Powering a Revolution: The Potential of Carnot Batteries in the Built Environment

The world needs reliable, sustainable, and longer duration energy storage solutions as the share of intermittent renewable energy increases in energy systems. Carnot batteries are a promising, emerging technological class of energy storage that store electricity in the form of thermal exergy. They can be made from abundant materials and existing...

Chances for the upscaling of living-cost neutral renovations in the Netherlands

Many multi-owned condominiums need an energy renovation, but in practice the number of such renovations is low. Dutch policy emphasizes the need to search for cost-neutral renovation solutions. This study therefore examined how the number of living-cost neutral renovations of buildings owned by assemblies of homeowners in the Netherlands can be...

Policy instruments for energy-efficient renovations at district level

IEA EBC Annex 75 aims to investigate, amongst other policy for reducing carbon emissions and energy use in buildings at district level, combining both energy efficiency measures and renewable energy measures. Particularly policy instruments deployed at the local level targeting owners and investors could increase residential building renovation...

Offshore wind + Energy Storage: Selection and design of energy storage for the integration of offshore wind energy in the future Dutch electricity system

The Dutch government has set out to largely reach reductions in carbon emissions in the electricity sector with the utilization of offshore wind energy. Due to the intermittency of wind energy this poses new problems and challenges for the future electricity system in the Netherlands. The objective of this report is to identify the challenges...

Warping NMPC for online generation and tracking of optimal trajectories

Generation of feasible and optimal reference trajectories is crucial in tracking Nonlinear Model Predictive Control. Especially, for stability and optimality in presence of a time varying parameter, adaptation of the tracking trajectory has to be implemented. General approaches are real-time generation of trajectories or switching between a...

The geopolitics of renewables: A mere shift or landslide in energy dependencies?

Renewable energy sources are often hailed as the panacea for a plethora of challenges associated with the use of fossil fuels. Partly for good reasons; while the utilization of renewables diminishes energy scarcity and lowers various kinds of pollution, their potential to address energy related geopolitical tensions among producer, consumer, and...

Keeping an eye on reliability: The organizational requirements of future renewable energy systems

The reliable operation of energy infrastructures is more than just a technical matter. It is also dependent upon the organizational structure that enables and constrains entities in their management of operations. Yet this lesson seems forgotten in our planning of future renewable energy systems. There, focus is on technical development, market...