their mark, particularly when they correspond to measures previously under discussion and when their implementation is supported by external pressures.
In this article, I propose an approach for the analysis of the so-called processes of flexibilisation, mobility, precarisation or, recently, platformisation or uberisation of work, considering the ...social relations of circulation and a proletarian condition of greater approximation or convergence between active and reserve armies. For that, I revisit the Marxian theory of value and the trends that can be observed by the process of accelerating and expanding the circulation of the labour-power. The article closes with reflections towards a possible research agenda for the study of contemporary proletarian condition.
As they deliver dispatchable renewable energy, biomass power plants are expected to play a key role in the stability of the future electricity grids dominated by intermittent renewables. Large-scale, ...biomass-fired power plants are often retrofitted from coal-fired plants. Such a fuel modification combined with decreasing pollutant emission limits and higher requirements in terms of load flexibility can lead to a decrease of the maximum power delivered by the unit. The limiting factors are partly related to the control systems of those plants. In this paper, we present the results of the upgrading of an 80 MWe, retrofitted biomass power plant that was achieved by improving the dynamic control of the combustion process. Thanks to the addition of virtual air flow sensors in the control system and the re-design of the combustion control loops, the undesired effects of a recent 10% power increase on NOx emissions were more than compensated. The accurate control of the local NOx production in the furnace resulted in a decrease of these emissions by 15% with an increased stability. This study will help increasing the cost-effectiveness of such conversions, and facilitate the development of dispatchable, renewable power units able to contribute to the grid stability.
•Seasonal flexibilisation improves profitability by 10 €/MWhel.•Higher combined heat and power (CHP) capacities avoid loss of flexibility in winter.•Heat utilisation rates increase by 30% to 125% ...compared to non-seasonal operation.•Offsetting economies of scale would require high heat prices above 60 €/MWhth.•Impacts of two CHP units, storage capacity, and biogas boiler operation are low.
It has been shown that the power demand-oriented operation of biogas plants contributes to the challenges of future energy systems with high shares of fluctuating renewable energies. This flexibilisation is usually short-term and can improve profitability. Long-term seasonal flexibilisation could further overcome present low heat utilisation rates due to the low heat demand of district heating in summer and constant biogas production across the year. To assess the benefits of seasonal flexibilisation for different biogas plants, we apply an existing model approach for analysing biogas repowering and optimising the combined heat and power (CHP) despatch. Plant-specific constraints and historical spot market data are used to determine power revenues, heat utilisation rates, greenhouse gas emissions and the profitability of the biogas plants. For different setups of CHP units and heat demand levels, the seasonal operation mode is compared with the non-seasonal reference mode. The economic benefit of seasonal flexibilisation is on average 10 €/MWhel when comparing the same rated power output and varies with plant size and CHP-setup. Increases in the heat utilisation rate are the main driver. Benefits increase with additional installed CHP capacities and rising heat prices. As gas production changes over the year, higher CHP capacities increase flexibility in winter and align the power market revenues of seasonal and non-seasonal operation. Very high heat prices even offset economies of scale. However, seasonal flexibilisation does not allow economic operation in Germany under current market conditions. The dependence on other sources of revenues and extended support schemes therefore remains.
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The engagement of people in extremely low-wage work in major cities of the Global South and their withdrawal from labour-organising activities arise from several factors. Among these is the hegemonic ...meaning construction of work as ‘timepass’ or leisure and as an opportunity for sociality and neighbourliness that is central to the social reproduction of everyday life. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Delhi, this article examines how work regimes are marked by a ‘commission economy’, whereby various stakeholders in the chain of surplus accumulation demand a commission for their services. The possibility of undertaking informal economic activities is contingent on a host of improvisations that are founded upon discipline, violence and also solidarity. In this respect, various stakeholders possess what they refer to as a ‘setting’, which alludes to an active process of economic and non-economic relationship-building with both state and non-state agencies within both formal and informal arenas. To ‘do setting’ is a dynamic spatial process that draws on negotiations with the aim of shaping favourable relationships and outcomes in particular urban spaces. It entails the use of social and cultural resources, everyday political negotiations and extra-judicial solutions.
Abstract
The paper looks at contracts and contract law as a place of both commodification and resistance to commodification. Commodification and contract are connected through the lens of
...flexibilisation
, seen in particular as one party’s unilateral prerogative to adapt the content of the contract’s performance. Flexibilisation in this sense works to entrench the market mechanism (
qua
responsiveness to price and demand dynamics) in situations where marketisation makes the realisation of long-term human needs rely on the short-term horizon of market operations. Two such contexts of marketisation in the context of European Private Law are considered as examples, namely transfer of enterprise and acquisition of a (household) customer portfolio in energy markets. The paper argues that ‘taking contractual equality seriously’ can contribute to decommodification – or at least throw some sand in the wheels of commodification.
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