| 1. |
- Wen, Qianyun, 1993-
(författare)
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Decision Support for Energy Transition : Application of Multi-criteria Decision Making on Danish Residential Heating
- 2023
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- With the increasing awareness of the impact of climate change, there has been more intention to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality targets. However, as one essential element for human well-being, residential heating remains a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. The complex, interdependent, and sometimes contradictory nature of factors influencing residential heating choices makes it a difficult problem to address. Multiple actors with different goals and priorities further complicate the decision-making process. Moreover, given the current energy crisis, selecting an appropriate heating system for residential areas has become even more crucial. Therefore, there is a need for decision support tools that can consider multi-dimensional factors and heating alternatives, which usually have a long-term impact involved in residential heating choices. Thus, this thesis aims to improve the understanding of what influences decisions to choose a heating technology alternative and how decision support tools can sup-port these decisions. Among the decision-making techniques, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods have been chosen because they are capable of considering a wide range of factors and are simple to understand and use, taking into account data availability and capability. A systematic literature review is conducted to understand the criteria and MCDM methods commonly used in the field. Two appended papers applied different approaches of MCDM methods to support the Danish residential heating transition. These applications also act as case studies to address the research questions. This thesis highlights financial, technical, and environmental factors for decision-making on heating technologies and addresses common problems that might occur during the decision-support process. Specifically, it suggests considering financial costs, environmental emissions, technical efficiency and lifetime when choosing a heating technology and using distance-to-ideal MCDM combining other methods. Furthermore, the thesis reflects on the complexity of MCDM applications in decision support and presents a publicly available online decision support tool based on the research (https://api.flexsus.org/MCDM). This thesis contributes to knowledge for academics and fills gaps in residential heating decision-making. For practitioners, a useful tool is provided for improving the quality of decision-making in residential heating, offering a practical and scientific perspective for making informed decisions without consuming extra resources. By increasing the under-standing of influencing factors and decision-support methods for heating technologies, this thesis helps facilitate the heating transition.
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| 2. |
- Päivärinne, Sofia, 1984-
(författare)
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Utilisation of Excess Heat Towards a Circular Economy : Implications of interorganisational collaborations and strategic planning
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In order to significantly lower the environmental impact from human activities, numerous efforts and approaches related to the transformation of human activities have developed during the last decades. Examples of such efforts are policies and strategies at different levels, some with a top-down approach focusing on extensive institutional changes, and some with a bottom-up approach focusing on industrial actors and industry-led activities.One essential aspect of these efforts concerns the energy used producing the products and services provided within our society. This includes, for example, improved efficiency of processes in order to minimise the amount of energy used, or optimisation of efficiency by using energy with the lowest possible exergy value. It can also be about re-use of energy, which is the focus of this thesis. Heat, which is the main by-product of all energy systems, can be utilised for heating purposes to lower the primary energy demand for heating. Increased utilisation of excess heat, however, requires collaboration between normally unrelated actors, those with a supply of and those demanding excess heat.In Sweden, which is a Northern European country with high demand for heat, the tradition of large energy-intensive manufacturing industries generating large amounts of excess heat, in combination with well-established district heating distribution systems, constitute good conditions for excess heat utilisation. Despite the fact that Sweden is among the world leaders in utilising excess heat, there is however, still a large unutilised potential.From this background, the objective of this thesis is to identify challenges behind excess heat utilisation for heating purposes, and to propose practical suggestions to facilitate expanded excess heat utilisation. The overall objective is analysed with a focus on drivers and barriers behind interorganisational collaborations on excess heat utilisation, important components of interorganisational business models and how the technical conditions regarding supply and demand could be facilitated by strategic municipal spatial planning processes. The research is largely based on interviews conducted with societal actors with different perspectives on excess heat utilisation; energy companies, industries generating high-grade excess heat, facilities generating low-grade excess heat, facilities demanding low-grade excess heat, experts of utilisation of low-grade excess heat, branch organisations, municipal spatial planners, energy- and climate advisors, and developers. Document studies have been conducted in order to collect case specific knowledge. The research questions are explored based on literature studies on the principles of industrial symbiosis, business model perspective and strategic planning. Further, they are examined in a Swedish context.It is concluded that the three perspectives complement each other by providing a system perspective on increased utilisation of excess heat as they seek to contribute both environmental and financial benefits at both a company and societal level. In order to facilitate further utilisation of excess heat it is important to focus on the organisational factors of humility, honesty, transparency, trust, fine-grained information transfer, joint problem solving, and shared visions of common goals, which are important conditions behind development of functional and long-term durable collaborations. Business models for collaboration could contribute to the creation of these organisationally important conditions. Such business models could also provide knowledge on how to create and capture joint values. For some collaborations involving actors lacking the technical knowledge related to the capturing and distribution of excess heat, a third-party providing services related to the technical knowledge required could be beneficial. Collaborations in which one of the actors consists of an energy company often entail the technical knowledge required. This implies that different collaborations involving different types of actors and under different prevailing financial, technical and organisational conditions require customised and flexible business solutions. Local authorities could, through their overall function, initiate interorganisational collaborations on excess heat within the framework of municipal spatial planning. The results do however show that the investigated planning processes could develop more extensive stakeholder participation to include further societal actors related to excess heat. More extensive stakeholder participation, have the potential to initiate new development of collaborations on excess heat between normally unrelated actors, both with and without involvements of third-party knowledge brokers. A broader participation is also expected to result in increased knowledge on how to plan to further facilitate the condition of excess heat utilisation.
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| 3. |
- Zanatta, Hanna, 1993-
(författare)
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The diffusion of biogas systems in Brazil
- 2024
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Brazil is one of the largest economies in the Global South. Because of the country’s strong agribusiness and large population, it has a huge potential for biogas production that has yet to be realized. Biogas systems could potentially address a broad range of social, environmental, and economic issues, such as improving accessibility to clean energy sources in rural areas, alternative cooking fuel, and providing proper treatment of organic waste. Hence, biogas systems can play an important role in sustainability transitions by improving the environmental performance of energy generation, waste management systems, and food production. However, despite the availability of substrate for biogas production and the multiple benefits that biogas systems could bring, there is still a large implementation gap. Biogas systems go beyond technical components and involve a multitude of stakeholders, infrastructure, knowledge, and formal and informal institutions. Therefore, the diffusion of biogas systems cannot be explained only by analyzing the technical components of biogas systems. Previous studies have explored the influences of societal contexts on technological diffusion, but these explored countries in the Global North. However, social, economic, and political aspects differ significantly between Global North and Global South countries. This thesis aims to explain how societal contexts influence the diffusion of biogas systems in Brazil. The thesis distinguishes between societal contexts, delineating them as societal environments and socio-economic structures. Societal environments refer to the circumstances and aspects surrounding the diffusion process where alignment processes between new socio-technical systems and society happen across five environments: user, business, regulatory, cultural, and trans-local. Socio-economic structures refer to societal arrangements that shape social and economic aspects of society. The Varieties of Capitalism framework provides a tool for comparison of the socio-economic structures of different countries in the Global North and South. The thesis relies on case studies based on quantitative and qualitative data from documents (scientific articles, news articles, technical reports, research reports, official documents by governmental agencies, and policies) and interviews. Societal contexts appear to be more unstable and fragmented compared to counterparts in the Global North, influencing the diffusion of biogas systems. Hierarchical structures in Brazil lead to power disparities between administrative levels (municipal, state, and federal levels), impacting policymaking and hindering local-level biogas system configurations. The thesis highlights socio-economic diversity among Brazilian states and how it influences where and which biogas system configurations are formed. This thesis emphasizes that studies on biogas systems’ potential should consider contextual aspects beyond substrate availability to comprehensively understand biogas systems diffusion in diverse settings.
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| 4. |
- Gustafsson, Sara, Biträdande professor, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Strategic spatial planning -a missed opportunity to facilitate district heating systems based on excess heat
- 2019
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Ingår i: European Planning Studies. - : Taylor & Francis. - 0965-4313 .- 1469-5944. ; 27:9, s. 1709-1726
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Strategic spatial planning is important for developing long-termvisions and strategies towards regional and local sustainability.This paper explores if and how strategic spatial planning could beuseful for overcoming some barriers related to new sustainableways of heating residential areas, using district heating systemsbased on industrial excess heat. This longitudinal study builds oninterviews with municipal and private actors in six Swedishmunicipalities. It highlights that important barriers can beovercome by influencing the design and location of residentialdistricts and industrial activities. Further, it identifies missedopportunities in local spatial planning practice as stakeholders areinvolved late in the planning when much is set, leaving littlespace for stakeholders to have an impact. Consequently, theremight be a lack of knowledge and expertise in how such issuescould enhance planning. Strategic spatial planning could facilitateconditions for excess heat-based systems of district heating as itimplies a broader systems perspective which could enhance abroader planning scope. Plan programs could bring about morestrategic spatial planning processes as these require earlystakeholder involvement. If taking stakeholder involvement onestep further to stakeholder collaboration or co-production, aneven broader planning scope would be achieved.
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