The concept of coproduction has been explored in combined heat and power applications. It is a method of improving the efficiency of the energy generating system by utilising waste heat. In the coming years hydrogen is expected to play an important role in decarbonization as it does not emit greenhouse gas at the point of application. Hydrogen today is primarily generated from fossil fuels and the processes of producing hydrogen are energy intensive, while also emitting large quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As the amount of hydrogen generated today is limited, it has restricted the growth of industries such as the automobile industries producing fuel cell vehicles that are to use hydrogen as fuel. In this thesis report a coproduction concept using high temperature molten carbonate fuel cell has been examined. The molten carbonate fuel cells operate at very high temperature, and it is possible to utilise the waste heat for internal reforming reaction of a fuel such as natural gas to liberate hydrogen required by the fuel cell. Excess hydrogen can also be produced from such fuel cell systems when the fuel utilisation in the fuel cell is reduced. This concept has been studied with solid oxide fuel cells and a paper published in 2008 by Hemmes et al. titled "Flexible Coproduction of Hydrogen and Power Using Internal Reforming Solid Oxide Fuel Cells System" has served as the inspiration for this thesis report. Three modes of operations have been simulated in this thesis on the Cycle-Tempo software with varying fuel utilisations, similar to what has been shown with the solid oxide fuel cells in that paper. With molten carbonate fuel cells, overall efficiency of up to 80% was obtained in terms of electricity and hydrogen coproduction. By doing so it is also possible to produce overall power output of nearly three times than what can be achieved by conventional electricity production. The results obtained have also been compared with the solid oxide fuel cells in this report. While high coproduction efficiencies for flexibly coproducing hydrogen and power have been shown to be possible, other factors would also play important roles in the success of this technology. In this report some of those factors such as the status and expected growth of the hydrogen market, molten carbonate fuel cell market, role of actors, role of policy makers have also been examined. As this technology does rely on a fossil fuel that is natural gas, the benefits of using natural gas in hydrogen production has also been highlighted along with the positive effects these systems could have on the society. ... Read more

Since the ratification of and commitments made under the COP 21 summit, we have witnessed an increase towards implementing and utilizing renewable technologies in our energy mix. The global cumulative installed wind energy capacity in 2017 surpassed 540 GW, which is an increase of over 173% compared to 2010 levels. At the same time, Solar PV technology has also experienced a significant cost reduction, and the global installed capacity was 500 GW in 2018. Despite rapid development and growth, the overall contribution on the global energy scene is still limited. Fossil fuels still dominates the global energy supply, and are likely to do so in the coming years. This thesis explores the potential upside of considering synergies in the offshore domain, in order to further expand the diffusion of renewable technologies. ... Read more

Since the Netherlands possesses the largest natural gas reserve in Western Europe, most households depend on this resource for their heat provision. Of the total consumption of natural gas, 51% is used for heat provision to households. Both social problems with earthquakes related to natural gas exploitation and environmental problems with greenhouse gas emissions, challenge the country to find alternatives. One of these alternatives is using district heating in combination with renewable heat generation. Where district heating is already present, public resistance highlights price and inflexibility as unjust – as perceived by the monopolistic infrastructure (Janssen, 2015; Mulder, Paping, & Huis in 't Veld, 2014). While customers perceive injustice on one hand, on the other hand district heating is being considered as one of the alternatives for natural gas provision during the so called ‘heat transition’. Hence, the problem of injustice would affect more and more residents. Different types of ownership of district heating networks (e.g. private, public, cooperative) may offer opportunities to overcome or manage some of these downsides and improve the perceived energy justice. Considering this, the following question was researched: what ownership structures for new district heating systems would Utrecht residents prefer? Perceived energy justice is taken as a core concept supporting the preferences of Utrecht residents. The identified ownership types (public, private and cooperative) are comparatively reviewed by expert interviews on their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats influencing their success in the heat transition. It was found that (1) there are external factors influencing all ownership types equally (like tax increase), (2) the institutional context often influences ownership structures contrastingly (e.g. market tradition). Also it was found that arguments in favour of private ownership often included business-oriented reasons. Arguments in favour of cooperative ownership often included influence-oriented reasons. Argument in favour of public ownership often included social-oriented reasons. Mixed ownership arguments often argue that – possibly – win-win situations occur, but at the cost of increasing transactions costs. The design space and its insights on ownership types, are used to perform an online survey to explore energy justice within residents (N=198). Respondents having higher education level than the average Utrecht population and a lower percentage of respondents living in social housing (-32%) limit the sample’s representativeness. Also, generalisability for places and neighbourhoods where less apartments are present, is limited (52% of respondents lived in apartments). We found indication (Figure 1 Ownership preferencesFigure 1) that most respondents appreciate the role of public organisations (e.g. public electricity grid operators and municipalities). Findings also suggest that network activities are the most suited for public ownership. Energy companies were most selected (61%) for the ownership of the generation activities. While community-owned heat cooperatives offer opportunities to enhance justice, this model was selected fewer times (45%-50%). Linking the energy justice preferences with the direct preferences on ownership it is concluded that three ownership structures are preferred (‘three streams’): integrated public ownership, competition on public network and integrated cooperative ownership. Within the context of the heat transition, we expect increasing the public influence – aiming for equal responsibility, socialised cost and benefits – would best address perceived injustice in new district heating monopolies. We also expect that in well-defined spatial communities, integrated heat cooperatives could offer perceived justice of the district heating natural monopoly. Thus far, aiming for competition was found to be limited due to the high costs. Despite being preferred, it seems to be less feasible (R. Haffner et al., 2016). ... Read more

India is a country constantly grappling with problems of impeded rural development. Energy, in particular sustainable energy can be seen as key to attain the Sustainable Development Goals set out by the U.N. Integration of rural sectors can be seen as a methodology to broaden the potential achievement of the targetted Sustainable Development Goals. This thesis report aims at providing multi-purpose systems as a result of energy focused integration of sectors for augmenting rural development in India. The main research question of the thesis was ’Having recognized the importance of systems thinking, how can energy focussed Integration of Sectors provide directions to overcome the problem of impeded rural development in India?’. Top-Down knowledge gaps are prevalent in India for such integrative techniques, thus requiring attention to primarily to make integration of sectors a reality in India, thus the thesis has a core around marking out potential barriers which could be faced by such sector integrated techniques to break into the Indian market and policy while discussing the obstacles to implementation of such solutions. Furthermore another important aspect of the thesis lays out some plausible solutions to these barriers and obstacles. ... Read more

Low-grade heat sources are abundant on earth but are majorly untapped due to lower thermodynamic efficiency at low temperatures and cost considerations. A cost-effective technology is needed to convert this energy resource into useful forms of energy. This work aims at optimizing Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) based heat engine and a cogeneration system developed to produce electricity and refrigeration from a heat source below 100℃, from both thermodynamic and economic point of view. Exergoeconomics, an algebraic thermoeconomic method, was used to analyze and optimize the systems for cost-effectiveness and exergetic efficiency. Also, the prototype of the cogeneration system was experimentally tested. The results exergoeconomic optimization show that the cost-effectiveness of the cogeneration system can be significantly improved by design parameter changes. The experimental results obtained were comparable with the results obtained from theoretical simulations. ... Read more