Post-COVID-19 energy transition strategies: even reaching 100% renewable in Ecuador by 2055 is not enough to face climate change issue

The pandemic scenario caused by Covid-19 generated negative impacts. Covid-19 has made it clear that our daily lives depend to a high degree on access to energy. Therefore, now more than ever, it is necessary to promote new activities such as local food production, but also local energy capture. This article is an attempt to expose and quantify the benefits of a renewable energy transition in Ecuador post Covid-19 and post-oil. The generation, consumption, and reserves of oil in Ecuador were characterized, and the concept of energy transition was applied to evaluate the possibilities of integration of renewables, the progressive exit of thermal power plants, and future energy strategies. The year 2015 was taken as a basis and it was determined that energy use was 154.0 TWh / year, which corresponds to an end-user of approximately 147 TWh / year. The objective was to reduce this end-use demand to 80.0 TWh/year by 2055 through the integration of renewables and energy efficiency, for which 5 transition phases were planned until a 100% renewable system was obtained. It is concluded that the energy transition in Ecuador is technically possible and economically viable, without giving up the energy well-being that we currently enjoy. However, results show that even 100% renewable is not enough to face climate change.

Global economic crisis, energy use, CO2 emissions, and policy roadmap amid COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as one of the deadliest infectious diseases on the planet. Millions of people and businesses have been placed in lockdown where the main aim is to stop the spread of the virus. As an extreme phenomenon, the lockdown has triggered a global economic shock at an alarming pace, conveying sharp recessions for many countries. In the meantime, the lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have drastically changed energy consumption patterns and reduced CO2 emissions throughout the world. Recent data released by the International Monetary Fund and International Energy Agency for 2020 further forecast that emissions will rebound in 2021. Still, the full impact of COVID-19 in terms of how long the crisis will be and how the consumption pattern of energy and the associated levels of CO2 emissions will be affected are unclear. This review aims to steer policymakers and governments of nations toward a better direction by providing a broad and convincing overview on the observed and likely impacts of the pandemic of COVID-19 on the world economy, world energy demand, and world energy-related CO2 emissions that may well emerge in the next few years. Indeed, given that immediate policy responses are required with equal urgency to address three things-pandemic, economic downturn, and climate crisis. This study outlines policy suggestions that can be used during these uncertain times as a guide.

Hourly based methods to assess carbon footprint flexibility and primary energy use in decarbonized buildings

Constant emission factors to assess the carbon footprint of buildings energy use, as usually included in national Building Technical Codes, show their limitations since the electrical grid mix changes constantly. For this reason, hourly-based methods using time-varying penalty signals to calculate carbon emissions and primary energy use in buildings constitute more effective assessment methods, especially with the aim to activate energy flexibility in buildings based on those inputs. Such signals have been developed and tested in the present work. The robustness and effectiveness of the methods is tested throughout two study cases. The first case compares the impact of using hourly signals over constant factors from the standards. For that purpose, a measured aggregated consumption profile corresponding to 226 real households is analyzed. In the second study case, demand response is implemented through control strategies reacting to the hourly penalty signals, aiming to decrease the emissions, primary energy use and cost. Results for the first case reveal that hourly rates better capture the variability of the electric grid compared to constant yearly factors from national standards, with a 50% difference in carbon emissions and a 20% overestimation with primary energy. Results from the second study case show how the implemented modulation strategies offer benefits in the flexible scenarios compared to the base scenarios, in terms of accumulated emissions or primary energy. Improvements are especially perceived when splitting data seasonally and considering periods with higher demand. Furthermore, this study provides insights for developing energy flexibility inputs when assessing the building performance during critical events such as the COVID19 pandemic or extreme weather conditions, where hourly and seasonal variation might have greater impact. Demand response mechanisms as energy flexibility strategies studied through this work might help in the reduction of total emissions and primary energy. Depending if the goal is to shift the demand due to environmental or economical reasons, different modulation strategies can be implemented to reach greater benefits.

Indoor Air Quality during Lockdown: A Monitoring-based Simulation-assisted Study in London

The Covid-19 outbreak has resulted in new patterns of home occupancy, the implications of which for indoor air quality (IAQ) and energy use are not well-known. In this context, the present study investigates 8 flats in London to uncover if during a lockdown, (a) IAQ in the monitored flats deteriorated, (b) the patterns of window operation by occupants changed, and (c) more effective ventilation patterns could enhance IAQ without significant increases in heating energy demand. To this end, one-year's worth of monitored data on indoor and outdoor environment along with occupant use of windows has been used to analyse the impact of lockdown on IAQ. Moreover, using on-site CO2 data, monitored occupancy and operation of windows, the team has calibrated a thermal performance model of one of the flats to investigate the implications of alternative ventilation strategies. The results suggest that despite the extended occupancy during lockdown, occupants relied less on natural ventilation, which led to significantly higher CO2 and PM10 concentrations. However, simple natural ventilation patterns or use of mechanical ventilation with heat recovery proves to be very effective to maintain acceptable IAQ. © International Building Performance Simulation Association, 2022

How do buildings adapt to changing occupancy? A natural experiment

Most office buildings regulate their indoor climate through conservative setpoints and schedules based on maximum occupancy. However, the occupancy of most office buildings rarely exceeds 50%. Buildings' lack of adaptability to partial occupancy exacts a toll on their energy use by providing building services excessively and inefficiently. Largely vacant office buildings left in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic present a natural experiment to evaluate the extent of this problem. Three-parameter univariate changepoint models were employed to estimate the change in energy use before and during the pandemic in two institutional office buildings: one with occupancy-based ventilation, and one with traditional ventilation. A calibrated energy model was developed for the traditional building to determine how much energy could have been saved if occupancy-based ventilation was implemented. It was found that the building could have saved up to 32% and 12% for heating and cooling, respectively, in the pre-pandemic period alone. © International Building Performance Simulation Association, 2022

Investigating the N-shaped EKC in China: An imperious role of energy use and health expenditures

Since the industrial revolution, the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) has been steadily increasing. Notably, China emitted 27% of the world's GHGs in 2019, making it the world's most significant contributor to climate degradation. The key objectives of this investigation are to ascertain the N-shaped association between CO2 emissions and economic growth in the presence of energy use and domestic government health expenditures. Besides, the research inspected the role of the Belt and Road Initiative through economic globalization in China. The study utilized the Autoregressive Distributed Lag model and found that N-shaped EKC exists in China. Furthermore, the study discovered that economic globalization improves ecological excellence in the short run. Nonetheless, energy consumption and health expenditures considerably amplify the intensity of CO2 emanation in China in the long run. The research suggested that installing green industry through economic globalization can imperatively lessen environmental degradation. Moreover, installing technological firms will be more beneficial in the long run to overcome environmental degradation rather than importing from other countries. The study elaborated momentous causation effects among the study variables through the Granger causality test.

A framework for determining energy use in rural food delivery services: capturing system interdependencies through an agent-based discrete-event approach

Food e-commerce has seen significant growth over the past decade that accelerated after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last-mile transportation and logistics are widely considered the most expensive and least efficient portion of the supply chain and have multiple important energy trade-offs such as cargo capacity and consumer density. Last-mile transportation energy use in rural areas is underrepresented in the literature. This study proposes a hybrid agent-based and discrete event model framework for evaluating the last-mile transportation energy use of van- and car-based food delivery services in a rural community, based on meal-kit and grocery delivery operations, respectively. This framework quantifies last-mile energy use in rural areas, and is demonstrated here using a neighborhood outside of Austin, TX as an analytical testbed. The study focuses on the effects of consumer density, cargo limitations, and vehicle speed. For the conditions examined with this framework, diesel delivery vans use more total energy than passenger cars for the same trip, though a van delivering four orders uses less energy per-order than a car delivering one order. However, there are trade-offs between vehicle type and mileage, cargo capacity, route density, and speed that are particularly important for delivery services operating in rural areas. This framework can be used by service providers to assess route-specific trade-offs for each vehicle and gauge which is preferable for given operating conditions or to evaluate the energy, and thus also cost, impact of expanding their services to rural areas.

Combined Effect of Changes in Transit Service and Changes in Occupancy on Per-Passenger Energy Consumption

Many transit providers changed their schedules and route configurations during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing more frequent bus service on major routes and curtailing other routes, to reduce the risk of COVID-19 exposure. This research first assessed the changes in Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) service configurations by reviewing the prepandemic versus during-pandemic General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) files. Energy use per route for a typical week was calculated for pre-pandemic, during-closure, and post-closure periods by integrating GTFS data with MOVES-Matrix transit energy and emission rates (MOVES signifying MOtor Vehicle Emission Simulator). MARTA automated passenger counter data were appended to the routes, and energy use per passenger-mile was compared across routes for the three periods. The results showed that the coupled effect of transit frequency shift and ridership decrease from 2019 to 2020 increased route-level energy use for over 87% of the routes and per-passenger-mile energy use for over 98% of the routes. In 2021, although MARTA service had largely returned to pre-pandemic conditions, ridership remained in an early stage of recovery. Total energy use decreased to about pre-pandemic levels, but per-passenger energy use remained higher for more than 91% of routes. The results confirm that while total energy use is more closely associated with trip schedules and routes, perpassenger energy use depends on both trip service and ridership. The results also indicate a need for data-based transit planning, to help avoid inefficiency associated with over-provision of service or inadequate social distancing protection caused by under-provision of service. © National Academy of Sciences: Transportation Research Board 2022.

The impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on air pollution from energy consumption: diverse evidence from China

Based on panel data of 31 provincial capital cities in the country from January 21 to November 20, 2020, this research empirically analyzes the impacts of daily newly confirmed cases and daily new deaths from COVID-19 on PM10, PM2.5, SO2, CO, and NO2 emissions form green energy consumption by using the method of System Generalized Moments (SYS-GMM). We conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic has an inhibitory effect on all types of emissions, in that a greater number of confirmed cases and deaths brings about more stringent anti-epidemic policies, fewer emissions, and better air quality in China. Moreover, we use the methods of sample segmentation, cross-sectional regression, and pollutant emissions of the top three cities in terms of GDP to test their robustness. Overall, our evidence advances the debate over air quality after COVID-19, and that evidence from China provides beneficial experiences that correlate to its provincial data.

Innovation norms during COVID-19 and Indonesian hotel performance: Innovative energy use as a mediating variable

This study investigates the strategic effects of innovation norms—opportunity awareness and creative environment—to execute better innovative energy use and obtain better hotel performance during the COVID-19 outbreak. This exploration may shed light on the coping mechanism of hospitality business under the perspective of Resource-based Views. This study designed a survey, under the quantitative approach, to hotel managers in Makassar, Indonesia, resulting in a 204-response rate. The data was analyzed using the partial-least-square structural-equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings confirm the acceptance of all proposed hypotheses. Innovative norms—opportunity awareness and creative environment—are the foundation of executing energy-saving use in the organization. Finally, it mediates the relationship between innovation norms and hotel performance. This finding indicates the importance of green-innovative resources to mitigate the negative consequences of economic turbulence. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Developments and Trends in Energy Poverty Research—Literature Visualization Analysis Based on CiteSpace

The purpose of this paper is to help better understand the problem of energy poverty;to grasp the research context, evolution trends and research hotspots of energy poverty;and to find clues from research on energy poverty. In this paper, we use the scientific quantitative knowledge graph method and CiteSpace software to analyze 814 studies in the WOS (Web of Science) and CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) databases, such as a literature characteristic analysis, a core author and research institution network analysis, a research hotspot analysis, research trends and a frontier analysis. The results show that the specific connotations of energy poverty are different between developed countries and developing countries. In developed countries, energy poverty is mainly manifested in the affordability of energy consumption, while in developing countries, energy poverty is manifested in the availability of energy. The causes, impacts and solutions of energy poverty are the focus of CNKI and WOS literature, and their perspectives of the impacts and solutions are relatively consistent. However, in terms of the causes, scholars of WOS discuss the energy supply side and the demand side, while scholars of CNKI mainly analyze the energy demand side. The quantitative evaluation system of energy poverty has not been unified, which restricts the depth and breadth of energy poverty research. Topics such as the expanding scope of research objects;the interaction among energy poverty, the "two-carbon” target and other macro factors;the complex and severe energy poverty situation following the COVID-19 pandemic and the outbreak of the war in Ukraine;and the ways to solve the energy poverty problem in the context of China may become the focus of research in the future. This study provides an overview for researchers who are not familiar with the field of energy poverty, and provides reference and inspiration for future research of scholars in the field of energy poverty research. © 2023 by the authors.

MARGINAL GRID EMISSIONS AND PRIMARY ENERGY TO ACTIVATE DEMAND SIDE MANAGEMENT: COVID19 CASE STUDY

The construction of Marginal Emissions Factor (MEF) and Marginal Primary Energy Factor (MPEF) time series of the electricity grid can be used as an effective method to activate demand-side strategies in buildings and thus reducing their carbon footprint and primary energy use. The robustness of a method to calculate MEF and MPEF in function of the load and the share of renewables of the power grid is tested in the present work. The construction of the MEF and MPEF signals is applied to historical and pandemic data sets to investigate potential differences. A specific analysis in the period of the COVID-19. Daily profiles of the marginal and average emissions and primary energy during pandemic are compared with the pre-pandemic period. Preliminary results show that the full pandemic caused a reduced electricity demand by 13% with a reduction of overall assocaited MEF and MPEF of 50% and 35% respectively. Robustness of the methodology is measured by an average year correlation being 85% for pre-pandemic period, whereas pandemic periods reach about 70%. Demand response strategies as activated by the marginal signals can be used to reduce the carbon footprint and primary energy use of the built environment. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee AEIPRO, Spain.

In-situ comparison between the energy performance of an in-slab gas heating system and a split system air conditioning in classrooms

Sub-metered energy use of an in-slab gas hydronic heating system and a newly installed split system air conditioner in thermodynamically-equivalent classrooms are compared during unoccupied (with artificially imposed internal heat gains) and occupied periods. A preliminary comparison is also undertaken to quantify the heating penalty for the existing gas-fuelled hydronic heating systems when windows remain open (e.g. to comply with COVID-19 guidelines in schools) against the energy needed for heating by the same system in a control classroom with windows closed. The performance evaluation of the heating systems during three unoccupied days where internal heat gains were artificially imposed demonstrated that the gas hydronic system used 41.5 kWh of metered energy while the AC split system used 7.2 kWh, with the AC split system being able to maintain the internal conditions above the set point by operating for approximately-one third of the time the hydronic system was operating. Occupied tests confirmed the observations of the unoccupied tests of equivalent operation. Over a period of 2 occupied winter weeks, the in-slab gas hydronic heating system used 274.6 kWh of metered energy and operated for 35¼ hrs, while the AC split system used 34.7 kWh and operated for 22¼ hrs, albeit on some occasions the occupants in the AC split system's classroom chose not to turn on the system. After selecting days from this occupied period when both systems were used for long periods, it was observed that the AC split system used approximately 4 to 7 times less metered energy than the in-slab gas hydronic system (or 3.3 times in terms of primary energy when worse-case primary energy factors were used). Finally, from the preliminary test, the parallel measurements also confirmed that the additional ventilation in schools through opening of windows increases the energy use of the hydronic heating system;66.8 kWh were measured for heating needs over a period of 3-days as opposed to 25 kWh for the windows open and closed cases respectively. These precise values are, however dependent on the season and building type. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

Impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on China's tourism economy and green finance efficiency.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, production costs have grown, while human and economic resources have been reduced. COVID-19 epidemic costs can be reduced by implementing green financial policies, including carbon pricing, transferable green certificates, and green credit. In addition, China's tourist industry is a significant source of revenue for the government. Coronavirus has been found in 30 Chinese regions, and a study is being conducted to determine its influence on the tourism business and green financial efficiency. Econometric strategies that are capable of dealing with the most complex issues are employed in this study. According to the GMM system, the breakout of Covid-19 had a negative effect on the tourism business and the efficiency of green financing. Aside from that, the effects of gross capital creation, infrastructural expansion, and renewable energy consumption are all good. The influence of per capita income on the tourism industry is beneficial but detrimental to the efficiency of green finance. Due to the current pandemic condition, this report presents a number of critical recommendations for boosting tourism and green financial efficiency.

Using high-frequency household surveys to describe energy use in rural North India during the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 continues to exact a substantial toll on health. While mortality and morbidity associated with the pandemic are the most obvious impacts, social and economic disruptions are becoming apparent. There is reason to believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed or reversed gains in clean household energy use in rural India. Here we describe phone surveys deployed repeatedly in Jharkhand and Bihar to describe pandemic-related changes in household socio-economic conditions and energy-use patterns. Over three-quarters of households reported hardships during the pandemic, including loss of employment and an inability to search for jobs. In turn, some of these households relied more on polluting fuels. Despite nearly all households preferring gas and electricity, we observed varied behaviours related to the cost of and access to these modern energy sources. We highlight the success of India's three-free-cylinders scheme, with 90% of households aware of the programme and utilizing at least one free cylinder. These findings illustrate the utility of high-frequency energy-related questionnaires and suggest that interventions to improve clean fuel accessibility and affordability can increase the resilience of transitions to clean household energy. © 2023, The Author(s).

What Is the Temperature Acceptance in Home-Office Households in the Winter?

Remote work can have many benefits when set up properly. Nevertheless, the preferences of home workers' comfort havenot been profoundly studied yet. Therefore, this study aims to understand their accepted Indoor Environmental Quality values in winter based on self-reported comfort. In this regard, 26 households in Catalonia's Mediterranean region were monitored and surveyed for separated periods of 15 days during from 22 November 2021 to 6 March 2022. Measurements including temperature, temperature, CO2 and Relative Humidity levels were data logged in their most used workspace. Results show that most people work between 18 °C to 20 °C and find those temperatures acceptable. Common spaces used as homeoffices are on average 0.8 °C warmer and there are 470 ppm lower CO2 concentrations. Families with children or teenagers and especially women tend to have a warmer mean operative temperature. The comparison between theoretical thermal comfort models (Fanger and Adaptive) to direct vote perception from a sample of spaces and conditions shows low correlation with real perception having the Adaptive model a better prediction of votes. In general, people report feeling more comfortable at the office, although a high number of participants feel indifferent or reckon that depends on other factors.

Research on air conditioning energy use and indoor thermal environment with Private Finance Initiative data monitoring of junior high schools before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan

The COVID-19 pandemic began to spread at the beginning of 2020 in the world and in Japan, which is expected to impact the air conditioning (AC) energy use (EU) in educational buildings when AC and natural ventilation are used together as a new regulation to decrease infectious disease transmission. Furthermore, this regulation of natural ventilation is expected to impact the AC EU when the outside temperature affects indoor comfort causing changes in the regular AC setting temperature and AC operating times. This study aims to evaluate the AC EU, and the indoor thermal environment changes with Private Finance Initiative (PFI) data monitoring in junior high schools in Oita City before and during the COVID-19 pandemic during summer and winter through a sensitivity analysis method. The result found that AC EU significantly increased during the pandemic, 2 times escalation in summer and 1.9 times in winter. Besides, during the pandemic, indoor air temperature comfort was achieved with longer AC operation time, lower AC setting temperature in summer, and higher AC setting temperature in winter. The result of this research can be expected to be beneficial for future studies regarding AC energy saving and indoor thermal comfort-related investigation and valuable for new regulations related to air conditioner settings and operations for the new normal during the pandemic.

PV Self-Consumption and Self-Sufficiency for Household and Office Users: The Lockdown Effects During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The lockdown period due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent adoption of homeworking had effects also on the energy sector, by shifting electrical consumption from tertiary to residential sector. This article analyzes the electric load curves in the office and at home for a group of employees, estimating the change of the Self-Consumption (SC) and the Self-Sufficiency (SS) when PV plants are installed, during the two months of the lockdown period (2020) with respect to the previous year. This investigation can help to explore the impact of homeworking, which is now usually adopted by many employees. For this purpose, the impact of different PV sizes on SC and SS rates, and the improvements due to the adoption of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), are analyzed. Sizing the PV production equal to the annual consumption and the BESS capacity equal to the difference between the average PV production and the average consumption, the annual SC (=SS in this case) increases from 35% to 68% in households and from 50% to 71% in the office building. The lockdown restrictions increase and decrease these rates of about 5-7 points in households and office building respectively. © 2022 WITPress. All rights reserved.

Assessing Californians' awareness of their daily electricity use patterns

The timing of electricity consumption is increasingly important for grid operations. In response, households are being encouraged to alter their daily usage patterns through demand response and time-varying pricing, although it is unknown if they are aware of these patterns. Here we introduce an energy literacy concept, 'load shape awareness', and apply it to a sample of California residents (n = 186) who provided their household's hourly electricity data and completed an energy use questionnaire. Choosing from four prominent load shape designations, half of respondents (51%) correctly identified their dominant load shape before COVID-19 shelter-in-place (SIP) orders while only one-third (31%) did so during SIP orders. Those aware of their load shape were more likely to have chosen evening peak, the most frequent dominant shape in the electricity data. Our work provides proof of principle for the load shape awareness concept, which could prove useful in designing energy conservation interventions and helping consumers adapt to an evolving energy system. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

In-situ comparison between the energy performance of an in-slab gas heating system and a split system air conditioning in classrooms

Sub-metered energy use of an in-slab gas hydronic heating system and a newly installed split system air conditioner in thermodynamically-equivalent classrooms are compared during unoccupied (with artificially imposed internal heat gains) and occupied periods. A preliminary comparison is also undertaken to quantify the heating penalty for the existing gas-fuelled hydronic heating systems when windows remain open (e.g. to comply with COVID-19 guidelines in schools) against the energy needed for heating by the same system in a control classroom with windows closed. The performance evaluation of the heating systems during three unoccupied days where internal heat gains were artificially imposed demonstrated that the gas hydronic system used 41.5 kWh of metered energy while the AC split system used 7.2 kWh, with the AC split system being able to maintain the internal conditions above the set point by operating for approximately one third of the time the hydronic system was operating. Occupied tests confirmed the observations of the unoccupied tests of equivalent operation. Over a period of 2 occupied winter weeks, the in-slab gas hydronic heating system used 274.6 kWh of metered energy and operated for 35¼ hrs, while the AC split system used 34.7 kWh and operated for 22¼ hrs, albeit on some occasions the occupants in the AC split system’s classroom chose not to turn on the system. After selecting days from this occupied period when both systems were used for long periods, it was observed that the AC split system used approximately 4 to 7 times less metered energy than the in-slab gas hydronic system (or 3.3 times in terms of primary energy when worse-case primary energy factors were used). Finally, from the preliminary test, the parallel measurements also confirmed that the additional ventilation in schools through opening of windows increases the energy use of the hydronic heating system;66.8 kWh were measured for heating needs over a period of 3-days as opposed to 25 kWh for the windows open and closed cases respectively. These precise values are, however dependent on the season and building type.