Dissertations / Theses: 'Profitability in the energy sector'

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Oliveira, Gilberto de Souza. "Desempenho econômico e financeiro das empresas distribuidoras de energia elétrica: um estudo nas companhias de capital aberto, sediadas no estado de São Paulo." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2009. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/1732.

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Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T18:40:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gilberto de Souza Oliveira.pdf: 829463 bytes, checksum: cedc06d34a48cf6b7aa1b457064ce388 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-05-11 This thesis begins with a systematic analysis of the electrical sector in Brazil and the main risks inherent to such sector. Then, it discusses certain information of the five largest publicly-held electric power distribution companies, based in the State of São Paulo, namely: Bandeirante Energia S.A.; Companhia Paulista de Força e Luz.; Companhia Piratininga de Força e Luz.; Elektro Eletricidade e Serviços S.A.; Eletropaulo Metropolitana Eletricidade de São Paulo S.A. It presents all the mandatory disclosure of financial statements under the Brazilian corporate law, as well as those required by the Granting Authority ANEEL, subsequently it presents a collection of indicators for analysis of financial statements, as well as the calculation methodology and interpretation and, finally, it presents a selection of indicators used in the study of five companies. The study is aimed to evaluate the economic and financial performance of these companies during the period from 2000 to 2007, focusing on two distinct stages: (i) the rationing of electricity period that lasted from June 2001 to February 2002, which had a huge impact on the financial statements for such periods, and (ii) the post rationing period, which was impacted by new standards established by the Federal Government in connection with the creation of a new model for the Brazilian energy sector, during the years 2004 and 2005. This thesis uses the evolutionary analysis, which evaluates the development of indicators for each of the five companies, checking the performance of their economic situation, financial performance, profitability and allocation of cash generated and consumed between two thousand and two thousand and seven Esta dissertação inicia com a descrição da sistemática de funcionamento do setor elétrico no Brasil e os principais riscos inerentes ao setor. A seguir, discorre sobre as informações principais das cinco empresas distribuidoras de energia elétrica, de capital aberto, sediadas no Estado de São Paulo, que são: Bandeirante Energia S.A.; Companhia Paulista de Força e Luz; Companhia Piratininga de Força e Luz.; Elektro Eletricidade e Serviços S.A.; Eletropaulo Metropolitana Eletricidade de São Paulo S.A. Apresenta todas as demonstrações contábeis de divulgação obrigatória por força da legislação societária Brasileira e aquelas de exigência do poder concedente a ANEEL, na seqüência expõe uma coletânea de indicadores para análise das demonstrações contábeis, assim como a sistemática de cálculos e interpretação e apresenta a seleção destes indicadores utilizados no estudo das cinco empresas. O estudo objetiva avaliar o desempenho econômico e financeiro dessas empresas no período de 2000 a 2007, com ênfase em duas fases distintas: a) O racionamento de energia elétrica que vigorou de junho de 2001 a fevereiro de 2002, e impactou fortemente os balanços destes dois exercícios, e b) A fase pós racionamento que foi influenciada pelas normas editadas pelo Governo Federal para a criação de um novo modelo para o Setor Elétrico Brasileiro durante os anos de 2004 e 2005. O método utilizado foi a análise evolutiva, em que se avalia a evolução dos indicadores de cada uma das cinco empresas, verificando o desempenho de sua situação econômica, financeira, rentabilidade e a destinação do caixa gerado e consumido no período de 2000 a 2007

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Wittmann, Andreas. "Profitability of Renewable Energy Technologies." St. Gallen, 2009. http://www.biblio.unisg.ch/org/biblio/edoc.nsf/wwwDisplayIdentifier/07605215001/$FILE/07605215001.pdf.

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Zucarelli, Michael, and Maurice Shauffert. "Profitability, Volatility, and Risk in the Biotechnology Sector." The University of Arizona, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/623904.

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Class of 2010 Abstract OBJECTIVES: (1) To characterize the long-term performance of the biotechnology sector and the overall market using a Sharpe Ratio analysis (excess return/volatility; α/SD). The null hypothesis tested in this paper is the generalized Sharpe ratio characteristic of the biotechnology sector is identical to that of the overall market. METHODS: 337 companies were identified using Standard Industry Classification code 2836 (Biological Products, (No Diagnostic Substances)) lists from the Center for Research and Security Prices (CRSP) and S&P CompuStat databases. Market data on equity and return were derived from securities price data from the CRSP database. Market data were used to characterize the following measures: Mean Excess Return, Mean Excess Return minus 1% of top earners (trimmed), Volatility (SD),Sharpe Ratio and 1% Adjustment RESULTS: The study finds the biotech industry earned excess returns of 13.84% over time when compared to the overall market ( 5.10%). However, these returns are highly concentrated: When the top 1% of sector earners are removed from analysis, excess return declines below the risk free rate (return of -0.05%) suggesting significant barriers to risk diversification. CONCLUSIONS: The results show the biotechnology sector experiences higher volatility compared with the overall market, as well as higher excess returns. The results justify a rejection of the null hypothesis – that the generalized Sharpe ratio of the biotechnology sector is identical to that of the overall market

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Adesiyan, Babatunde. "Exploring Leadership Strategies to Maximize Profitability in the Nigerian Housing Sector." ScholarWorks, 2016. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/2306.

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The collapse of construction companies in the Nigerian housing sector continues unabated, even in the face of 17 million housing deficits. Many construction company leaders believe that lack of business opportunities and the recent world economic decline have been responsible for the collapse. This situation has resulted in limited business activities for 80% of the Nigerian construction companies. This multiple case study explored the strategies used by leaders to maximize profitability in the Nigerian housing sector. The RBV and Porter's model of competition provided the conceptual framework for the study. Findings were based on detailed reviews of the policies and procedures of the companies, coupled with semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 5 leaders of construction companies that have successfully completed and currently involved in several housing projects in 2 southwestern states in Nigeria. The research question examined the strategies construction company leaders used to maximize profitability in the Nigerian housing sector. Four themes representing strategy categories emerged from thematic analysis: planning, human capital development, leadership factor, and organizational location. The key outcomes from the findings include the need to plan with the available resources, employ and invest in competent staff, increase leadership influence, and improve knowledge of the business environment. The implication for social change includes a potential reduction in unemployment in Nigeria. Profitable organizations will construct more affordable housing through collaboration with public authority, and more low-income earners will be able to afford to live in a decent environment, thus reducing the populations of slum dwellers in the country.

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Middleton, Cassandra Romae. "Successful Strategies for Retaining Profitability in an Education-Sector IT Project." ScholarWorks, 2019. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/7042.

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Many information technology (IT) project managers (PMs) and other business leaders lack effective strategies for enhancing communication among their project team members, thereby reducing profitability and organizational cohesion. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore communication strategies that IT PMs used to successfully complete IT mobile device projects. The conceptual framework for this study was McQuail's mass communication, Craig's communication, and Deming's profound knowledge theory. Purposive sampling method was used to identify 6 successful IT PMs and leaders who worked at 2 leading educations settings located in southeastern South Carolina. Data gathered from the semistructured interviews and collected from publicly available documents were analyzed using coding techniques, constant comparison, and keyword phrases. After methodological triangulation of the data sources collected and completion of Yin's 5-step process of data analysis, 3 key themes emerged from data analysis: standardized project communication, project team building, and positive customer focus. Findings from this study may contribute to positive social change by providing IT PMs with evidence to support efficient communication strategies in the education sector to increase organizational performance and profitability, which may positively contribute to improving quality of life for employees, driving economic development, and improving community relations.

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Welsh, Thomas McClain. "The Profitability of an Investment in Photovoltaics in South Carolina." Thesis, Clemson University, 2017. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10268363.

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As renewable energy becomes more prevalent across the United States and the world, solar energy investment has also grown. There have been many studies done on photovoltaic (PV) systems in terms of energy payback and efficiency, but little research done to understand a PV system as a financial investment specific to South Carolina. This study aims to understand the return on investment that a PV system can achieve. More specifically whether PV systems in areas of South Carolina that uses Duke Energy achieve a favorable return on investment and what affects the profitability. This study uses the PVwatts calculator provided by NREL as well as an investment simulation to calculate the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Net Present Value on 1024 simulated 5kW PV arrays and evaluates their profitability. It then uses this information to apply it to real case studies for houses in South Carolina. This study found that shade has a significant impact on profitability of investment. At 30% shading, profitability drops near 0% IRR or below. Orientation impacts profitability significantly as well. Panels that are facing south, southeast, and southwest yielded the best return. While north, northeast and northwest orientations yielded very low or negative IRR. East and west facing panels can yield positive financial return, but this return is lower than panels orientated to the south. PV systems oriented towards the east or west must have optimal conditions to remain efficient. This study found that tilt had minimal impact on financially return. Incentives also significantly impacted profitability of investment. For a PV system to be profitable, federal, state, and Duke Energy incentives needed to be applied to the investment. When homes with PV systems are sold also has a great impact on profitability. Research has shown that there is a housing premium for homes with PV systems (Adomatis, 2015). This premium is highest when first installed and declines as the PV systems age. People also associate premiums with houses with PV systems even if the system is not adding much value to the home. This study has also found that the price of the PV system impacts investment. Premium grade panels had significantly less return compared to standard grade panels because prices per watt were higher.

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Great, Humphrey Edereka. "Small and Medium Enterprises' Profitability Elements in Green Energy Transactions." ScholarWorks, 2015. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/1781.

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As the primary drivers of Nigeria's economy, small and medium scale enterprise (SME) leaders rely on standby generators for sustainable business operation. Because of this reliance, over 56% of the SMEs operate far below capacity from the effects of power shortages. Guided by the strategic contingency theory, this study explored the profitability strategies of business leaders faced with electricity disruptions within Abuja Federal Capital Territory while adopting corporate social responsibility (CSR) and green practices. Data collection was through face-to-face semistructured interviews using open-ended questions. Participants consisted of 12 business leaders selected from 4 SME categories within Abuja that have imbibed CSR and green practices successfully or were in the process of doing so. The data analysis process involved labeling and coding all data that arose from participant interviews using the modified van Kaam method to identify dominant themes. Data coding and analysis led to the identification of 12 predominant meta-themes, including innovativeness for sustainable green business, strategy challenges and how they were addressed, and the power disruption impact on the effectiveness of CSR and organizational profitability. Findings from this study might contribute to new knowledge and success insights for SME business leaders faced with power shortages, CSR shortages, and losses in Abuja. Social change might result as SME business leaders embrace CSR practices with new environmentally friendly tenets, make sustainable profits, employ more people, and dedicate part of the profits to social services to benefit citizens of Abuja and Nigeria.

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Monge, Zaratiegui Iñigo. "Profitability of cogeneration in a chemical industry." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för bygg- energi- och miljöteknik, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-24251.

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A high demand of both electricity and heat exists in Arizona Chemical (a chemical plant dedicated to the distillation of Crude Tall Oil) for production processes. Due to the rising cost of resources and electricity, more and more companies are trying to decrease the energy expenses to increase their competitiveness in a global market, thus increasing their profit. Some companies look at their energy consumption in order to diminish it or to explore the opportunity to generate their own and cheaper energy. In companies where the production of steam already takes place, cogeneration can be a good solution to palliate the cost of the energy used. This study addresses this issue through three actions such as the characterization of the boiler, a better steam flow measurement grid and the generation of electricity. The first one addresses the state of one of the key parts of steam production, the boiler, through the calculation of its efficiency with two different methods (direct and indirect calculation). These methods require some measurements which were provided afterwards by the company supervisor. This will allow the company to identify the weaknesses of the boiler to be able to improve it in the future. The second one aims to improve the knowledge about the steam system. New flow measurement points were suggested after doing an analysis of the current controlled flows to have a better overview outline of the steam use.The third one studies the generation of electricity with a Rankine cycle. The limitations in the characteristics of the steam were identified and different configurations are proposed in accordance to the restrictions identified. An efficiency of 93% is obtained for the boiler with the direct method and 82.3 % for the indirect one. The difference between them can be explained by the use of datafrom different time frames for both methods. The main contributors to the losses are the ones related to the dry flue gas and the hydrogen in the fuel. In the current status only 40% of the steam flows are identified, a number which is expected to raise with the new measurement points. It was not possible to estimate the effect of the new points due to the desire of the company to not disturb the current production. Due to the fuel price the production of steam for only electricity was not profitable and instead the generation of both electricity and heat from the same steam is proposed. This integrated system is now possible to implement due to its low payback time (2.3 years). This solution can generate 758 kW of electricity and provide the company with 6437 MWh of electricity each year. Then, the effect of the variation of different variables over the performance of the cycle were studied: different electricity prices, steam rate production, fuel cost and the state of the condensate recovery were discussed. The variation of both the condensate recovery and fuel cost did not affect the payback time due to their costs being neutralised by the revenues obtained from them. The variation of the electricity prices and steam production affects the payback but due to the high revenue that is expected it does not hamper the good nature of the investment. The generation of electricity is recommended due to the low payback time obtained. The different variations studied in the system did not change the payback time notably and showed that the investment is highly profitable in all the scenarios considered. The use of two smaller turbines instead of the one chosen (with a maximum rated power of 6 MW while only 758 kW is generated with the proposed solution) should be studied since the turbines would work closer to their maximum efficiency.

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Dimond, Stephen Hugh. "An investigation into the profitability of energy management in office buildings." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1988. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/27694.

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This thesis examines the costs and benefits of energy management in office buildings and investigates the relationships between operating costs, space lease contracts, and building value. Energy Management by building owners and managers begins with monitoring and analysing building energy use and continues by reducing energy consumption through operating procedure changes, equipment replacement and control, personnel training, and continued monitoring. The cost to complete energy management projects in 12 office buildings is analysed. The average, before tax, internal rate of return for the 12 energy management programs was 22.1%, on total expenditures of roughly $1,200,000. Nine of the office buildings are publicly owned and occupied by the provincial government of B.C. The return on the investments in these buildings directly benefits the citizens of B.C. However, in the three privately owned and tenant occupied buildings, the owners have a less direct method of receiving the benefits due to net lease contracts with tenants, under which the tenants pay the energy costs and would normally receive the energy cost savings. If only the energy cost savings in vacant areas acrue to the owner, the after tax returns to the owner from the investments in energy management for the three privately owned buildings are all negative. However, because building value is determined by the net income of a property, and net income is dependent on revenues and operating costs, a statistical analysis of revenues and costs was completed on a 140 building sample of office buildings in the Vancouver, B.C. metropolitan area. The results of that analysis provided support for the hypothesis that energy cost reductions could result in increased lease revenues at the time of lease expiries because tenants are concerned primarily about the total space cost, not the lease payment to the owner. In that case, the returns to the building owners were significantly improved, were all positive, and were as great as 80%. Business, Sauder School of Real Estate Division Graduate

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MORENO, MENDAZA JOSEBA. "SOLAR COLLECTORS FOR AIR HEATING : PROFITABILITY ANALYSIS." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för bygg- energi- och miljöteknik, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-16963.

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Solar energy constitutes one of the main alternatives for facing the energy problems of the future, taking into account the foreseeable depletion of the fossil fuels. Transpired solar air collectors are relatively simple alternatives, which do not need a continuous supervision and are mostly maintenance free. Their life cycle is relatively high, around 25 years, and the total investment can be fully recovered in the short-term. The aim of this master’s thesis is to analyze the feasibility of installing transpired solar air collectors as secondary systems in big industrial buildings, for heating purposes. The collectors would be designed for compensating the heat losses of a building which is mainly heated up by a heat pump system. Precisely, this work tries to evaluate the profitability of installing these collectors in Gävle, taking into account the particularities of this location in the considered study. This project work is focused on testing if these systems can provide enough thermal energy for heating up big-sized industrial buildings. For this purpose, firstly, the heat demand of the building for each month was calculated; secondly, the maximum output from the collector was estimated, using WINSUN simulator; and, finally, the energy difference that had to be covered by the main system was calculated. Once this was done, the yearly running cost for the main system and the total investment for the transpired air solar collector were estimated. Due to the lack of experimental data, the obtained results can only be taken as approximations. All the calculations and estimations have been made using WINSUN, a simulator that has been configured according to the particularities of the project. The results show that the solar collector provides a total thermal output of 29.700 kWh/year (system which has a total investment of 77.000 SEK). The total heat demand of the building is estimated to be of 87.100 kWh/year, being 51.800 kWh/year fulfilled by the heat pump system (which has a yearly running cost of 24.000 SEK/year). The collector has an average efficiency of 51,04%.

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Malagnino, Remo Alessio <1986&gt. "Energy Systems Optimization on Agricultural Sector." Doctoral thesis, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 2016. http://amsdottorato.unibo.it/7464/.

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Come molti altri settori produttivi, anche l'agricoltura deve affrontare una crescente dipendenza energetica da elettricità, petrolio e gas naturale. Tuttavia, l'agricoltura può rispondere direttamente a tali richieste ricorrendo alle fonti di energia rinnovabili (FER), come il solare fotovoltaico (PV) e gli impianti biogas/biometano (BP). Questi sistemi sono stati fortemente incentivati in passato. Gli attuali sistemi d’incentivazione prevedono invece sussidi commisurati alle caratteristiche aziendali come stalle, fienili, disponibilità di biomasse, ecc. Per questi motivi, per quanto riguarda il settore FV, è necessario utilizzare modelli analitici affidabili per valutare l’orientamento e la tecnologia migliore, in particolare per generatori integrati architettonicamente. Per la produzione di biometano, gli impianti di piccole dimensioni risultano quelli maggiormente incentivati previa alimentazione con sottoprodotti agro-industriali. Tuttavia, le loro performance dipendono fortemente dalla tecnologia d’upgrading. Pertanto, le prospettive economiche offerte da questi sistemi RES sono legate alla scelta della tecnologia da impiegare e non più esclusivamente al semplice dimensionamento. Su questa base, l'obiettivo principale di questo lavoro è stato lo sviluppo di strumenti di supporto decisionali (DSSS) per l'ottimizzazione energetica d’impianti FV e BP. Un primo studio si è focalizzato sull’analisi prestazionale per singolo componente e globale d’impianti FV installati in un’azienda agricola. Inoltre, una procedura analitica di ottimizzazione dei parametri d’impianto è stata definita per massimizzare il rendimento elettrico di un generatore integrato architettonicamente rispetto ad un’installazione a terra. Attraverso una serie d’informazioni tecnico-economiche di tecnologie di upgrading, un secondo studio è stato condotto con l'obiettivo di sviluppare un DSS per valutare la marginalità sul reddito aziendale data dall’installazione on-farm di un impianto BP collegato alla rete del gas naturale. I risultati dei due studi hanno dimostrato come questi DSS possono essere utili strumenti per valutare preventivamente le diverse potenzialità offerte da impianti FV e BP in base alle caratteristiche di un’azienda agricola. Like many other productive sectors, even agriculture must tackle an increasing energy dependency on electricity, petroleum and natural gas. Nevertheless, agriculture can directly respond to such request thanks to renewable energy systems (RES) like solar photovoltaic (PV) and biogas/biomethane (BP) plants. These systems have been strongly incentivized in the past. On the contrary, current incentive schemes provide feed-in-tariffs proportionate to farming characteristics as stables, barns, biomass availability, etc. For this reason, as regards the PV sector, it is required to use reliable analytical models for assessing the best orientation and technology, in particular for architecturally integrated generators. For the biomethane production, small-medium plants have stronger incentives in particular using agro-food by-products as feed. However, their performances are strongly dependent on biomethane upgrading technology. Thus, the economic prospective offered by these RES systems are substantially tied to technology choice optimization and no longer solely in simple sizing. On this basis, the main goal of this work is to develop Decision Support Tools (DSSs) for energy optimization both for PV and BP plants. A first study was focused on the analysis of PV plants installed in the same farm. The aim is to examine the impact each plant component has on the PV generator global efficiency and define an analytical procedure for technical parameters optimization in order to maximize the electric yield of an architectonically integrated plant compared to a ground-mounted one. Based on the economic and efficiency features of a biomethane upgrading technology set, a second study was carried out with the aim to design a DSS to assess enterprise-wide profit margins resulting from the on-farm BP plant installation linked to the natural gas grid. The results of the two studies have shown how these DSSs can be useful tools for choosing PV and BP technologies based on farm characteristics.

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Dahlquist, Olivia, and Louise Hagström. "Scaling blockchain for the energy sector." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Avdelningen för systemteknik, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-326006.

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p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Helvetica} Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology enabling digital transactions without the need for central governance. Once transactions are added to the blockchain, they cannot be altered. One of the main challenges of blockchain implementation is how to create a scalable network meaning verifying many transactions per second. The goal of this thesis is to survey different approaches for scaling blockchain technologies. Scalability is one of the main drivers in blockchain development, and an important factor when understanding the future progress of blockchain. The energy sector is in need of further digitalisation and blockchain is therefore of interest to enhance the digital development of smart grids and Internet of Things. The focus of this work is put on a case study in the energy sector regarding a payment system for electrified roads. To research those questions a qualitative method based on interviews with blockchain experts and actors in electrified roads projects was applied. The interviews were processed and summarised, and thereafter related to map current developments and needs in the blockchain technology. This thesis points to the importance of considering the trilemma, stating that blockchain can be two of three things; scalable, decentralised, secure. Further, Greenspan’s criteria are applied in order to recognise the value of blockchain. These criteria together with the trilemma and understanding blockchain’s placement in the hype cycle, are of value when implementing blockchain. The study shows that blockchain technology is at an early stage and questions remain regarding future business use. Scalability solutions are both technical and case specific and it is found that future solutions for scaling blockchain are emerging.

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Praz, Bastien. "Energy sector analysis and modeling – From primary to final energy." Thesis, KTH, Energisystemanalys, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-98695.

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Climate change and energy supply limitation are growing concerns. Solving them requires strong implication from our societies and more and more stakeholders and scientists are therefore interested in energy scenarios publication. They indeed provide options to be investigated in order to set the future strategies to tackle these issues. It is within this context that The Shift Project has launched the Scenario project which main purposes are to clarify this specific prospective field and develop a pedagogical energy scenario modeling tool. The Master Thesis work presented in this report is the result of a six months internship in the company within the Scenario project team, and more particularly within the energy scenario modeling tool development team. Beside the energy demand and supply side of a scenario design stands the energy sector. The work focused on this aspect, which corresponds to all the industry and the energy flows standing in between primary energy resources and our final energy consumption. It can therefore be considered as the global conversion process of the energy, which encompasses conversion efficiencies, energy allocation and the different losses. This energy sector is of main concern when one is dealing with energy scenarios since it can contain many possibilities to be investigated in order to set up different variants. Getting a strong knowledge about the energy sector is then crucial. Nevertheless, the global conversion process between primary and final energy still remains a big black box for many of us and therefore prevents us to realize its role and the means that can be applied to explore even further the possible energy scenarios possibilities. To counteract this observation, this thesis work was dedicated to analyze the energy sector at world scale by revealing its components and the main levers that could be used to shape the future energy system. This analysis was conducted via the system approach and lead to the development of a methodology to model the energy sector and develop a module in which cursors enable an end-user to generate a wide range of scenarios and explore different resources allocation options etc. This module is part of TSP’s energy scenario modeling tool together with a demand and a supply side modules. This work is intended to provide a clear vision of the energy sector and the key parameters that might be of main importance to initiate variants study for energy scenarios prospects, such as power efficiencies, energy mix or distribution losses.

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Grudzien, Piotr. "Comparative Analysis of Energy Intensity and Profitability in Emerging E-Grocery Retail Models." Thesis, KTH, Energiteknik, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-278013.

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The supermarkets account for approximately 3% - 4% of the electricity consumption in the industrialisedcountries which makes them one of the main contributors to climate change. Food retail, similarly toother energy intensive industries requires deep changes that would reduce its negative environmentalfootprint. Online grocery (e-grocery), recording three-digit growth globally in the times of COVID-19pandemic, has the potential to disrupt the market and bring opportunities for energy intensity reduction.Brick & mortar retailers adapting to this trend not only experience technical challenges with orderfulfilment and last-mile logistics, but also they struggle to achieve profitability of e-grocery. Therefore,there is a need for guidance in this transformation. This thesis aims to help retailers choose the leastenergy intensive and profitable e-grocery configuration by comparing the emerging fulfilment models(in-store, omni store, dark store) and last-mile delivery options (click & collect, home delivery).The scope of this thesis includes a literature and market review, where an overview of e-grocery market,logistics, technologies, energy intensity and economics is given. The review is followed by methodologyexplaining the tools and assumptions used for analyses. Then, energy intensity analysis is performed whereenergy intensity per order is calculated using CyberMart software for three fulfilment models and twodelivery options. After that, the operating costs and profitability of e-grocery models is analysed. Finally,the results from analyses are discussed, concluded and recommendations for the retailers are given.The results of this thesis suggest that e-grocery may indeed reduce energy intensity of food retail but theenergy consumption has little impact on the operational costs of the e-grocers. Labour fulfilment andorder delivery costs optimisation play the biggest role in achieving profitability of online retail. Thus, it isrecommended that the retailers, along with the growing penetration of e-grocery, develop automatedfulfilment and click & collect solutions that would reduce the operational costs and allow for anincremental, yet future-proof adaptation to the e-grocery revolution. Stormarknaderna står för cirka 3% - 4% av elförbrukningen i de industrialiserade länderna, vilket gör demtill en av de främsta orsakerna till klimatförändringarna. Livsmedelsbutiker kräver, på liknande sätt somandra energikrävande industrier, stora förändringar som kan minska dess negativa miljöpåverkan.E-handel av livsmedel, som har registrerat tresiffrig tillväxt globalt under tiderna förCOVID-19-pandemin, har potential att störa marknaden och ge möjligheter till minskning avenergiintensitet.Traditionell verksamhet som anpassar sig till denna trend upplever inte bara tekniska utmaningar medorderhantering och leverans till slutkund, utan de kämpar också för att uppnå lönsamhet. Därför finns detbehov av vägledning i denna omvandling. Denna avhandling syftar till att hjälpa återförsäljare att välja deminst energikrävande och lönsamma alternativen för e-handel av livsmedel genom att jämföra de nyamodellerna för orderhantering (in-store, omni store, dark store) och leveransalternativ till slutkund (click& collect, hemleverans).Avhandlingen omfattar en litteratur- och marknadsstudie, där en överblick ges över e-handel av livsmedel,logistik, teknik, energiintensitet och ekonomi. Studien följs av ett avsnitt om metodik som förklararverktyg och antaganden som används för analysen. Därefter utförs en analys av energiintensitet därenergiintensitet per order beräknas med hjälp av programvaran CyberMart för tre modeller förorderhantering och två leveransalternativ. Därefter analyseras driftskostnaderna och lönsamheten förmodeller för e-handel av livsmedel. Slutligen diskuteras resultaten från analyserna ochrekommendationerna till detaljhandlarna presenteras.Resultaten av denna avhandling tyder på att e-handel av livsmedel verkligen kan minskaenergianvändningen i livsmedelsindustrin men energiförbrukningen har liten inverkan pådriftskostnaderna för e-handlarna. Att optimera arbetet för orderhantering och kostnaden för leveransspelar störst roll för att uppnå lönsamhet för e-handeln. Det rekommenderas därför att detaljhandlarna,tillsammans med den växande andelen av e-handel, utvecklar automatiserad lösningar för orderhanteringoch click & collect som skulle minska driftskostnaderna och möjliggöra en stegvis, men ändåframtidssäker anpassning till e-handeln av livsmedel.

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15

Lynch, Kieran James. "Subseasonal weather forecasting for the energy sector." Thesis, University of Reading, 2017. http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/75150/.

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This thesis explores the potential application of subseasonal weather forecasts for the energy industry. Power contracts that energy companies buy and sell are subject to price and volume risk. A significant component of these risks is driven by weather variability. Accurate weather forecasts can help increase profits whilst reducing price and volume risk. However, meteorological research to date (in relation to the energy sector) has focused on forecasting up to 10 days ahead, as weather forecasts were traditionally considered to have limited to no skill thereafter. The aim of this research is therefore to show that meteorological forecasts can be used to make quantitative skillful predictions that can reduce risk within the energy sector at the subseasonal timescale. Although there is a large body of literature using NWP model output at lead times up to 10 days, there appears to be no prior research investigating the potential for subseasonal weather forecasts on the energy sector. A three step process was pursued in order to achieve this. Firstly, the forecast skill of wind speed and temperature (two key meteorological variables for the energy industry) was evaluated. Then wind power, demand and power price models were developed allowing the explicit incorporation of weather into the power price. This allowed quantification of the weather related skill and impacts on the power price and subsequent evaluation of applications that are contingent on the power price. These applications were evaluated using the forecasts to inform trading strategies in an effort to increase profits and reduce risk. The first section of research demonstrates that there is forecast skill of wind speed and temperature within the ECMWF monthly forecast model up to week 3 weeks ahead (Le. a weekly average over a lead time of day 14-21). The ECMWF model demonstrated cor¬relations of approximately 0.6 for the operational forecast and 0.3 for the hindcasts when forecasting week 3 UK winds speeds. Similar results were found for temperatures. By using the weather information from the ECMWF monthly forecast, skillful predictions of UK wind power, demand and electricity price were obtained for week 3 during the winter period over the years 2008 to 2014. Anomaly correlations in the range of 0.5-0.6 and CRPS skill scores of 0.10-0.16 were obtained for all three of these variables when comparing the subseasonal forecast with a forecast based on climatological weather in¬formation. The added value of using the subseasonal weather forecast information for a number of trading strategies was evaluated. A speculative trading strategy using the subseasonal weather forecast to value futures contracts demonstrated that positive re¬turns were achieved when systematically trading over 5 winters. When choosing the volume of power to buy in order to hedge retail demand risk, it was found that in some instances the subseasonal forecast outperforms the version using climatological weather to hedge the risk. The final conclusion is that skillful subseasonal forecasts of the meteorological variables exist and this skill propagates through to the energy system variables (wind power, demand and price) which should allow a range applications within the energy sector to potentially reduce risk.

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Khan, Muhammad Shoaib Arshad. "Scope of BlockChain Technology in Energy Sector." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Avdelningen för byggnadsteknik, energisystem och miljövetenskap, 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-30850.

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World energy systems are going through a continuous change. The focus has been shifted from large thermal or hydal power generation to small distributed generation, mainly based upon renewable energy systems. This transition is also backed by some governments. There have also been significant improvements in grid technology, and modern-day smart grid can provide real time bi-directional flow of data i.e. “real time energy deficit and surplus, and also real time prices to both producers and consumers. Smart grid can also accommodate intermittent small suppliers of electricity. This shift in energy generation policy and improvement in grid technology has opened ways for small scale energy producers and consumers to share energy with each other. It has also opened ways to purchase or sale energy to unknown peers over a smart grid. Need has been felt to store these transactions among peers in a secure, non-alterable yet quickly accessible way. Blockchain technology offers to provide this secure, unalterable yet quickly accessible ledger. In this study this transition process and role of blockchain technology for future energy systems has been historically reviewed. It has been found out that on top of keeping record of Peer to Peer transactions, blockchain technology can fill many other purposes. However, technology is still not matured for large scale projects, Research projects are underway to decrease the large time and energy consumption for block building computational processes yet keeping them safe and reliable.

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17

Glancey, Keith Sean. "Determinants of growth and profitability in small entrepreneurial firms in the manufacturing sector in Tayside." Thesis, University of Abertay Dundee, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.246191.

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18

van, der Kraan Bram. "Investing in photovoltaics in Jämtland : Environmental concern? Or profitability push." Thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Avdelningen för ekoteknik och hållbart byggande, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-27948.

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The Regional Council of Jämtland has a goal to increase the export of renewable energy and with that reduce the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. One of the measures used to reach this goal is to give subsidies and tax reductions for investments in photovoltaics. Photovoltaics are generally perceived as “good for the environment” and give a “good image” to companies. They are marketed as interesting for private persons and farmers from a profitability point of view. Sweden has an electricity mix with average CO2 emissions of 20-30 g/kWh. Compared to other countries in Europe this is very low. The CO2 emissions of photovoltaics during their lifetime are 46 g/kWh according to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Taking this in consideration it can be concluded that photovoltaics actually increase GHG emissions as they have higher emissions of CO2 than the average in Sweden. When the decision to invest in photovoltaics is made with profitability as a main reason, it is debatable if the subsidies and tax reductions are needed. When the decision to invest in photovoltaics is made with environmental concern as a main reason, the subsidies might be given to other environmental technologies that are better from a climate perspective. Considering this, the push for profitability of photovoltaics can be seen as just another increase in consumption.

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19

Klege, Rebecca Afua. "Empirical and behavioural economic applications to the energy sector." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/32502.

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This thesis contributes to the energy literature by leveraging insights from empirical and experimental economics. The thesis presents four papers with a common goal of understanding specific themes in the energy sector namely: households energy use patterns, behavioural preferences among entrepreneurs operating energy businesses and applications of behavioural nudges to reduce energy use. The first paper set the tone for the two subsequent chapters. The paper: 'Energy Choices and Tenancy in Rwanda' examines the energy choice patterns of households based on their rental status and dwelling types. The fifth Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey (EICV5) conducted over one year, October 2016 to October 2017, together with a bivariate probit model is used. A heterogeneous analysis focused on gender and income differentiated impacts, as well as geographical differences based on the tenancy status of households, is further examined. The results signal that households energy choices in Rwanda differ by rental and dwelling types. The second and third papers ascertain the role of competition and risk preferences among entrepreneurs working in off-grid renewable energy microenterprises and its effects on business success in the context of including more women as entrepreneurs in the energy sector. Specifically, the second paper: 'Competition and Gender in the Lab vs Field: Experiments with Off-Grid Renewable Energy Entrepreneurs in Rural Rwanda' examines the gender differences in competitiveness and how this affects the business success of entrepreneurs operating renewable energy enterprises. Results from the economic experiments are compared to the day to day activities of the business. Findings show that female entrepreneurs are not less likely to compete and are not outperformed by male entrepreneurs. This stands in contrast to several studies, mostly conducted on university students of developed countries. The third paper: 'Risk attitudes, Gender and Business Performance Among off-grid Renewable Energy Entrepreneurs in Rural Rwanda' in a similar context examines the risk attitudes among entrepreneurs and its effect on the performance from a gender perspective. The study adopts a choice list experimental approach to elicit risk attitudes. The results indicate a strong risk aversion among entrepreneurs. The risk aversion found is higher for women compared to men. Entrepreneurs with high risk-taking abilities also tend to record better performance levels. The paper concludes that policies geared towards hedging against risk aversion in entrepreneurial programs may be vital in reducing gender gaps in business performance. The fourth paper: 'The power of nudging: Using feedback, competition and responsibility assignment to save electricity in a non-residential setting' answers the question 'can behavioural interventions achieve energy savings in non-residential settings where users do not face the financial consequences of their behaviour?' The paper relies on a randomized control trial and two behavioural interventions. Results show that behavioural nudges can be useful in reducing energy consumption in a non-residential environment.

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20

Becken, Susanne. "Energy use in the New Zealand tourism sector." Phd thesis, Lincoln University, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/10182/440.

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Energy use associated with tourism has rarely been studied, despite a potentially considerable contribution to global or national energy demand and concomitant greenhouse gas emissions. In New Zealand, tourism constitutes an increasingly important economic sector that is supported by the Government to induce further economic growth. At the same time New Zealand is facing the challenge of reducing currently increasing fossil fuel combustion and carbon dioxide emissions. As a response, this study investigated the contribution tourism makes to energy use in New Zealand. In particular it has examined the role of the three main tourism subsectors (transport, accommodation, and attractions/activities), and different domestic and international 'tourist types'. Seven separate data analyses provided inputs for building a model based on 'tourist types' from which energy use in the New Zealand tourism sector could be estimated. Tourism was found to contribute at least 5.6% to national energy demand, which is larger than its 4.9% contribution to GDP in 2000. Transport, in particular domestic air and car travel, was identified as the dominant energy consumer. Within the accommodation sub-sector, hotels are the largest energy consumers, both in total and on a per visitor-night basis. Of the three sub-sectors, attractions and activities contribute least to energy use, however, activities such as scenic flights or boat cruises were recognised as being energy intensive. As a result of larger visitor volumes, domestic tourists contribute more to energy consumption than international tourists. Domestic and international tourists types differ in their energy consumption patterns, for example measured as energy use per travel day. Tourist types that rely on air travel are the most energy intensive ones, for example the domestic 'long air business' travellers or the international 'coach tourists'. The importance of international tourists' energy use will increase, given current growth rates. There are many options to decrease energy use of the tourism sector, with the most effective ones being within the energy intensive transport sub-sector. Increasing vehicle efficiencies and decreasing travel distances appear to be the most promising measures. This study argues that energy use depends largely on tourists' travel behaviour. Changing behaviour is possible but is postulated to be very difficult, and further research is needed to better understand tourists' motivations, expectations and decision-making. Only then, can strategies be developed and implemented to alter travel behaviours to better balance energy use, other environmental impacts and economic yield. Such a balance is a crucial consideration in the search for more sustainable forms of tourism.

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21

Xu, Jingsi M. C. P. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Energy intensity in China's iron and steel sector." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/67246.

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Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2011. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-108). In this study, I examine the spatial and economic factors that influence energy intensity in China's iron and steel sector, namely industrial value added, renovation investment, coke consumption, and local coke supply. Despite the recognition of the importance of these spatial and economic factors in understanding energy intensity in the steel industry, the municipal and provincial governments of China have failed to integrate them into their energy policy making. Therefore, in order to seek the most effective ways of reducing energy intensity and to encourage energy conservation behavior in China's iron and steel sector, I make three simulations based on the (1) shifts in direct energy efficiency in the sector, (2) coke consumption during the iron and steel making processes, and (3) manufacturing material transportation. I propose an analytical framework for examining the differences in energy intensity at the regional level that are attributed to these spatial and economic factors. More specifically, among these four key factors presented in the multi-level regression models, I identify three factors-industrial value added, renovation investment, and coke consumption indices- as "spatial-level" or "time-variant" factors. I treat the fourth one-local coke supply-as the only "temporal-level" or "time-invariant" factor. I present three major implications for the energy policy-making regarding the development of a "green" iron and steel sector in China. First, when I incorporate all four key factors-industrial value added, renovation investment, coke consumption, and local coke supply-I obtain significantly improved overall exploratory power of the regional-level energy intensity model. Second, the results of my national-level input-output analysis show that policy makers should focus on the changes in total energy intensity, which includes both direct (40 percent) and indirect (60 percent) energy intensity, to design, implement, and evaluate energy-efficient policies for China's iron and steel sector. Third, my study sheds light on the most recent national-level development plan the "1 2 th Five-Year' Plan-and I argue that by adopting efficient industrial structure upgrading strategies, the iron and steel sector can dramatically reduce the national energy consumption in China in the near future. by Jingsi Xu. M.C.P.

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22

Schroth, Daniel-Alexander. "The Europeanisation of South-Eastern Europe's energy sector." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.608874.

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23

Dyner, Isaac. "System dynamics platforms for integrated energy analysis." Thesis, London Business School (University of London), 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.275115.

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24

Zeglat, Dia. "An investigation of the relationship between service quality and profitability in the UK budget hotel sector." Thesis, University of Surrey, 2008. http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/873/.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of the relationship between service quality and profitability in the UK budget hotel sector, by developing and testing a conceptual framework which suggests that service quality has a positive and indirect impact on profitability via customer satisfaction, customer retention, productivity, market share and premium price. This study collected three sets of data. The first data set was qualitative, obtained from four hotel managers using in-depth interviews; the respondents were invited to evaluate the research model. The second data set was secondary, Hotel Performance Data collected from 182 hotel units of a leading budget hotel chain in the UK. The third data set was quantitative, collected from 477 general managers of units operated and located across the UK, from the same budget hotel chain. The managers who participated in the qualitative study generally supported the research model and research hypotheses developed. The key finding from the secondary data set was that there is no direct influence from service quality on profitability. This data set further revealed that profitability is positively influenced by sales growth, as a consequence of customer retention, and negatively influenced by premium price. For the quantitative data set, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) supported the two dimensions of service quality (physical service quality, and staff behaviour and attitude). For the managing demand and capacity scale, (EFA) indicates a four factor solution. Looking at the scale reliabilities, the results approved the two dimensional scale of service quality, while the managing demand and capacity scale showed poor values for all dimensions extracted except the first dimension (controlling guest's usage).

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25

Baltas, Konstantinos N. "Essays in Efficiency and Stability of the Banking Sector." Thesis, Queen Mary, University of London, 2014. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/7901.

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This thesis contributes via the concept of efficiency in four distinct fields of the fi nancial economics and banking literature: technological heterogeneity, liquidity creation, profitability, and stability of banks. In Chapter 1 we motivate the analysis by presenting the main developments that have been taking place in the banking sector as far as these four elds are concerned and highlight their importance to the appropriate functioning of the nancial system and of the economy overall. In Chapter 2 we address the issue that conventional surveys on bank efficiency draw conclusions based on the assumption that all banks in a sample use the same production technology. However, efficiency estimates can be severely distorted if the existence of unobserved differences in technological regimes is not taken into consideration. We estimate the unobserved heterogeneity in banking technologies using a latent class stochastic frontier model. In order to arrive at a policy implication that is valid across time and markets, we present two applications of the model using separately data from the UK and Greek banking sector over the periods 1987-2011 and 1993-2011 respectively. To increase the precision of our inferences, we adopt two distinct empirical methodologies: a panel data method and a pooled cross-section modelling strategy. Our results reveal that bank-heterogeneity in both banking sectors can be controlled for two technological regimes. We find a trade-o¤ between the level of sophistication within a fi nancial system and its level of aggregate efficiency. Consistency among the results is established under both methodologies. Further, we propose a methodology with regard to M&As activity of UK and Greek banks within a latent class context. We examine numerous potential M&A scenarios among banks that belong to different technological regimes, and we test whether there is a transition of the new banks to a more efficient technological class resulting from this M&A activity. We find strong evidence that new financial institutions can be better equipped to withstand potential adverse economic conditions. Finally, we cast doubt on what the true motivation for M&A activity is and we extract important policy inferences in terms of social welfare. In Chapter 3 we introduce the "Cost Efficiency - Liquidity Creation Hypothesis" (CELCH) according to which a rise in a bank s cost efficiency level increases its level of liquidity creation. By employing a novel stress test scenario under a PVAR methodology, we test the CELCH and the direction of causality among liquidity creation and cost efficiency variables in the UK and Greek banking sector. Moreover using new measures of liquidity creation (Berger and Bouwman, 2009) we address the question of whether potential M&As can enhance liquidity creation and create additional credit channels in the economy. We evaluate and compare the robustness of potential consolidation scenarios by employing half - life measures (Chortareas and Kapetanios 2013). We show a positive impact of cost efficiency on liquidity creation in line with CELCH. The empirical evidence further suggests that potential consolidation activity can enhance the ow of credit in the economy. Bank shocks seem to be the most persistent on both liquidity creation and cost efficiency and the UK banking system is found to withstand more effectively adverse economic conditions. Finally, we cast doubts on the strategy followed by policy authorities regarding the recent wave of M&As in the Greek banking sector. In Chapter 4, we attempt to shed light on the trade-o¤ between fi nancial stability and efficiency. We highlight that current tests of banking efficiency do not take into account whether banks managers are taking too much or too little risk relative to the value maximising amount. We assume that moving from an intermediary bank type balance sheet to an investment bank type not only changes the risk-return combination of the balance sheet but also increases the banks degree of instability, that is the probability of insolvency when adverse effects occur. To this extent, we propose a new efficiency measure which incorporates all the aforementioned ambiguous points. An empirical investigation of US commercial banks between 2003-2012 suggests that our proposed risk-adjusted index has superior explanatory power with respect to banks profi tability and gives better predictions compared to conventional banking efficiency measures. This holds after various robustness checks. Chapter 5 summarizes the main findings of all three distinct studies and concludes by highlighting the importance and the contributing points of the thesis in the banking and financial economics literature.

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Choi, Dong Gu. "Energy models for electricity sector with green policies and technologies." Diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/45883.

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A variety of energy models and tools have been used for an comprehensive analysis of the complex energy systems and the design of pathway to sustainable energy world. This thesis analyzes three interesting problems in the electricity sector by developing and using suitable energy models. Chapter 2 investigates how to incorporate demand responsiveness for policy analysis in the electricity sector using a least-cost model. This study develops its own least-cost model which includes some characteristics for two important policies in the electricity sector, and suggests an iterative approach for incorporating the demand response to price change under new policy. Based on a case study, the state of Georgia, this chapter shows the effects of including demand response on the evaluation of policy. Chapter 3 is about new technology adoption pathways in the electric power system. In this chapter, by investigating the related status of policies and specifications of electric vehicles and wind power technologies in the U.S., several adoption pathways of the technologies in the U.S. eastern interconnection have been developed. This study develops four-serial models for the estimation of future economic and environmental impacts of the technologies' penetration. The results show that the total greenhouse gas emissions of the entire energy system do not substantially decrease even with a high level of electric vehicle adoption. The combination of two technologies, even more with appropriate policies, can notably decrease the total greenhouse gas emissions. Chapter 4 is a study about demand response programs, particularly optional time-based rates, for residential customers. This chapter analyzes the main reason that the participation of the current programs is low even though the programs have benefits. This study investigates two policy tools, a subsidy for flexible residential demand and a shared-savings mechanism based on consumption pattern changes, and examines the implementation of the tools and their potential to overcome the current inefficient operation.

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27

Bulut, Mehmet Börühan. "An analysis of the relationship between the energy and buildings sectors in Sweden." Licentiate thesis, Mälardalens högskola, Framtidens energi, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-28693.

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Climate change is one of the global challenges of our time. The energy sector is at the focus of the European efforts to combat climate change as it accounts for 80% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union. Buildings, on the other hand, represent 40% of the energy use and 33% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, giving the buildings sector also a key role in the European climate strategy. There are, at the same time, strong interdependencies between the energy and buildings sectors due to the high amount of energy used by buildings and their rising importance as active components in the future energy systems. These interdependencies do not only influence the investment decisions in the energy and buildings sectors, but also the effectiveness of the European climate strategy. Cooperation between the energy and buildings sectors can create beneficial outcomes for the both sectors as well as the environment. It may also encourage innovation, improve the energy performance of buildings, and help achieve a higher penetration of renewable energy into the energy system. This licentiate thesis investigates the relationship between the energy and buildings sector at the inter-company level. Presenting the data collected from interviews and a web survey answered by the energy and buildings sectors in Sweden, this thesis examines the level of cooperation between these two sectors, discusses trust issues between stakeholders, presents the factors that negatively impact cooperation, and provides recommendations for the minimisation of these factors. The findings presented in this thesis indicate an insufficient level of cooperation between the energy and buildings sectors in Sweden, to which the following factors have been identified to contribute in a negative a way: district heating monopolies; energy efficiency in buildings; building regulations; self-generation of electricity; and energy use patterns. The emphasis on self-interest by stakeholders within the both sectors appears to create trust issues between stakeholders. Accordingly, shifting the focus from self-gains to mutual gains is deemed necessary to improve the cooperation between the energy and buildings sectors. This, however requires significant changes in current practices and business models. It has been identified that the development of smart energy systems that allow a closer interaction between the energy and buildings sectors through flexible energy supply and use would minimise many of the factors that negatively impact cooperation. Klimatförändringen är en av de stora globala utmaningar vi står inför. I Europa läggs idag stort fokus på energisektorn, som står för 80 procent av det totala utsläppen av växthusgaser. Byggnader representerar 40 procent av energianvändningen och 33 procent av växthusutsläppen, vilket också ger byggsektorn en nyckelroll i den europeiska klimatstrategin. Samtidigt finns det starka beroendeförhållanden mellan energi- och byggsektorn på grund av den höga energianvändningen i byggnader och deras ökade betydelse som en aktiv komponent i det framtida energisystemet. Dessa beroendeförhållanden påverkar inte bara investeringsbeslut i de båda sektorerna, utan även effektiviteten i den europeiska klimatstrategin. Samarbete mellan energi- och byggsektorn kan få positiva effekter för både dem själva såväl som för miljön. Samarbete mellan sektorerna kan även uppmuntra innovation, förbättra energieffektiviteten i byggnader och tillåta en högre användning av förnyelsebar energi i energisystemet. Denna licentiatavhandling utforskar förhållandet mellan energi- och byggsektorn på företagsnivå genom att analysera data som samlats in med hjälp av intervjuer och en webbaserad enkät. Intervjuer och enkäter har besvarades av både energi- och byggsektorerna i Sverige. Denna avhandling studerar nivån av samarbete mellan de två sektorerna, diskuterar problem gällande förtroende mellan intressenter, presenterar de identifierade faktorer som försvårar samarbete och ger rekommendationer för att minimera dessa. Resultatet visar på en otillräcklig nivå av samarbete mellan energi- och byggsektorerna i Sverige. De faktorer som försvårar samarbetet är följande: fjärrvärmemonopol; energieffektivitet i byggnader; byggregler, egenproduktion av el och användarmönster. Naturligt finns ett egenintresse hos olika intressenter inom de båda sektorerna, och detta tycks ha skapat ett förtroendeproblem mellan de olika sektorerna Att byta fokus från egen vinning till gemensamma mål bedöms vara nödvändigt för att öka samarbetet mellan energi- och byggsektorerna. Detta fodrar dock stora förändringar både i nuvarande verksamhet samt i affärsmodellerna. Det har påvisats att utvecklandet av smarta energisystem som tillåter en större interaktion mellan energi- och byggsektorerna genom flexibel energiförsörjning och användning skulle minimera många av de faktorer som inverkar negativt på samarbetet.

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Acosta, Canta Maciel Lisbet, and Tréneman Samantha Belén Irivarren. "La rotación de inventarios y su influencia en la rentabilidad de empresas del sector textil – confecciones en Lima Centro – Gamarra durante el año 2018." Bachelor's thesis, Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (UPC), 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10757/652556.

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La presente investigación tiene como finalidad determinar la influencia de la rotación de inventarios en la rentabilidad de empresas del sector textil en Lima Centro - Gamarra durante el año 2018. El trabajo está dividido en cinco capítulos. En el primer capítulo, se describirá el sector textil, los antecedentes nacionales e internacionales y los conceptos claves como la rotación de inventarios y la rentabilidad, cada uno bajo sus respectivas definiciones e indicadores. En el segundo capítulo, se presentará el plan de investigación que se ejecutará para la investigación. También se explicará el planteamiento del problema, su justificación y a quiénes aportará la investigación. En el tercer capítulo, se plantea la metodología a utilizar en la investigación, así como el tipo de enfoque cuantitativo, cualitativo y mixto. Además, se define la población y muestra a utilizar para validar las hipótesis planteadas en el capítulo dos. En el cuarto capítulo, se procede a explicar las técnicas utilizadas al recolectar todos los datos necesarios según los enfoques escogidos, en este caso, las entrevistas a profundidad con expertos y las encuestas a la muestra escogida. Además, se incluye un caso práctico para poder dar mayor explicación al tema investigado, otro enfoque de investigación. En el quinto capítulo, se presenta el análisis de los resultados obtenidos en el capítulo cuatro, es decir, mediante entrevistas, encuestas y caso práctico, que nos permiten probar y validar las hipótesis de la presente tesis, para finalmente establecer las conclusiones y recomendaciones de esta investigación. The purpose of this research is to determine the influence of inventory turnover on the profitability of companies in the textile sector in Lima Centro - Gamarra during 2018. The work is divided into five chapters. In the first chapter, the textile sector, national and international background, and key concepts such as inventory turnover and profitability will be described, each under their respective definitions and indicators. In the second chapter, the research plan to be executed for the research will be presented. The approach to the problem, its justification and who the research will contribute to will also be explained. In the third chapter, the methodology to be used in the investigation is presented, as well as the type of quantitative, qualitative and mixed approach. Furthermore, the population is defined and the sample to be used to validate the hypotheses presented in chapter two. In the fourth chapter, we proceed to explain the techniques used when collecting all the necessary data according to the chosen approaches, in this case, in-depth interviews with experts and surveys of the chosen sample. In addition, a practical case is included to give a greater explanation to the investigated topic, another research approach. In the fifth chapter, the analysis of the results obtained in chapter four is presented, that is, through interviews, surveys and a practical case, which allow us to test and validate the hypotheses of this thesis, to finally establish the conclusions and recommendations of this investigation. Tesis

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Magnusson, Kevin. "Hydrogen-enabled Decarbonization in the Industrial Sector." Thesis, KTH, Kraft- och värmeteknologi, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-289439.

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With the increase of global emissions and the development of renewable energy, the application of more clean energy to industrial emission reduction has become an increasingly important topic. In metal production, a large amount of carbon dioxide is generated due to the wide application of carbon. Thus, using hydrogen instead of carbon to achieve industrial decarbonization is a way to reduce emissions. Four modes for supplying hydrogen to Höganäs AB and Boliden AB are analyzed and investigated in this work. The four modes are i) on-site hydrogen production. ii) Blending hydrogen into natural gas pipelines.iii) Hydrogen pipeline delivery. iv) Liquid hydrogen truck. These modes are compared in different aspects,such as cost and CO2 emission. To model different modes, some data are assumed, and some are obtained from external sources. All modes need to meet each company’s hydrogen demand, which is estimated at 2000 kg per day. Furthermore, the costs of modes are operated and calculated in Python. One step further, the emissions of each mode are simulated and compared in Matlab. Finally, the most cost-effective and low emission mode for each company can be devised. The results show that the most cost-effective mode for Höganäs AB and Boliden AB is on-site hydrogenproduction. The full load hour is 10 hours per day to meet the hydrogen demand of companies. The cost is proportional to the full load hour and hydrogen mass flow, but inversely proportional to electricity price. The lowest cost, which is 4.07 €/kg, occurs at maximal full load hours and lowest electricity price. The pipeline delivery options are the lowest-emissions options, but the entire mode has high emissions due to the hydrogen production from the site plant. The liquid hydrogen truck is feasible for long-distance delivery. Med ökningen av de globala utsläppen och utvecklingen av förnybar energi har tillämpningen av mer ren energi på industriella utsläppsminskningar blivit ett allt viktigare ämne. Under metallproduktionsprocessen genereras en stor mängd koldioxid på grund av den breda användningen av kol. Att använda väte istället för kol för att uppnå industriell avkolning är således ett sätt att minska utsläppen. I detta arbete analyseras och undersöks fyra sätt att leverera väte till Höganäs AB och Boliden AB. De fyra metoderna är: i) Väteproduktion på plats. ii) Blandning av väte i naturgas pipeline. iii) Leverans av väte pipeline. iv) Flytandevätgasbil. Dessa metoder jämförs i olika aspekter såsom kostnad och CO2 utsläpp. För att modellera olika metoder antas en del data och en del erhålls från externa källor. Alla metoder måste tillgodose varje företags vätgasbehov som uppskattas till 2000 kg per dag. Dessutom hanteras och beräknas kostnaderna för metoder i Python. Ett steg längre simuleras och jämförs utsläppen från varje metoder i Matlab. Slutligen kan det mest kostnadseffektiva och lågautsläppsläget för varje företag utformas. Resultaten visar att det mest kostnadseffektiva sättet för Höganäs AB och Boliden AB är produktion av vätgas på plats. Den fullastade timmen är minst 10 timmar per dag för att tillgodose företagens vätebehov. Kostnaden är proportionell mot full belastningstimme och vätemassaflödet, men omvänt proportionell mot elpriset. Den lägsta kostnaden, som är 4,07 € / kg, uppstår vid maximal laddningstid och lägsta elpris. Pipeline leverans alternativen är de lägst utsläppalternativen men hela moden har höga utsläpp på grund av vätgasproduktinen från anläggningar, och flytande vätgasbil är möjlig för långdistansleverans.

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Msimanga, Bongani. "Exploring the impacts of renewable energy and energy efficiency policies on the mining sector." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/96668.

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Thesis (MCom)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Worldwide, energy has been, and continues to be, key to economic development. However, the current global consensus is that energy-related carbon dioxide emissions would, at current rates, put the world onto a potentially catastrophic trajectory which could lead to global warming of 5 degree Celsius or more compared to pre-industrial times. There is a critical need for a low-carbon development or a move away from conventional fossil fuels energy sources. This study explores impacts of policies that South Africa developed in order to champion sustainable energy strategies based on energy efficiency and non-conventional energy sources, including renewable energy. The mining sector, because of its energy-intensive nature, was chosen. In order to achieve this objective three approaches were carried out: (i) a critical review of literature on energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy (RE) ; (ii) two case-studies that demonstrate the impacts of the policies; and (iii) action research on a sample of mines using survey questionnaire and interviewing. The research results show that the need to have security in energy and the need to be competitive and grow revenue are significant in deciding to carry out EE and RE initiatives in the mining sector. The results also show that safety followed by production are the priorities and are accompanied by a range of other demands, such as cost reduction and legislative requirements. It is, therefore, within this context that EE and RE initiative will always be carried out in the mining sector. The research concludes that, under the current market framework, South African EE and RE policies are not as effective as hoped they would be. The research, therefore, recommends that a percentage of the mines’ revenue could be dedicated to EE and RE initiatives. In addition, South Africa needs to come up with a new type of productive endeavour that would lead to less extractive industries, including mines. AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Energie is, was en sal wereldwyd altyd die sleutel wees tot ekonomiese ontwikkeling. Nieteenstaande, word dit wereldwyd aanvaar dat die huidige energie opwekking se koolstofdioksied vrystelling moontlik kan lei tot aardverwarming van 5 grade Celsius of meer wanneer vergelyk met word met pre-industriële tye. Daar is ‘n kritiese behoefte aan lae koolstofdioksied vrystelling ontwikkelings of ‘n beperking van konvensionele fossielbrandstof energiebronne. Hierdie studie analiseer die impak van die Suid Afrikaanse beleid wat ontwikkel is om volhoubare energie te bevorder wat effektief en onkonvensioneel is, insluitend hernubare energie. Die mynsektor, as ‘n groot verbruiker van energie, vorm die kern van die studie. Die studie is voltooi in drie fases naamlik: (1) kritiese oorsig van die literatuur oor energiedoeltreffendheid (EE) en hernubare energie (RE); (2) twee gevallestudies wat die impak van die beleid bevestig; en (3) praktiese navorsing deur middel van vraelyste en persoonlike onderhoude met seker myne. Die navorsing bevestig dat die behoefte aan bestendige energie teen kompeterende pryse wat die mynsektor in staat stel om inkomste te groei ,‘n beduidende invloed het op die besluit om EE of RE inisiatiewe te onderneem. Die resultate bevestig verder dat beroepsveiligheid en produksie uitsette die eerste prioriteite vir die myne is. Dit word verder beinvloed deur kostebesparings en wetlike vereistes. Enige EE en RE inisiatiewe wat onderneem word sal in hierdie konteks plaasvind. Die navorsing kom tot die slotsom dat, onder huidige marktoestande, Suid Afrika se EE en RE beleid nie so effektief is as waarop daar gehoop is nie. Die navorsing beveel derhalwe aan dat ‘n persentasie van myne se inkomste geoormerk moet word vir EE en RE inisiatiewe. Verder meer , Suid Afrika moet strewe na tipes produksie wat minder natuurlike grondstowwe onttrek, insluitend die myne.

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Chalal, Moulay L. "A smart urban energy prediction system to support energy planning in the residential sector." Thesis, Nottingham Trent University, 2018. http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/34655/.

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The UK residential sector accounts for approximately 27%., and 17% of the country energy consumption and its CO2 emission, respectively. Thus, developing appropriate polices to reduce the environmental factors, which are associated with the CO2 emissions of a rapidly growing urban population, constitutes a high priority. Moreover, ensures the creation of cities that respect the natural environment and the well-being of future generations. While a great deal of expertise on detailing and constructing low-energy buildings and cities has been developed, it is fragmented and does not consider the concept of household life-cycle demographic transitions in the prediction of residential energy consumption. This research aimed to develop an integrated 3D urban energy prediction tool which supports decision-making for a sustainable energy monitoring and planning in the residential sector. This, while considering the CK household demographic transition patterns in the energy prediction process. To attain the above aim, the research embraced a mixed-methods methodology with 4 stages of practical implementations. In stages 1 and 2, statistical procedures such as binary logistic regression, were applied to the British household panel data survey (BHPS) to attain the two following objectives. First, to analyse the socio-economic and demographic factors affecting the UK household transitions; consequently, predict future transition patterns in the next 10-15 years. Secondly, to investigate the impact of the predicted transition patterns on the residential energy consumption. The examination of the findings indicated that the nature of independent factors and their degree of influence on household transition patterns were not consistent across the 10-15 years. Moreover, it advised that household transitions mostly have a positive but weak effect on their energy usage. Based on those findings, a linear regression model was developed to predict the households' future electricity usage in function of their transition, demographic and socio economic variables. In phases 3 and 4, a 3D urban energy prediction tool (EvoEnergy) was developed by first building a 3D semantic model of a pilot area in Nottingham city. Moreover, by integrating the research findings from stages 1 and 2 into EvoEnergy using computer scripting, open-source game technology, and 3D visualisation techniques. Finally, despite the facts that the benchmarking of EvoEnergy highlighted some areas for improvement, it has advised that EvoEnergy has the ability to predict domestic electricity consumption at the building and neighbourhood levels with a good accuracy(+/- 5% error).

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Sitompul, Rislima Febriani Economics Australian School of Business UNSW. "Energy-related CO2 emissions in the Indonesian manufacturing sector." Awarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Economics, 2006. http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/30434.

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This study is aimed at developing policies for energy efficiency by observing the past changes of energy use in Indonesia???s manufacturing sector over the period 1980???2000, and to investigate mitigation options for energy-related CO2 emissions in the sector. The first part of the study uses decomposition analysis to assess the effect of the changes in energy consumption and the level of CO2 emissions, while the second part investigates energy efficiency improvement strategies and the use of economic instruments to mitigate CO2 emissions in the manufacturing sector. Economic activity was the dominant factor in increasing energy consumption over the whole period of analysis, followed by the energy intensity effect and then the structural effect. The increase in aggregate energy intensity over the period 1980-2000 was mainly driven by the energy intensity effect. In turn, the technical effect was the dominant contributor to changes in energy intensity effect, with the fuel-mix effect being of lesser importance. Changes in CO2 emissions were dominated by economic activity and structural change. Sub-sectors that would benefit from fuel switching and energy efficiency improvements are the textile, paper, and non-metal sub-sectors. Three main options for reducing CO2 emissions from the manufacturing sector were considered: the imposition of a carbon tax, energy efficiency initiatives, and other mitigation measures. A carbon tax was found to reduce sectoral emissions from the direct use of oil, gas and coal, but increased the demand for electricity. At the practical level, energy efficiency improvements can be implemented by adopting energy efficient technologies that can reduce aggregate energy intensity up to 37.1 per cent from the base-year level, estimated after imposition of a carbon tax at $30 per tonne of carbon. A major priority for energy efficiency improvements was found to be in the textile and the paper and chemical sub-sectors. A mitigation measure such as the Clean Development Mechanisms could be encouraged in order to reduce projected emission levels. The preferred option would be the adoption of energy efficient technologies in the textile, chemical, paper and non-metal sub-sectors.

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Palmquist, Samuel. "Abnormal returns in the renewable energy and cleantech sector." Thesis, Uppsala universitet, Nationalekonomiska institutionen, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-228931.

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The purpose of this thesis is to further examine the market dynamics of M&As in the cleantech and renewable energy industry. This study analyzes the abnormal returns of 273 announced and 54 completed buyout acquisitions that took place between 1997 and 2014. The event study method is used to test if cleantech deals experience higher returns than traditional energy and mining deals, if deal completions display similar effects as deal announcements (which is the unique contribution of this thesis) and if homogenous deals experience higher abnormal returns than heterogeneous deals. The outcomes are that the traditional energy and mining sector outperforms the cleantech sectors in homogenous deals. That deal completions effect follows the announcements effect for 11 out of 15 groups and that homogenous deals outperform heterogeneous deals.

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Debnath, Kumar Biswajit. "Decarbonization cost of Bangladesh's energy sector : influence of corruption." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2018. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/115636/.

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As a rapidly developing lower-middle income country, Bangladesh has been maintaining a steady growth of +5% in the gross domestic product (GDP) annually since 2004, eventually reaching 7.1% in 2016. The country is targeting to become uppermiddle- income and developed by 2021 and 2041 respectively, which translates to an annual GDP growth rate of 7.58% during this period. The bulk of this growth is expected to come from the manufacturing sector, the significant shift towards which started at the turn of this century. Energy intensity of manufacturing-based growth is higher, the evidence of which can be seen in the 3.17 times increase in national energy consumption between 2001 and 2014. Also, Bangladesh aims to achieve 100% electrification rate by 2021 against an annual population growth rate of 1.08%. With the increasing per capita income, there is now a growing middle class fuelling the growth in demand for convenient forms of energy. Considering the above drivers, the Bangladesh 2050 Pathways Model suggested 35 times higher energy demand than that of 2010 by 2050. The government and private sector have started a substantial amount of investments in the energy sector to meet the signi ficant future demand. Approximately US$104 billion would be invested in the power sector of Bangladesh for establishing 33 GW installed capacity by 2030, the majority of which would be financed by national and international loans. However, Bangladesh is one of the most corrupted country in the world which may influence the energy planning development. The current policies of Bangladesh power sector paved the future direction towards predominantly coal-based energy mix which would augment the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions five times (117.5 MtCO2e) in 2030 than that of 2010. By increasing GHG emissions, the country would undermine the worldwide effort of keeping global temperature rise in 21st century below 2°C, as per the Paris agreement and COP21. V The objective of this research was to develop a framework to explore the cost of decarbonizing the Bangladesh's energy sector by 2050. For the study, six emissions scenarios business as usual (BAU), current policy (CPS), high-carbon (HCS), medium-carbon (MCS), low-carbon (LCS) and zero-carbon scenarios (ZCS), and three economic conditions high, average and low costwere considered. The combination of emissions and economic scenarios rendered 18 different emissionseconomic scenarios for the research. The results showed that Bangladesh would emit 343 MtCO2e by 2050 without any emissions reduction strategies under HCS. However, Bangladesh can reduce 23% GHG emissions by 2050 under LCS than that of HCS by adopting decarbonization strategies such as energy mix change towards renewable and nuclear. On the optimistic side, the emissions can be reduced 73% by 2050 under ZCS than that of HCS. The study demonstrated that a zero carbon future is not yet feasible for Bangladesh by 2050 because the operational fossil fuel based plants would be operational. Therefore, the GHG emissions are going to rise even if Bangladesh adopts renewables and nuclear dominating energy mix. However, it will be possible to keep the GHG emissions approximately 2 tCO2e/capita threshold if the country adopts LCS. On the other hand, only MCS and LCS can meet the projected energy demand by 2050. The energy sector can meet the projected demand under ZCS only if the electricity consumption is reduced 26% by 2050. In terms total cost, the MCS was found to be 3.9% expensive than that of LCS by 2050. LCS would have a higher cost than that of MCS up to 2030, due to the high capital cost of renewable technologies. The total cost under LCS would start to be lower than of MCS after 2035 for the fossil fuel cost. Accumulated fuel cost would reach $250 billion in 2050 under HCS, which can be reduced 23% under ZCS. The cost of decarbonization would be 3.6, 3.4 and 3.2 times under average cost of MCS, LCS, and ZCS, than that of HCS. As the energy sector of Bangladesh is under rapid development, the accumulated capital would be comparatively high by 2050. However, fuel cost can be significantly reduced under LCS and ZCS which would also ensure lower emissions. The study suggested that energy mix change, technological maturity, corruption and demand reduction can influence the cost of decarbonization. However, the most significant influencer for the decarbonization of Bangladeshi energy sector would be the corruption. Results showed that if Bangladesh can minimize the effect of corruption on the energy sector, it can reduce the cost of decarbonization 45-77% by 2050 under MCS, LCS, and ZCS.

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Simpson, Lori Allison. "The suitability of coal gasification in India's energy sector." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/38569.

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Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2006. Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-86). Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC), an advanced coal-based power generation technology, may be an important technology to help India meet its future power needs. It has the potential to provide higher generating efficiency, can be adapted to efficiently burn India's high-ash coal, and has the potential to do so with greatly reduced emissions and offers the longer term potential to assist India to manage its C02 emissions. Efficient gasification technology also offers India the potential to produce a variety of fuels, particularly transportation fuels, and chemicals. These potential benefits would be useful in a country that has coal shortages, runs inefficient power plants, and imports the majority of its transportation fuels. Driven by these potential benefits the Central Government-owned power generating equipment manufacturing company (BHEL) is developing a fluid-bed gasifier designed for Indian coals, but has not yet demonstrated it at a size larger than 6 MW. Outside of BHEL, there are many factors holding this technology back. First, the technology is projected to be more expensive than pulverized coal (PC) power generation. In the Indian environment, the capital costs are estimated to be 1.5 times higher, and the levelized cost of electricity is estimated to be 33 % higher than for PC power generation. (cont.) Further, there are other technology options, such as super-critical pulverized coal technology, which are cheaper, more proven, and can provide immediate higher generating efficiency. The first supercritical PC plant is currently being built in India. To overcome these barriers will take further research and development, as well as demonstration at a commercial scale. This all needs to occur at a greater speed and with a greater urgency than is now apparent. The demonstration and commercialization will require significant subsidies, which may come in different forms. The Central Government may wish to subsidize the technology development for the pollution control benefits that it offers and do so via its linkages to BHEL. Foreign governments and institutions may choose to subsidize the costs for the carbon dioxide reduction credits that it can produce. In the end, the challenges facing IGCC in India are great. The cost and generating efficiency will have to at least rival those for other advanced coal technologies, and coal production and mining policies will have to be effectively enacted to increase the supply of coal available for new coal plants. by Lori Allison Simpson. S.M.

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Sahni, Sahil. "Strategies for reducing energy demand in the materials sector." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/82182.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, 2013. This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-175). This research answers a key question - can the materials sector reduce its energy demand by 50% by 2050? Five primary materials of steel, cement, aluminum, paper, and plastic, contribute to 50% or more of the final energy use and CO₂ emissions by industry, and thus are of primary focus. Both technical and demand-side strategies are evaluated to conclude that halving energy demand by 2050 is unlikely given the limitations governed by thermodynamics, scrap availability, and producer/consumer preferences, however some of the strategies analyzed offer encouraging opportunities and should be pursued. The thesis starts with understanding the evolution of material demand as society transforms from a developing to a developed economy. Economic scopes of global, USA, China, and India are assessed. The evolution trends are starkly different. The US shows strong signs of saturation while; both developing economies of China and India do not. The actors of material demand are analyzed to determine what is driving the difference. Results show that consumer income and population have been consistently increasing, but in the second half of the 20th century, the US industry has demanded less material per dollar output, while the US industry output has continued to grow. Collectively they tend to cancel each other, presenting a material saturation phenomenon. For China and India not only is the industry income and industry share of GDP growing, for each unit value addition, industry has continued to demand more material, avoiding demand saturation. One major way to reduce energy used for materials is to decrease the energy intensity of material production. Four technology based strategies are investigated without regard to cost: 1) widespread application of best available technology (BAT), 2) BAT to cutting edge technologies, 3) aggressive recycling, and finally, 4) significant improvements in recycling technologies. Taken together these aggressive strategies could produce impressive gains, on the order of a 20% reduction in energy relative to 2005, but well short of the goal of 50% reduction. Ultimately, we face fundamental thermodynamic and scrap availability constraints. Thus reducing material demand without compromising any service (called "material efficiency") is outlined as an approach to solving this dilemma. One way to increase material efficiency is use products for longer. Remanufacturing can support this by bringing used products back to like-new condition. Remanufactured products that substitute for new products are claimed to save energy. This comes from only looking at the materials production and manufacturing phases of the life cycle. However, when the use phase is included, the situation can change radically. For the 25 product cases we analyzed, 8 cases clearly saved energy, 6 did not, and 11 were too close to call. The drivers for this difference are explained. Thus the energy saving potential of remanufacturing seems complex and uncertain, especially given the trend of powering up of products followed by improvement of their energy efficiencies. As a result focusing remanufacturing efforts on passive products is recommended. Thus scalable material efficiency strategies need to be discovered. However even with the optimistic energy efficiency strategies deployed, in order to achieve the targets, demand increase for the materials needs to be restricted to under 25% of 2005 quantities. This entails that by 2050 we would need to reduce global demand per capita by 10% of today's global average and by 70% of today's US average which is an insurmountable task. Material efficiency strategies hold an impressive technical potential but face severe economic and behavioral challenges that future research needs to overcome. by Sahil Sahni. Ph.D.

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Eriksson, Anna. "Carbon dioxide and Energy flows in Jämtland’s waste sector." Thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Avdelningen för ekoteknik och hållbart byggande, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-29087.

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The aim of this study is to assess the current situation of energy and carbon flows through the waste sector in Jämtland. An energy flow analysis is performed by balancing the inflows and outflows of the lower heating value and embodied energy. A carbon flow analysis was made on the same principles although with the carbon content and embodied CO2eq. The results are showing that over a period of one year, 75 000 tons of waste flows through the waste sector in Jämtland. Approximately 60 % of all the waste is incinerated. The energy analysis shows that 970TJ flows through the waste sector every year. Household waste is the category with most energy consumption and emissions in total. However, other materials like metal and electronics have higher energy and carbon content per ton than the household category. The results of the analyses can further be implemented in the Sustainable Jämtland model and it can then be used as a base when making strategies for a sustainable waste treatment.

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Arko, Dora Kwei. "Successful Strategies for Energy Sector Enterprise Resource Planning Projects." ScholarWorks, 2019. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/7213.

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Business leaders use enterprise resource planning (ERP) to integrate and streamline business functions and processes. Each year, the majority of these projects fail due to project managers' ineffective management of the project scope. The successful implementation of ERP software enhances the flow of information in organizations and tends to improve the performance of employees and job satisfaction, resulting in improved sustainability and profitability. The Leavitt organizational change management model was used as the conceptual framework for this multiple-case study. The purpose of the study was to explore the strategies project managers in the energy sector used to implement successful ERP projects. The target population included 3 project managers from 3 energy-sector companies in the Greater Accra region of Ghana and the Nairobi region of Kenya who have successfully implemented ERP projects. Data were collected using face-to-face, semistructured interviews. Data analysis consisted of reviewing interview transcripts, grouping the data into themes, and interpreting the meaning of the themes and data. The 5 main emerging thematic categories encompass the strategies shared by the 3 participants, which were competency of the project managers, competency of the project team members, the involvement of the stakeholders, strategic practices employed and followed, and other strategies for improvement. From the perspective of positive social change, the findings of this study may provide insight that business leaders can use to improve the performance of their firms, enhance sustainability and profitability, and create employment opportunities for the community.

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Costa, Matteo. "Resource energy efficiency measures for retail sector in Azerbaijan." Thesis, KTH, Skolan för industriell teknik och management (ITM), 2019. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-264251.

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The thesis work is part of a larger project financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and awarded by RINA Consulting S.p.A.. Azeri Retail will receive the loan from EBRD in order to refurbish its six new acquisitions in Baku, Azerbaijan. Azeri Retail considers the current Fresco format store a good technological and structural level, therefore Azeri Retail would like to replicate this state also for the new acquisitions. The thesis objective is to understand and analyse the current energy efficiency state and consequently propose some resource efficiency measures in order to replicate this new format for the new acquisitions to have a lower carbon footprint compared to the existing supermarkets belonging to the same brand. The thesis project is an energy audit comprising analysis of historical data, site visit to current Azeri Retail’s stores and consequent proposal of energy saving measures to be applied to the new acquisitions. In order to do this, three case studies have been developed: ATL, Project and REM. The first step has been the literature review about the energy utilization and carbon footprint of the retails sector, past energy audits, current and future policy framework in Azerbaijan. During this phase, it turned out that Azerbaijan doesn’t have a dedicated law for energy efficiency and therefore the construction phase doesn’t consider energy efficiency a primary target. Furthermore, in average the refrigerators represent the 40% of the total energy consumption of the supermarket. The site visit in Baku highlighted huge differences between the two brands’ buildings owned by Azeri Retail: Fresco brand belongs to high structural and technological level supermarkets, while Sebet doesn’t have any insulation on the envelope and the technical equipment is rather old. Microsoft Excel have been used in order to create the tool to perform the calculations. The thermal losses considered are the transmission losses, due to the building envelope, and the ventilation losses, due to the temperature difference between the exhaust indoor air and outdoor air. The internal gains are included in the model, in particular occupancy and solar loads. Furthermore, every case study considers different technical equipment according to what it is representing. All three built case studies refer to the geometry of the Fresco 2 building, since the comparison is more valuable if the buildings considered have similar geometry and activity inside. The ultimate aim of the modelling phase is to achieve good savings through measures in the REM case, since it is supposed to represent a useful list of saving measures to carry out during the actual refurbishment of the new stores. The measures proposed are: refurbishment of the envelope, purchase of a heat recovery heat exchanger, the exploitation of daylight through solar tubes and installation of LED bulbs, the refurbishment of cold rooms and the installation of double air curtains in the open refrigerated display cabinets. Great and positive results have been achieved during the modelling phase: ➢ Fresco stores can show very good structural properties and technological equipment and for this reason, each saving measures is additional to the already existing Fresco’s buildings status. ➢ Although Fresco stores’ buildings are better than Sebet stores’ ones and better than average practice in Azerbaijan, huge savings have been identified and this means that the new acquisitions could perform even better than the existing ones, mostly considering medium-low cost measures. The report closes with the overall comparison between the three case studies’ energy consumption and international benchmarks about food driven retails.

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RIFAI, Nabil. "Monitoring the energy consumption in buildings in B2B sector." Thesis, KTH, Tillämpad termodynamik och kylteknik, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-183387.

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This report discusses the ambition of EDF, a French electricity provider, to offer new services to its customers. With the emergence of the smart grid that will be operational in 2020 in France, there are several opportunities that have to be taken. One of them is to be able to offer a suitable monitoring system to its customer. This study tried to emphasize the important aspects and features that are required in such a system. Several solutions that are currently being commercialized in France have been analyzed. A grading has been made according to the technical functionalities and the business models have been analyzed. Recommendations for EDF have also been made in order to help the company to choose the right monitoring system.

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Bwacha, Chembe Rodney, and Jing Xi. "THE IMPACT OF LIQUIDITY ON PROFITABILITY : An explanatory study of the banking sector between 2008 and 2017." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Företagsekonomi, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-149549.

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The 2007/08 global financial crisis led to significant changes in the financial world especially the banking sector. It led to regulators and governments tightening regulations in banking sector in order to mitigate the aftermath effects of the global crisis as well as prevent a repeat of the mistakes that initially led to the kick-off of the crisis. One area that received major attention in the post-crisis period is liquidity management and led regulators, governments and international committees such as the Basel Committee to come up with supervisory and regulatory standards aimed at ensuring that banks were liquid enough to avoid bank runs and ensure business continuity. Therefore, this research was bent towards analysing the nature of the impact of liquidity on profitability in the banking sector. This led us to the research question of what the impact of liquidity on profitability in the banking sector is. The current literature pertaining to the subject of liquidity and profitability has produced mixed results. Some studies have concluded that liquidity does not impact profitability while others have found that liquidity does impact profitability. It is also worth noting that most of these studies were conducted within the context of a country, solely focused on the financial crisis and not in the ordinary course of business or analysed the impact within a short-term time horizon. It is for this reason that our study was directed at specifying the impact of liquidity on profitability; in the ordinary course of business, in a multi-geographical setting and in a mid-long-term time horizon. A quantitative study was conducted on a research sample comprising 50 banks which happen to be the part of the 100 largest banks in the world by asset size and these are domiciled in 3 geographical regions – Asia, Europe and North America. The period of consideration was 10 years i.e. between 2008 and 2017. The quantitative data for these banks was collated to provide a measure of our variables: loan to deposit ratio (LDR), deposit to asset ratio (DAR) and cash and cash equivalents to deposit ratio (CDR) as liquidity proxies while return on equity (ROE) and return on assets (ROA) were the profitability proxies. Based on these 5 variables, 6 hypotheses were developed and used in determining the impact of liquidity on profitability. The findings of this study indicate that only DAR significantly impacts profitability computed as ROE while all the other hypotheses proved insignificant. DAR was not found to significantly impact ROA due to the high liquid assets holdings by banks in the post-crisis period. Both LDR and CDR were found not to significantly impact ROE and ROA owing to the high interest payable on deposits, high liquid assets holdings and high lending rates. Hence, it was concluded that generally liquidity does not significantly affect profitability in the banking sector.

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Elfeituri, Hatem. "An empirical investigation of market structure, determinants of profitability, competitiveness and productivity in MENA economies banking sector." Thesis, University of Portsmouth, 2016. https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/an-empirical-investigation-of-market-structure-determinants-of-profitability-competitiveness-and-productivity-in-mena-economies-banking-sector(09b251d2-7604-4aa9-ba92-036e1a07290d).html.

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The purpose of this thesis has been to investigate the market structure, profitability, competitiveness and productivity of commercial banks operating in the MENA economies for the period 1999-2012. The study first measures whether the banking industry in MENA economies has been concentrated or not, and aims to investigate the relationship between market structure and banks’ profitability; then examines whether a bank’s performance can be better explained by the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) hypothesis, that claims that a highly concentrated market leads to collusive behaviour among larger banks, resulting in superior performance hypothesis or by the efficient hypothesis (EH) that claims that the positive association of market share of a bank and higher performance is caused by the bank’s superior efficiency. Empirically, I apply the Panzar-Rosse model to investigate which can be beneficial to policy makers, by illustrating how to shape policies which positively affect the market competition and safeguard stability of the financial sector. Finally, the study assesses changes in banking productivity by employing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and the findings will be able to show bank managers, market participants and policy makers the sources of productivity of commercial banks and to assist them for optimum resource allocation strategies. This study examines markets that were found to have different degree of market concentration, and assesses the relevance of SCP and EH paradigm. The results of panel analysis and GMM estimators, provide evidence that the SCP hypothesis is not rejected, emphasising that increased market power yields monopoly profits. The fact that the impact of market concentration is positive in MENA economies is vital evidence, at least to a certain extent. On the other hand, Market share (MS) is found in most regressions using fixed effects to be positive and highly significantly different from zero, whilst market concentration is equal to zero, supporting the argument that if a bank enjoys a higher degree of efficiency in respect to good management and technology than its competitors, it can easily gain a larger market share by lowering its prices and earning economic profits However, also the thesis finds a positive and significant relationship between net interest margins, profitability and capital adequacy, suggesting that commercial banks in the MENA economies still need to be highly capitalised so as to be viable and to operate profitably. Spending on technology and fixed assets is found to contribute in making banks more profitable, but banks’ size not, indicating that policymakers, regulators and managers of banks in the MENA region should encourage mergers that lead to significant investments, instead of simply increasing the size of the new scheme. Poor cost management is one of the largest contributors to poor performance for commercial banks in the examined period. Overall, the thesis finds evidence of structural reforms and uncovers measures that have led to the improvement of regulation, and the implementation of frameworks which should continue to improve competitiveness within MENA banking sectors. In addition, future policy on the banking sector should take account of differences in the factors that affect bank productivity in these countries which are distinctively different.

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McCafferty, Peter. "Forecasting electricity demand in the industrial sector based on disaggregate data." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.385049.

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Cano, Jorge C. "Effective energy conservation and management in the building sector : the answer to the energy predicament." FIU Digital Commons, 1985. http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/1995.

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Modern civilization has developed principally through man's harnessing of forces. For centuries man had to rely on wind, water and animal force as principal sources of power. The advent of the industrial revolution, electrification and the development of new technologies led to the application of wood, coal, gas, petroleum, and uranium to fuel new industries, produce goods and means of transportation, and generate the electrical energy which has become such an integral part of our lives. The geometric growth in energy consumption, coupled with the world's unrestricted growth in population, has caused a disproportionate use of these limited natural resources. The resulting energy predicament could have serious consequences within the next half century unless we commit ourselves to the philosophy of effective energy conservation and management. National legislation, along with the initiative of private industry and growing interest in the private sector has played a major role in stimulating the adoption of energy-conserving laws, technologies, measures, and practices. It is a matter of serious concern in the United States, where ninety-five percent of the commercial and industrial facilities which will be standing in the year 2000 - many in need of retrofit - are currently in place. To conserve energy, it is crucial to first understand how a facility consumes energy, how its users' needs are met, and how all internal and external elements interrelate. To this purpose, the major thrust of this report will be to emphasize the need to develop an energy conservation plan that incorporates energy auditing and surveying techniques. Numerous energy-saving measures and practices will be presented ranging from simple no-cost opportunities to capital intensive investments.

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Matikiti, Rosemary. "Impact of internet marketing on the profitability of the hospitality sector in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa." Thesis, University of Fort Hare, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10353/570.

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The application of internet marketing techniques has been widespread in the hospitality sector worldwide, with many hotels crafting websites for marketing purposes. However, there is still a debate and speculation on the impact of internet marketing on business performance and profitability. Given the well-recognised value of internet marketing in the hospitality and tourism industry, this study sought to examine the impact of internet marketing on the profitability of the hospitality sector in South Africa and to establish factors which influence internet marketing usage. In order to achieve these objectives, a perceptual survey was conducted in graded hotels and lodges in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Multiple linear regression analysis and hierarchical regression analysis were used to determine the relationship between internet marketing and business profitability as well as the relationship between organisational and environmental factors and internet marketing usage. Based on the findings of this study, it is concluded that the use of internet marketing can positively influence business profitability. It is also concluded that internet marketing experience moderates the relationship between internet marketing usage and business profitability. The results also indicate that factors such as technological competence, managerial support, level of star grading and alliances significantly influence internet marketing usage. Thus, from the findings of this study, it was concluded that hotels and lodges can enhance their profitability through internet marketing usage.

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Salerno, Paolo. "«Energy Regulatory Commission»: Character and functions after energy reform." Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2016. http://repositorio.pucp.edu.pe/index/handle/123456789/115445.

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The Mexican energy reform in December 2013 has represented a radical change in the structure of the sector, which has grown from a public monopoly to a competitive market. This article aims to analyze the attributions and the legal and administrative nature which has be granted to the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) after the normative change that will play a key role in the correct implementation thereof. The nodal problem is to confirm if the CRE has being given the correct legal instruments to develop its function autonomously and transparently. La reforma energética mexicana de diciembre de 2013 ha representado un cambio radical en la estructuración del sector, el cual ha pasado de ser un monopolio público a un mercado de libre competencia. El presente artículo tiene como objetivo analizar las atribuciones y la naturaleza jurídico administrativa que se ha concedido a la Comisión Reguladora de Energía (CRE) tras el cambio normativo, dado que este, en calidad de organismo regulador del sector, tendrá un rol fundamental en la correcta implementación de la misma. El problema nodal de la cuestión reside en corroborar si se ha dotado a la CRE de los correctos instrumentos jurídicospara desenvolver su función de forma autónoma y transparente.

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Andres, Delgado Lidia. "Greenhouse gas emissions and energy intensity of the transport sector." Doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/665197.

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Esta tesis analiza el tema del transporte y la presión medioambiental a través de tres variables relacionadas: las emisiones, la actividad y la intensidad energética del transporte. El Capítulo 2 analiza la importancia de la población, la actividad económica, el volumen de transporte y las características estructurales de la actividad de transporte —intensidad energética del transporte, participación de los diferentes modos de transporte y participación de las diferentes fuentes energéticas— como factores explicativos de las emisiones de GEI de la actividad de transporte en la Unión Europea-28 entre 1990-2014. El análisis se basa en el modelo STIRPAT, que se amplía para investigar el impacto en las emisiones del transporte de los cambios en dicha actividad y en los del conjunto de la economía. Utilizando técnicas econométricas de datos panel, se identifica la importancia de cada factor explicativo y el impacto de su cambio en las emisiones. El Capítulo 3 estudia el impacto del sector del subsistema de transporte y almacenamiento en las emisiones de GEI de la economía mediante el análisis de subsistemas basado en el modelo input-output de Ghosh. Esta nueva metodología tiene en cuenta toda la actividad del subsistema y no solo la actividad vinculada a su demanda final. Asimismo, las emisiones totales del subsistema se descomponen en cuatro componentes explicativos: el componente escala, el componente interno neto, el componente feed-back y el componente spillover, con el objetivo de conocer las interrelaciones en términos de emisiones entre los subsectores del subsistema y entre estos y la actividad del resto de sectores de la economía. La metodología se aplica empíricamente al sector del transporte y almacenamiento en España en 2014. El Capítulo 4 examina los factores que han influido en la tendencia de la intensidad energética del transporte de mercancías por carretera español durante el período 1996-2012. Se adapta la metodología ASIF con el fin de estudiar la intensidad energética y se completa el estudio con un análisis de descomposición LMDI. Además, el cambio en la intensidad energética se analiza cuantificando la contribución de cada mercancía transportada a través de la metodología de la atribución de cambios en los índices Divisia. Los tres capítulos principales de esta tesis ofrecen varias contribuciones. El Capítulo 2 desarrolla metodológicamente el modelo STIRPAT al aplicar al estudio de las emisiones del transporte la participación de los diferentes modos de transporte y la participación de las diferentes fuentes de energía. En segundo lugar, contribuye a analizar empíricamente las emisiones de GEI del sector del transporte en la Unión Europea en el período 1990-2014. En tercer lugar, evalúa la efectividad potencial de las acciones promovidas en el Libro Blanco del Transporte de 2011. El Capítulo 3 desarrolla metodológicamente el modelo de subsistemas input-output desde la perspectiva de la oferta y este se amplía con el fin de estudiar el impacto medioambiental de sustancias contaminantes. En segundo lugar, ofrece una contribución empírica, ya que aplica el modelo al análisis de los efectos de la actividad del sector de transporte y almacenamiento en las emisiones de GEI de la economía en España en 2014. Finalmente, el Capítulo 4 adapta la metodología ASIF a fin de investigar la intensidad energética del transporte de mercancías por carretera y amplía el análisis mediante la descomposición LMDI. En segundo lugar, identifica el grado en que cada mercancía contribuye al cambio en la intensidad energética a través de la metodología de la atribución de cambios en los índices Divisia. En tercer lugar, investiga empíricamente la intensidad energética del transporte español de mercancías por carretera en el período 1996-2012. This dissertation analyses the topic of transport and environmental pressure through three closely related issues —transport GHG emissions, transport activity, and transport energy intensity. Chapter 2 analyses the importance of population, economic activity, transport volume, and structural characteristics of transport activity —in terms of transport energy intensity, of transport modes' share, and of energy sources’ mix— as driving factors of GHG emissions in transport activity in the European Union over the period 1990–2014. The analysis is based on the STIRPAT model, which is broadened to investigate in depth the impact on transport emissions of changes in the transport activity and in the whole economy. Using panel data econometric techniques, the significance of each factor and the impact of its change on emissions are identified. Chapter 3 studies the impact of the transport and storage subsystem sector on GHG emissions of the whole economy by using input–output subsystems analysis based on the Ghosh model. This new methodology that is developed in the chapter takes into account the whole activity of the subsystem and not only the activity linked to its final demand. Additionally, in the aim of learning the interrelations in terms of emissions between the subsectors of the subsystem and between them and the activity of the rest of the sectors of the economy, total emissions of the subsystem are decomposed into four explanatory components. These are scale component, net own internal component, feed-back component, and spillover component. The methodology is applied to the Spanish transportation and storage sector in 2014. Chapter 4 examines the factors that have influenced the energy intensity trend of the Spanish road freight transport of heavy goods vehicles over the period 1996–2012. The ASIF methodology is adapted to study it, and the chapter uses multiplicative LMDI decomposition analysis. Additionally, the change in energy intensity is analyzed in more depth by quantifying the role of each commodity transported using the methodology of the attribution of changes in Divisia indices. The three main chapters of this dissertation offer various contributions. Chapter 2 develops methodologically the STIRPAT model since it adds as driving factors of transport emissions the modal share and the energy consumption mix. Second, it empirically contributes to analyze the GHG emissions of the transport sector in the European Union in the period 1990–2014. Third, it evaluates the potential effectiveness of the actions promoted in the 2011 Transport White Paper. Chapter 3 develops methodologically an input–output subsystems model from the supply perspective and expands it in order to study the environmental impact of polluting substances. Second, it offers an empirical contribution, as it applies the preceding model with the purpose of studying the effects of the activity of the transportation and storage sector on GHG emissions of the whole economy in Spain in 2014. Finally, Chapter 4 adapts the ASIF methodology to energy intensity in the road freight transport and enhances it by applying decomposition analysis. Second, it identifies the degree to which each transported commodity has contributed to the change in energy intensity through the methodology of attribution of changes in Divisia indices. Four, it provides an empirical contribution through the analysis of energy intensity of Spanish road freight transport of heavy goods vehicles over the period 1996–2012.

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Schlunz, Evert Barend. "Decision support for generator maintenance scheduling in the energy sector." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/18060.

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Thesis (MSc)--Stellenbosch University, 2011. ENGLISH ABSTRACT: As the world-wide consumption of electricity continually increases, more and more pressure is put on the capabilities of power generating systems to maintain their levels of power provision. The electricity utility companies operating these power systems are faced with numerous challenges with respect to ensuring reliable electricity supply at cost-e ective rates. One of these challenges concerns the planned preventative maintenance of a utility's power generating units. The generator maintenance scheduling (GMS) problem refers to the problem of nding a schedule for the planned maintenance outages of generating units in a power system (i.e. determining a list of dates corresponding to the times when every unit is to be shut down so as to undergo maintenance). This is typically a large combinatorial optimisation problem, subjected to a number of power system constraints, and is usually difficult to solve. A mixed-integer programming model is presented for the GMS problem, incorporating constraints on maintenance windows, the meeting of load demand together with a safety margin, the availability of maintenance crew and general exclusion constraints. The GMS problem is modelled by adopting a reliability optimality criterion, the goal of which is to level the reserve capacity. Three objective functions are presented which may achieve this reliability goal; these objective functions are respectively quadratic, nonlinear and linear in nature. Three GMS benchmark test systems (of which one is newly created) are modelled accordingly, but prove to be too time consuming to solve exactly by means of an o -the-shelf software package. Therefore, a metaheuristic solution approach (a simulated annealing (SA) algorithm) is used to solve the GMS problem approximately. A new ejection chain neighbourhood move operator in the context of GMS is introduced into the SA algorithm, along with a local search heuristic addition to the algorithm, which results in hybridisations of the SA algorithm. Extensive experiments are performed on di erent cooling schedules within the SA algorithm, on the classical and ejection chain neighbourhood move operators, and on the modi cations to the SA algorithm by the introduction of the local search heuristic. Conclusions are drawn with respect to the e ectiveness of each variation on the SA algorithm. The best solutions obtained during the experiments for each benchmark test case are reported. It is found that the SA algorithm, with ejection chain neighbourhood move operator and a local search heuristic hybridisation, achieves very good solutions to all instances of the GMS problem. The hybridised simulated annealing algorithm is implemented in a computerised decision support system (DSS), which is capable of solving any GMS problem instance conforming to the general formulation described above. The DSS is found to determine good maintenance schedules when utilised to solve a realistic case study within the context of the South African power system. A best schedule attaining an objective function value within 6% of a theoretical lowerbound, is thus produced. AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Met die wêreldwye elektrisiteitsverbruik wat voortdurend aan die toeneem is, word daar al hoe meer druk geplaas op die vermoë van kragstelsels om aan kragvoorsieningsaanvraag te voldoen. Nutsmaatskappye wat elektrisiteit opwek, word deur talle uitdagings met betrekking tot betroubare elektrisiteitsverskaffing teen koste-e ektiewe tariewe in die gesig gestaar. Een van hierdie uitdagings het te make met die beplande, voorkomende instandhouding van 'n nutsmaatskappy se kragopwekkingseenhede. Die generator-instandhoudingskeduleringsprobleem (GISP) verwys na die probleem waarin 'n skedule vir die beplande instandhouding van kragopwekkingseenhede binne 'n kragstelsel gevind moet word ('n lys van datums moet tipies gevind word wat ooreenstem met die tye wanneer elke kragopwekkingseenheid afgeskakel moet word om instandhoudingswerk te ondergaan). Hierdie probleem is tipies 'n groot kombinatoriese optimeringsprobleem, onderworpe aan 'n aantal beperkings van die kragstelsel, en is gewoonlik moeilik om op te los. 'n Gemengde, heeltallige programmeringsmodel vir die GISP word geformuleer. Die beperkings waaruit die formulering bestaan, sluit in: venstertydperke vir instandhouding, bevrediging van die vraag na elektrisiteit tesame met 'n veiligheidsgrens, die beskikbaarheid van instandhoudingspersoneel en algemene uitsluitingsbeperkings. Die GISP-model neem as optimaliteitskriterium betroubaarheid en het ten doel om die reserwekrag wat gedurende elke tydperk beskikbaar is, gelyk te maak. Drie doelfunksies word gebruik om laasgenoemde doel te bereik (naamlik doelfunksies wat onderskeidelik kwadraties, nie-lineêr en lineêr van aard is). Drie GISP-maatstaftoetsstelsels (waarvan een nuut geskep is) is dienooreenkomstig gemodelleer, maar dit blyk uit die oplossingstye dat daar onprakties lank gewag sal moet word om eksakte oplossings deur middel van kommersiële programmatuur vir hierdie stelsels te kry. Gevolglik word 'n metaheuristiese oplossingsbenadering ('n gesimuleerde temperingsalgoritme (GTA)) gevolg om die GISP benaderd op te los. 'n Nuwe uitwerpingsketting-skuifoperator word in die konteks van GISP in die GTA gebruik. Verder word 'n lokale soekheuristiek met die GTA vermeng om 'n basteralgoritme te vorm. Uitgebreide eksperimente word uitgevoer op verskeie afkoelskedules binne die GTA, op die klassieke en uitwerpingsketting-skuifoperators en op die verbasterings van die GTA meegebring deur die lokale soekheuristiek. Gevolgtrekkings word oor elke variasie van die GTA se e ektiwiteit gemaak. Die beste oplossings vir elke toetsstelsel wat gedurende die eksperimente verkry is, word gerapporteer. Daar word bevind dat die GTA met uitwerpingsketting-skuifoperator en lokale soekheuristiek-verbastering baie goeie oplossings vir die GISP lewer. Die verbasterde GTA word in 'n gerekenariseerde besluitsteunstelsel (BSS) geïmplementeer wat 'n gebruiker in staat stel om enige GISP van die vorm soos in die wiskundige programmeringsmodel hierbo beskryf, op te los. Daar word bevind dat die BSS goeie skedules lewer wanneer dit gebruik word om 'n realistiese gevallestudie binne die konteks van die Suid-Afrikaanse kragstelsel, op te los. 'n Beste skedule met 'n doelfunksiewaarde wat binne 6% vanaf 'n teoretiese ondergrens is, word ondermeer bepaal.

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Hegnauer, Jean-Michel. "Firm and top management team internationalization in the energy sector." St. Gallen, 2006. http://www.biblio.unisg.ch/org/biblio/edoc.nsf/wwwDisplayIdentifier/01709344001/$FILE/01709344001.pdf.

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Shen, Yan Jia. "Understanding why China increases investment in European Union energy sector." Thesis, University of Macau, 2018. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b3953581.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Profitability in the energy sector'

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