Designing Energy Partnership between Users and Intermittently Powered Device

Today's mobile devices powered by batteries have kept feeding users endless entertainment and convenience, whereas always accompanied by some unfavorable experiences that is 'Always have to recharge'. The puzzle of battery life has been an inevitable limitation that could probably degrade user experience, even though smartphones, smart homes,...

Strategy to Transition from an Intermittent to a Continuous Water Supply Using a District Metering Area Approach

In this thesis, I develop and evaluate a demand-side approach to transition from an intermittent to a continuous water supply using a district metered areas approach in Accra, Ghana, an urban metroplex of 4.0 million persons in western Africa. Intermittent water supply (IWS) is inherently inefficient. These systems foment health hazards and are...

Future Energy Carriers in Office Buildings: Techno-economic assessment of integrated energy and mobility systems

In the energy transition the expansion of the amount of renewable energy resources requires new methods for the design of energy systems. To deal with intermittent energy production, different energy technologies and solutions are in development. Hydrogen is a main candidate for this goal. Using Fuel Cell or Battery Electric Vehicles as flexible...

Testing Intermittent Battery-free Systems

Existing tools for debugging battery-free applications are limited to specific architectures or require code changes of the Device Under Test (DUT) to function. These tools also cannot measure the efficiency of the application designed for battery-free systems. Currently, there is a lack of independent broad comparisons of intermittent systems....

Intermittent Kernel: A First Attempt

Energy harvesting and battery-free sensing devices show great promise for revolutionizing computing in every known area while expanding to non-conventional use-cases. The promise of cheap, dense, and ubiquitous sensing technology brings new applications for the Internet of Things. However, the future programming model is blurry and complex. With...

Opening and closure of intermittently open natural inlets

Tidal inlet systems are found all over the world. These highly dynamic coastal features can be classified into three main types wave-dominated, tide-dominated or river-dominated tidal inlet systems. A tidal inlet is described as an opening in the shoreline that provides a connection between the ocean and a bay and is maintained by tidal currents...

The feasibility of the energy-only market in a highly renewable European power system

The Netherlands policy on electricity steers towards a carbon neutral power generation in 2050. Among<br/>the studies that focus on long term power system research, none use the starting point of a 100%<br/>renewable power system in 2050. It is unknown if such a system is technically feasible given the<br/>variability of wind and solar. The...

CardioSync: Heartbeat-Based BLE Synchronization for Batteryless IoT Devices

Batteryless Internet of Things (IoT) devices powered by energy harvesting enable sustainable and maintenance-free operation, but face challenges in achieving synchronised bidirectional communication between intermittently-powered nodes. This thesis presents CardioSync, a novel framework that leverages the human heartbeat as a shared clock to...

Modeling the interplay between storage and flexibility in power systems

The need for a more resource-efficient and low-carbon electricity sector has boosted the integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in power systems, especially of wind and solar energy. However, their intermittent output hinders the match of electricity demand and supply which is required for the smooth operation of the electricity grid....

Energy flatness in the renovation of non-residential existing buildings: Reducing the energy mismatch between demand and supply in the Gemini south building

The building sector uses 40% of the primary energy worldwide. Energy demand in a non-residential existing building is rising due to higher comfort conditions, population growth and the enhancement of the building services. On the other hand, renewable energy technologies are every time more accessible for the built environment, especially the...

Optimizing Connection Establishment and Parameter Adaptation in Bluetooth Low-Energy for Intermittently-powered Devices

The growing field of research into batteryless or intermittent systems has enabled Internet of Things applications that were previously impossible. For example, the FreeBie system recently introduced Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE)<br/>to intermittent devices, making medium to long range bi-directional communication a reality for the first time....

Debugging Intermittently-Powered Embedded Systems Like Any Other Embedded System

Debugging and testing battery-free intermittently-powered systems is notoriously difficult. This is not only due to the additional complexity of maintaining state through power failures but also due to the lack of proper tools to test and debug these systems. As a solution, we present DIPS: a fully-featured hardware debugger for battery-free...

Determinants of profitability in the Dutch positive balancing power market: A case study at AkzoNobel

Intermittent generation behaviour of wind and solar power units requires Transmission System Operators (TSOs) to activate balancing power to maintain a stable grid frequency. With the current strong growth in installed renewable energy capacity in The Netherlands, it is therefore expected that the volumes of activated balancing power will grow...

A new approach in optimal sensor placement for smart hydraulic monitoring in intermittent water supply (IWS) systems: A technical and financial analysis of the use of flow and pressure meters to detect hidden leaks in large cities in sub-Saharan Africa

This thesis proposes a novel design approach for a monitoring system that can detect hidden leaks in intermittent water supply (IWS) systems. Cities with IWS conditions in their drinking water network, such as Nairobi and Harare, often have a high percentage of non-revenue water (NRW) in their system. Estimations of the amount of NRW in these...

Two-dimensional ice-structure interaction for offshore wind turbines

With the Paris climate accords signed in 2016, most countries have committed themselves to ambitious climate targets during the next decades. One of these targets is a dramatic increase in the overall energy portfolio's market share of renewable energies. This increase in renewable market share will, for a large part, consist of newly built...