Smart Grids and Buildings for Energy and Societal Transition (eBook)

Benoît Robyns, Laure Dobigny, Dhaker Abbes, Benoit Durillon, Hervé Barry, Christophe Saudemont (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
624 Seiten
Wiley-Iste (Verlag)
978-1-394-31714-1 (ISBN)

Infos

This book presents interdisciplinary approaches to help buildings, electrical energy networks and their users contribute to the energy and societal transition.

Smart Grids and Buildings for Energy and Societal Transition examines the technologies, uses and imaginaries involved in implementing smart buildings and smart grids. Production and consumption forecasts, modeling of stakeholder involvement and self-consumption within a renewable energy community exploiting blockchain technology are examples developed with a view to fostering the emergence of smart grids. The potential of smart buildings, taking into account user comfort while increasing energy efficiency, is identified. Full-scale demonstrators are used to test the proposed solutions, and to ensure that users take full advantage of the potential for electrical flexibility.

Benoît Robyns is Director of Research at Junia Lille, Vice-President of Energy and Societal Transition at the Université Catholique de Lille and head of the Power System Team at L2EP, France.

Laure Dobigny is an associate professor in the ETH+-ETHICS laboratory at the Université Catholique de Lille, France.

Dhaker Abbes is a professor at Junia Lille and a researcher at L2EP, France.

Benoit Durillon is a lecturer at Junia Lille and a researcher at L2EP, France.

Hervé Barry is a sociologist at the FGES of the Université Catholique de Lille and a member of the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire des Transitions de Lille (LITL), France.

Christophe Saudemont is a professor at Junia Lille and a researcher at L2EP, France.

Textauszug

Foreword by Thierry Magnin
Technoscience at a Time of Ecological Urgency

The use of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas has enabled the development of industry, with all its benefits, but it has also contributed significantly to global warming via the increase of greenhouse gases, which is currently a source of profound anxiety. The climate, once thought to be relatively stable on a generational scale, despite daily and annual fluctuations, has become a scientific and even a social object. Since the mid-19th century, there has been a concerning acceleration in the rising global average temperature of the Earth’s surface. In this book, one author notes that, compared to 0.6°C between 1860 and 2010, the global average temperature increase was already 1.2°C in 2023 (average increase over the period 2014 to 2023). Various scenarios predict that, by 2100, this temperature will have risen by between 2 and 7°C unless we effectively implement changes in production and consumption patterns.

Heatwaves are not the only manifestations of climate excesses, with disruption also affecting rainfall surpluses (floods) and large deficits (droughts). Climate change is not only reflected in extreme events but also in profound changes to the major biochemical cycles that sustain life on Earth.

The climate crisis is thus an indicator of a much deeper crisis. The relationship between humans and nature (a topic which has profound existential resonances) is being called into question. The scale of human development is such that some equate anthropogenic actions as equivalent to a geological force, even though the resulting notion of the Anthropocene is itself controversial. What is more, it is the countries that emit the most CO2 that enjoy the highest life expectancy. This indicator is often indicative of the quality of life of which the poorest countries are deprived.

However, if humanity is responsible for climate degradation, this means that it also has the capacity to modify this harmful trajectory, to initiate a “great turnaround” that is being played out at the level of individuals, local communities, countries and the planet as a whole.

The ecological emergency calls for far-reaching transformations in energy consumption and production patterns, which in turn implies profound changes in mindsets and lifestyles. The survival of our planet is under threat, and our responsibility to future generations is at stake. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which consider not only climate and environmental degradation but also poverty and social inequalities, are valuable benchmarks in the search for solutions that will enable us to make a success of the energy and societal transition. It is also clear that substituting renewable energies for fossil fuels is not enough to achieve climate objectives when factoring in prevailing consumer trends.

This is the complex context in which the present book is set. It follows on from Smart Users for Energy and Societal Transition, published in 2023 and coordinated by Benoît Robyns. It continues the interdisciplinary approach of the first book, traversing topical technoscience and societal issues, in terms of smart grids and smart buildings to accelerate the necessary ecological transition. In this sense, the book presents a didactic and well-supported overview of the issues, including global warming, energy consumption, the balance of living ecosystems and societal challenges, against the backdrop of the sharing economy.

In the introduction to this book, we read that while cities are home to 50% of the world’s population, they consume 75% of the energy produced and emit 80% of CO2 emissions! This highlights the importance of designing smart buildings in conjunction with smart energy networks.

Smart grids, smart buildings, smart users, self-generation and self-consumption are the major elements that weave their way through the book, not forgetting the qualitative analysis of the word “smart” when we speak of buildings, digitized technologies or users concerned with the common good. Chapter 2 examines the meaning of the term, its effectiveness in meeting environmental challenges, the imagination it conjures and the impasses involved. This chapter guides the “architecture” of the following chapters, which attempt to take better account of users in their interaction with technologies and the use of digital technology, in the context of energy networks and increasingly smart buildings.

In the same vein, it is particularly significant that the book is based on the four typical scenarios devised by ADEME1 to meet the climate challenges and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Each of these four scenarios combines, in very different ways, the use of technology, economic vision and lifestyle choices in the fight against global warming. Different forms of intelligent living are thus proposed to the ethical choices of societies and their leaders. In this sense, this book is particularly enlightening when it comes to situating technological innovations in terms of their contribution to the fight against global warming, wherein users and their lifestyles are considered “in the same research movement”, not forgetting the underlying economic model.

It is worth noting the seriousness of the approach proposed in this book, which brings together technoscience and societal issues: the necessary technical precision, which some might find very dry at first glance, is always at the service of the effectiveness of solutions combining technologies, economics and lifestyles. It is not simply a question of offsetting the weight of technology with few ethical regulations to achieve a socially acceptable result. It is more a question of transforming the mindset, so that technical development is truly at the service of a society’s lifestyle choices, and the appropriation of techniques by users becomes central. This notion of appropriation is particularly well discussed within the book. We are still used to thinking that it is human beings who must adapt to technological evolution. The authors of the various chapters in this book show that, when technology can be appropriated by the user, without the latter having to be an experienced technician, humans are no longer subject to technological constraints that are beyond their control. The user becomes increasingly central to technological development, in a process whose intelligence is no longer solely technical or technoeconomic.

As biology and neuroscience are showing in ever finer detail, living organisms are the seat of a dynamic balance between robustness and vulnerability. This balance determines its capacity for adaptation and resilience, which can be severely penalized by the acceleration and scale of environmental change. Therefore, we fear a collapse, and this is also why we need to imagine energy and societal transitions that will enable humankind to rediscover the dynamics of life in the service of our common home, the inhabited Earth of today and tomorrow.

In this sense, the city of tomorrow – a smart city that combines quality of life and balanced ecosystems – is the focus of new outlooks, of which this book provides pertinent examples. Techniques, uses and imagination are all examined in the implementation of smart grids and smart buildings. Studies go as far as proposing tangible solutions for today and tomorrow, including full-scale demonstrations. Most of the work presented has been carried out as part of an industrial research chair held by one of the engineering schools of the Université Catholique de Lille (Junia), in conjunction with the private sector, and as part of the Université Catholique de Lille’s Live TREE energy and social transition program. This practical, demonstration-type approach is also what makes this book so original, with new, concrete solutions that help to better control the consumption and production of electrical energy, in an approach that is both technological and sociological.

For example, this book provides models for forecasting production (photovoltaic) and consumption of electrical energy based on digital artificial neural networks, with application to a block of buildings at the Université Catholique de Lille. We take into account the various actors (producers, consumers, storage operators, network managers) involved in energy management strategies, not forgetting those in fuel poverty. Various actor profiles are introduced into the models, in line with the notion of flexibility among residential consumers. Finally, these approaches are situated in relation to the four ADEME scenarios mentioned above.

A strategy for supervising a local smart grid, integrating as far as possible the implication of stakeholders, is developed. The conditions for self-consumption within a human community are specified. These are referred to as “renewable energy communities”, in line with ADEME’s Scenario 2, “territorial cooperation”. The management of energy exchanges explores blockchain technology.

Each chapter presents the development of methods and models, simulations and feedback. Chapter 7 focuses on the concept of sustainable and desirable housing, thanks to digitally controlled smart buildings, with particular attention on indoor air quality. This gives rise to the idea of “connected, supportive and humane buildings”, applied in the new Rizomm building and the renovated ESPOL building at the Université Catholique de Lille. Chapter 8 is devoted to the tangible development of...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.8.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Physik / Astronomie
• Schlagworte: blockchain • Building technology • electrical energy networks • energy efficiency • renewable energy • smart buildings • Smart Grids
• ISBN-10: 1-394-31714-X / 139431714X
• ISBN-13: 978-1-394-31714-1 / 9781394317141