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Sustainability Assessment of Hybrid Community Energy Systems

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Progress in Clean Energy, Volume 1

Abstract

The goal to achieve a sustainable society that will endure over the long term is generally regarded as a positive evolutionary course. One of the challenges with this goal is developing a quantitative assessment of the sustainability of a system. Despite the different measures available in the literature, a standard and universally accepted index for assessing sustainability does not yet exist. Here, we develop a novel integrated sustainability index (ISI) for energy systems that considers critical multidimensional sustainability criteria. The originality of this new index is that it incorporates fundamental thermodynamic, economic, and environmental constraints to combine indicators from multiple dimensions into a single-score evaluation of sustainability. The index is therefore unique because it can assess sustainability relative to an ideal reference state instead of being limited to ranking systems via relative assessments. The ISI is applied to a stand-alone solar-PV-battery system designed to meet the needs of a small community in Southern Ontario. The ISI of the system ranges from 0.52 to 0.66, where one is considered to be a sustainable system. The weighting factors associated with critical economic and global environmental criteria have the greatest effect on the ISI. This index is expected to prove useful as a high-level, multi-criteria decision analysis tool for understanding and fostering sustainable energy systems, alone or in concert with other approaches.

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Abbreviations

a :

Azimuth angle, °

A :

Dimensional sustainability indicator

B :

Nondimensional sustainability indicator

Cn :

Clearness number

k C :

Local extinction coefficient

\( \dot{Q} \) :

Heat rate, kW

W :

Weighting factor

β :

Collector tilt angle, °

θ :

Elevation angle, °

Ï• :

Incidence angle, °

Col:

Collector

ETR:

Extraterrestrial radiation

i:

Sub-indicator

j:

Category indicator

m:

Number of sub-indicators

n:

Number of category indicators

T:

Target

ADP:

Abiotic depletion potential

AF:

Affordability

APP:

Air pollution potential

CFC:

Chlorofluorocarbon

CV:

Commercial viability

EF:

Economic factor

EnER:

Energy efficiency ratio

EP:

Eutrophication potential

ER:

Efficiency ratio

ExER:

Exergy efficiency ratio

FAETP:

Freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity potential

GEIP:

Global environmental impact potential

GWP:

Global warming potential

IPCC:

Intergovernmental panel on climate change

ISI:

Integrated sustainability index

MAETP:

Marine aquatic ecotoxicity potential

PM:

Particulate matter

SF:

Size factor

SODP:

Stratospheric ozone depletion potential

WPP:

Water pollution potential

CO:

Carbon monoxide

CO2 :

Carbon dioxide

N2O:

Nitrous oxide

NO2 :

Nitrogen dioxide

O3 :

Ozone

Pb:

Lead

SO2 :

Sulphur dioxide

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Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 2000 Simcoe Street, North Oshawa, Canada, L1H 7K4

    Kevork Hacatoglu, Ibrahim Dincer & Marc A. Rosen

Authors
  1. Kevork Hacatoglu
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  2. Ibrahim Dincer
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  3. Marc A. Rosen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kevork Hacatoglu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ontario, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada

    Ibrahim Dincer

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey

    C. Ozgur Colpan

  3. Department of Energy Systems Engineering, Suleyman Demirel University, Isparta, Turkey

    Onder Kizilkan

  4. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey

    M. Akif Ezan

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Hacatoglu, K., Dincer, I., Rosen, M.A. (2015). Sustainability Assessment of Hybrid Community Energy Systems. In: Dincer, I., Colpan, C., Kizilkan, O., Ezan, M. (eds) Progress in Clean Energy, Volume 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16709-1_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16709-1_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16708-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16709-1

  • eBook Packages: EnergyEnergy (R0)

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