Thesis
Evaluating the technical, economic, and environmental impact of the level of decentralization in energy investment decision
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
2011
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/102573
Abstract
The goal of this thesis is to analyze the impacts of the level of decentralization in energy investment decisions on the technical, economic, and environmental performance. The analysis is important because of the increasing popularity of decentralized renewable energy technologies such as solar cells, fuel cells, and wind power, and due to the increasing energy consumption and environmental concerns. An investment decision is considered in this thesis, which can be made at varying levels of decentralization such as the state level, the county level, the city level, the community level, the company level and the home level. The system performance is evaluated in terms of the energy production (technical), total net present cost (economic), CO2 emission (environmental) and the required capital investments. An existing software application, HOMER, is used to carry out the system optimization at each level. The optimized system outputs obtained by making decisions at different levels of decentralization are compared with each other in terms of the system performance to determine the best level of decentralization. Three different scenarios with different locations and different divisions of sub-levels are considered. The first scenario is used as a baseline. The second scenario shows the impact of location change. The third scenario reflects the effects of the size of each level in terms of the number of stakeholders. By comparing these outputs, the best level of decentralization is determined for each scenario. Based on the analysis, it is shown that depending on the level of decentralization at which the decisions are made, the overall system performance is different. The goal of this thesis is not to present a new approach for design but to illustrate the problem itself. Using this problem, it is highlighted the need to establish new approach and tools to make such decisions related to the energy infrastructure.
Metrics
14 Record Views
Details
- Title
- Evaluating the technical, economic, and environmental impact of the level of decentralization in energy investment decision
- Creators
- Yiwen Liu
- Contributors
- Jitesh H. Panchal (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Mechanical and Materials Engineering, School of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; Pullman, Wash. :
- Identifiers
- 99900525075101842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis