The division ELECTA is part of the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT)

Greenhouse gas emissions in the nuclear life cycle: A balanced appraisal

In order to combat global warming,a detailed knowledge of the greenhouse gas(GHG)emissions associated with different energy conversion technologies is important. For nuclear energy, GHG emissions result from different process stages of the whole fuel cycle. A life-cycle assessment offers the possibility to properly calculate these emissions. In the past, both indirect energy use and GHG emissions were studied by many researchers. Most of the studies result in low indirect emissions comparable to windturbines.

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Well-functioning balancing markets: A prerequisite for wind power integration

By admin / Published on Wed, 02/03/2010 - 16:47

This article focuses on the design of balancing markets in Europe taking into account an increasing wind power penetration. In several European countries, wind generation is so far not burdened with full balancing responsibility. However, the more wind power penetration, the less bearable for the system not to allocate balancing costs to the responsible parties. Given the variability and limited predictability of wind generation, full balancing exposure is however only feasible conditionally to well-functioning balancing markets.

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Greenhouse gas emissions in the nuclear life cycle: A balanced appraisal

By UIE webmaster / Published on Tue, 02/02/2010 - 13:45

In order to combat global warming,a detailed knowledge of the greenhouse gas(GHG)emissions associated with different energy conversion technologies is important. For nuclear energy, GHG emissions result from different process stages of the whole fuel cycle. A life-cycle assessment offers the possibility to properly calculate these emissions. In the past, both indirect energy use and GHG emissions were studied by many researchers. Most of the studies result in low indirect emissions comparable to windturbines.

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Does More International Transmission Capacity Increase Competition in the Belgian Electricity Market?

By UIE webmaster / Published on Mon, 02/01/2010 - 19:23

From a national market perspective, taking transmission capacity into account reduces current concentration measures, although they remain fairly high even after substantial capacity increases. From an international perspective, a more efficient use of current transmission capacity by coupling regional markets can increase competition. That suggests it may not be appropriate to assess market concentration using national market shares.

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Analysis of the Impact of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles on Residential Distribution Grids by using Quadratic and Dynamic Programming

By UIE webmaster / Published on Mon, 02/01/2010 - 19:17

The charging of batteries of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles at home at standard outlets has an impact on the distribution grid which may require serious investments in grid expansion. The coordination of the charging gives an improvement of the grid exploitation in terms of reduced power losses and voltage deviations with respect to uncoordinated charging. The vehicles must be dispatchable to achieve the most efficient solution. As the exact forecasting of household loads is not possible, stochastic programming is introduced.

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Predictive Direct Torque Control for Flux and Torque Ripple Reduction

By UIE webmaster / Published on Mon, 02/01/2010 - 19:14

In this paper, a prediction scheme is presented to diminish both the torque and flux ripple in a Direct Torque Control (DTC) induction motor drive. In a discrete implementation of the classical DTC scheme, the time delay associated with data processing results in an additional torque and flux ripple. This part of the ripples can amount to a significant fraction of the overall ripple if the hysteresis bands are comparable to the maximum torque and flux variations in one sampling interval.

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