Energy Systems Engineering – an integrated approach for the energy systems of the future
Systematic methods and tools for managing the complexity
Keynote Lectures: Theme-4
Keywords: Systems Engineering, Energy Systems, Integreted Solutions
Energy is one of the most critical international issues at the moment and most likely to be so for the years to come. As part of the energy debate, it is becoming gradually accepted that current energy systems, networks encompassing everything from primary energy sources to final energy services, are becoming unsustainable. Driven primarily by concerns over urban air quality, global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on depleting fossil fuel reserves, a transition to alternative energy systems is receiving serious attention. Such a tradition will certainly involve meeting the growing energy demand of the future with greater efficiency as well as using more renewable energy sources (such as wind, solar, biomass, etc). While many technical options exist for developing a future sustainable and less environmentally damaging energy supply, they are often treated separately driven by their own technical communities and political groups.
Energy systems engineering provides a methodological scientific framework to arrive at realistic integrated solutions to the complex energy problems, by adopting a holistic, systems-based approach. In this presentation, we will demonstrate the potential of energy systems engineering to systematically quantify different options at different levels of complexity (technology, plant, mega-system) through a number of real-life applications. Applications include (i) hydrogen infrastructure planning problems, where the potential for using hydrogen as a clean sustainable fuel is assessed in some detail, (ii) poly-generation energy systems, where a variety of fuel stocks, such as coal, natural gas and biomass, can be converted into a variety of products, such as electricity, transport fuels and chemicals, and (iii) urban energy systems, where a process integration approach to the flow of energy and materials through an urban environment is applied to analyse and significantly improve the very low efficiency of urban energy systems.
Keynote lecture
Presented Thursday 20, 16:00 to 16:40, in session Keynote Lectures: Theme-4 (T4-K3, K4, K5).
