Energy conservation (EC) has been taken as basic state policy in China for more than 20 years and China achieves 3.9% annual energy saving from 1980 to 2005. In 2006 China Central Government firstly set up a binding target of reducing GDP energy intensity by 20% in its 11th Five-Year-Plan (FYP)....

Various Rankine cycle architectures for single fluids and other improved versions operating with ammonia/water mixture are presented in this paper. Untapped heat resources and their potential for driving organic Rankine cycles are outlined. The nature – state and temperature of the heat source...

This paper presents an overview of the absorption cycles proposed in the literature for producing combined power and cooling. The dual output nature of these cycles makes it difficult to evaluate their performance so the various criteria used in the literature are presented and discussed. A...

A major focus of the current energy debate is how to meet the future demand for electricity. Conservation in buildings and industry, and conversion of utility central station capacity to alternate fuels will play a major role in meeting this demand. But cost-effective conservation measures can...

This paper presents an overview of the technical and economic aspects, as well as the market evolution of the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC). This is an unconventional but very promising technology for the conversion of thermal energy, at low and medium temperatures, into electrical and/or...

Vapour absorption heat transformers are thermodynamic cycles which are capable of upgrading the temperature of waste heat energy using only negligible quantities of electrical energy. Although marked as a future technology by the IEA (International Energy Agency), as being important for energy...

Scientific evidence suggests important discrepancies between simulated and real energy performance of buildings. This is exacerbated in developing countries, such as Saudi Arabia, by the reliance on leading international building environmental and sustainability assessment schemes (e.g. BREEAM...

Energy economy restructuring at the city level is an essential prong in any strategy that aims to address the dual energy and climate change challenges. Cities form hubs of human activity that are accompanied by high levels of energy consumption and emissions but also contain existing resources...

This paper describes ESCO approaches and business models for biomass heating and CHP generation. State of the art, policy measures and main barriers towards the implementation of such ESCO operations in Italy are discussed. Moreover, on the basis of the proposed framework, representative case...

Renewable energy sources (RES) will have to play the main role in moving towards sustainable economic development. Talking about the perspectives of the use of solar energy, it is evident that the main market is decided by the consumer. The most important problem, determining the slow absorption...