Policies and Programs for Sustainable Energy Innovations

This chapter reviews energy policy supporting diffusion of renewable energy (RE) and describes different types of available RE. The increased level of carbon dioxide is the main cause of the “Global Warming Effect.” One suggested solution to global warming is to replace the current energy technologies with alternatives that have similar or even better performance, but do not emit greenhouse gases (GHGs). Beside environmental concerns, energy availability concerns and political pressure have prompted governments to look for alternative energy resources that can minimize the undesirable effects for current energy systems. Shifting away from the conventional fuel resources and increasing the percentage of generated electricity from renewable resources is an opportunity to guarantee lower (CO₂) emissions and to create better economic opportunities for the United States. RE resources offer a good alternative for the current fossil fuel system with its minimal impact on the environment and unlimited availability. Even with the fact that a diversity of renewable energy resources available in the United States and the development of the technologies themselves are more mature, the use of such resources is still very limited in the United States, but as the fossil fuel system is deteriorating with price increase and supply scarcity the transition to a new era of renewable energy is inevitable (Energy Policy 31:353–367, 2003). Policy can play an important role in promoting the penetration of renewable energies (Energy Policy 39:4726–4741, 2011). This chapter discusses the available policies that can promote RE adoption and deployment as well as the available technologies and literature assessing that adoption.

The term Northwest in the United States is used loosely to indicate the area between the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, northern California, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. In the heart of Northwest are two states (Oregon and Washington) bordering the Pacific Ocean and are geographically and culturally similar, those two cities are referred to as the Pacific Northwest. The State of Oregon has been strategically weighing energy demand, supply, and resources to give Oregonians a more sustainable and convenient energy future. Renewable energy is perceived by the Oregonians as a source of energy independence, rural community development, and cleaner air. After the oil crises in 1973, Governor Tom McCall launched an emergency energy conservation program and in 1975 The Oregon Department of Energy (ODOE) was established to support energy conservation and renewable energy policy planning. Many of these policies and plans are still active until today but with some modifications over time. Another crisis that hit the Pacific Northwest was the low rain levels in the years 2000–2001 which lead to lower hydropower year and increased electricity demand with few power plants being built.

This chapter is to use MCDM technique to assess the degree of impact and effectiveness of different renewable energy policies on wind energy deployment in the power generation sector in the State of Oregon. There are a wide array of federal and state policies that are designed to increase the benefits and demolish barriers and hence encourage investors and customers to adopt new resources. This multidimensional issue can be seen as a multi-criteria decision-making problem. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) provide a flexible tool that is able to handle and connect a wide range of variables and thus offer useful assistance to the decision maker in mapping out the situation.

This chapter assesses the value of the wind resources in the Punjab area, Pakistan. Pakistan is an energy-deficient country having enormous potential of electricity generation from wind energy. Government of Pakistan (GoP) has taken firm measures to initiate wind power projects in Pakistan. A satellite mapping conducted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL), USA estimated a gross potential of 132 GW that can be exploited to generate wind energy all across the country. The most promising wind corridor of Gharo‐Keti Bandar in southern coastal region offers a potential of 50 GW. The wind resource map developed by NREL also highlights wind potential in the upper Punjab and Balochistan. However, these regions are still not investigated and explored for wind potential due to unavailability of bankable wind data. Lack of credible wind resource data is considered the major reason towards underutilization of wind energy.

This chapter presents an investigation to validate the potential wind resources in the Punjab province. A wind strip is marked in the NREL map in the Punjab which shows good wind regime in the areas of the upper Punjab. To validate and verify the NREL assessment, a suitable site in the Kalar Kahar region of the Punjab province was selected and an IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) standard wind measuring mast was installed. Wind data was gathered for a period of 2 years and has been analyzed using Wind Atlas Analysis and Application Program (WAsP) software. This script presents the information about the site, mast installed, wind data received, and treatment of wind data as per international practices. The results of wind resource assessment were compared with the results shown in the NREL map and percentage difference is calculated. On the basis of comparison, conclusions and recommendations are derived for future deployment of wind energy projects in the Punjab region.

The use of biomass to generate heat, energy, and petroleum substitutes such as bio-oil or bio-crude has showed much promise as a tool for reducing our reliance on imported oil and reducing the world’s total carbon output through carbon recycling. This chapter provides a case of technology assessment of biomass conversion technologies assuming a hypothetical organization, Green Tech. The chapter outlines the steps on how Green Tech went from defining a problem to performing a gap analysis, defining requirements, identifying selection criteria, and finally performing a cost–benefit analysis on three biomass conversion technologies.

Bio-fuel energy can be defined as an alternative source of energy due to being sustainable in both producing energy at a lower price and avoiding exceeding carbon dioxide emission into the atmosphere. The most common worldwide types of bio-fuel are bio-diesel and ethanol. There are many methods to understand how and why technologies are accepted in a country. This report reviews bio-fuel adoption relative to political, cultural, technical, environmental, and economic perspectives for the two largest bio-fuel producers, Brazil and the United States. The research approach is to review the successful bio-fuel adoption in Brazil and ultimately to understand if any of these practices can be applied to the United States. The lessons learned from Brazil could be used by the United States to promote more widespread use of bio-fuel, with the long-term objective of being an “oil-independent” nation in the future.

In order to accommodate the growing demand for hot water and the possibility of using an alternative district heating source, Portland State University (PSU) was trying to identify and evaluate future fuel sources for its campus through an objective process. This paper is focused toward developing an evaluation model to identify the most feasible fuel option for PSU’s district heating purposes. The study evaluates three fuel alternatives using the Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM) together with the Technology Valuation (TV) Model. The three fuels evaluated are natural gas, marine diesel oil, and pyrolysis oil. It is determined from the model using expert responses that natural gas is the preferred alternative. The highest weighting for the criteria was associated with cost while the lowest weighting was associated with environment.

This chapter demonstrates an assessment approach of fuel alternatives of commercial heating system. HDM and TV Model are used to evaluate three fuels for heating system of PSU’s campus. The campus consists of approximately 60 buildings on 50 acres of land. The main heating system that PSU currently relies on consists of two heating plants with seven natural gas fired boilers. In addition, a 2.5 MW diesel fired turbine was installed in the university’s newest building in 2006. The campus also has seven small natural gas fired boilers that serve individual buildings in the area for PSU residents. On average, PSU’s heating system is required 8 months of the year for approximately 14 h a day, 6 days a week. The evaluation model utilizes different factors and expert’s subject judgments.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the adoption and aggregated diffusion of solar electric systems in the residential sector. The goal of this paper is to try answer the following questions using an Agent-Based Model (ABM):

The model could be used by electric utility companies, energy program administrators, and government and state agencies for planning purposes.

International energy investors are interested in investing new markets where there is a possibility of constructing a portfolio composed of fossil and renewable energies. Capital allocation decision is to be made considering the sociopolitical effects caused. Hence the market is analyzed in terms of production possibilities, price volatility, and social acceptance. The portfolio with maximum possible revenue is to be created with the least environmental effect and the smallest technological risks. This study offers a weighted goal programming (WGP) model, where the weights are calculated using Analytical Network Planning (ANP). Case study is realized in Turkey, because the Turkish electricity market is experiencing significant structural changes and a rapid transformation process. Liberalization and constantly increasing electricity demand in the country have drawn a lot of interest. The same model can be applied in any country by changing the energy resources and country-based criteria.

This chapter presents a number of energy efficiency technologies that currently make up energy efficiency technology inventory of Bonneville power Administration (BPA). In Sect. 10.2, you will be presented with regional efforts toward uncovering the next generation of energy efficiency technologies along with a technology management framework that is currently being used in the region. In Sect. 10.3, you will also be presented with a list of prior energy efficiency technologies that has come out as an output of aforesaid framework and the full list of technologies that are currently being assessed.

Nature of resource planning has changed dramatically since 1970s due to increased diversity in resource options such as renewable alternatives, demand-side management, space conditioning, cogeneration of heat and electricity in industrial applications, and deregulation of the energy market. Along with that new objectives have been added to the utilities’ decision-making processes beyond cost minimization (Hobbs, Eur. J. Oper. Res., 83:1–20, 1995). Moreover; technological development, instability in fuel markets, and government regulations are taking place faster than ever before and as a result complexity and uncertainty involved in decision-making practices have become increasingly significant. This chapter provides an approach based on hierarchical decision modeling to consider new factors in evaluating energy efficiency technologies.

Focus on encouraging the adoption of residential energy efficient appliances over recent years has resulted in major energy savings. Even though clothes dryers account for approximately 4 % of residential energy use in the USA, there is still no energy efficient clothes dryer in the market. There has been a lot of focus recently on the development of energy efficient clothes dryers; however, there is limited research on consumer preferences when purchasing a clothes dryer. These preferences should be taken into account when developing the new clothes dryer technology that may aid in encouraging adoption. This study utilizes the Hierarchical Decision Model (HDM) to capture consumer preferences and to capture the perception of manufacturers on what they think the consumer preferences are. Energy efficiency experts are used to quantify the sub-criteria for each technology and the resulting technology preferences are determined. The two highest consumer preferences were the purchase and installation cost and the operating lifetime. The results for the consumers and the manufacturers mainly align, except for the importance of potential savings, drying cycle time, and operating lifetime. It is determined that the most preferred technology is moisture and temperature sensors for clothes dryers; however, the overall scores for each technology were relatively close to one another.

In the US in 2009, almost 80 % of households had clothes dryers, of which approximately 80 % of the clothes dryers were electric (ENERGY STAR Market & Industry Scoping Report: Residential Clothes Dryers, 2011). Due to the large market of clothes dryers and the current inefficient dryer options in the US, focus has shifted on improving clothes dryer efficiency. The Energy Star Market and Industry Scoping Report (ENERGY STAR Market & Industry Scoping Report: Residential Clothes Dryers, 2011) evaluated potential savings options for clothes dryers, which included the drum, motor, dryer control, heat recovery, heat generation, and several other options. These potential clothes dryer feature upgrades are discussed under the clothes dryer adoption study section of this report.

Understanding the barriers associated with the lack of adoption of energy efficient technologies in the residential sector has always been an area of major focus. In order to encourage the adoption of these technologies, it is important to first understand what is currently needed, what the current status to meeting these needs are, and then determining the gaps between the current status and needs. These gaps can be used to determine what is possibly restricting the adoption of the technology, and solutions can be determined that can potentially close these gaps. One such energy efficient technology that has been an area of focus is energy efficient furnace fan motors. This study looks at the current technical, organizational, and personal gaps associated with this technology and determines the positive and negative influences restricting adoption. Solutions to the gaps are then identified and are specified as guides to help change negative influences to positive influences. The second section of this study is a bibliometric analysis used to evaluate the current R&D status of the three main technologies currently available in the market. Both journal articles and patents are associated with the respective stages of R&D to determine the specialization of different countries with respect to the technology and to determine the progress over time of the technology in each of the first three R&D stages. The purpose of this study is therefore to evaluate the technology from the R&D perspective as well as the market perspective. Finally, a link between the current R&D status and the technical requirements of the market is identified.

Depleting energy sources is alarming many governments, organizations, and companies to set ambitious goals to reduce their energy use over the next few years. Buildings consume significant portion of energy. One of the most practical strategies to reduce buildings’ demand for energy is by avoiding heat losses and implementing energy saving measures. Today’s high performance insulation and thermal design can dramatically reduce heat losses. Many technical solutions are already available and applied across all regions, both in new build and renovation. The choice of the most appropriate insulation product has to be decided on a case-by-case basis as it largely depends on the building type and design and climate zone. This paper conducts technology assessment for different type of insulation technology that fits different construction application. Traditional and modern insulation technology has been discussed across this research. R&D recommendations are presented in the conclusion section of this report for improving manufacturing process of new high performance insulation materials to be able to compete in the insulation market.