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Dr. Barbara Mendecka
Department of Economics, Engineering, Society and Business Organization, Centre for Technological Innovation and Territorial Development (CINTEST), University of Tuscia, 01100 Viterbo, Italy

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Research Keywords & Expertise

0 Energy Storage
0 Life Cycle Assessment
0 exergy-based methods
0 Solar thermal conversion
0 Optimization of sustainable energy systems

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Life Cycle Assessment
Energy Storage
Multi-criteria decision analysis and optimization

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Journal article
Published: 20 July 2021 in Renewable Energy
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In this paper, a hybrid renewable power plant with a storage system is designed. The benefits of sizing and energy management are assessed for a commercial building under eight different climatic conditions in the United States. In the considered system, photovoltaic panels are coupled to a unitized regenerative solid oxide fuel cell. The use of biogas to feed unitized regenerative solid oxide fuel cell is investigated, employing a detailed electrochemical model of electrolyzer and fuel cell modes. A battery pack is included in the plant as a secondary storage system, together with a diesel engine operating in backup mode. Four scenarios where biogas amount is varied together with the initial state of charge of the battery were evaluated. Results demonstrate that the power plant can operate with 100 % renewable procurement if the digester produces from 6000 to 9500 stdm3/y and the battery is completely charged at the beginning of the year. By reducing the biogas availability or starting with a low state of charge, the use of the diesel generator is inevitable. The study confirms that the proposed hybrid renewable power plant is technically feasible and can be considered a reliable and clean energy source in other areas and buildings.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; Daniele Chiappini; Laura Tribioli; Raffaello Cozzolino. A biogas-solar based hybrid off-grid power plant with multiple storages for United States commercial buildings. Renewable Energy 2021, 179, 705 -722.

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, Daniele Chiappini, Laura Tribioli, Raffaello Cozzolino. A biogas-solar based hybrid off-grid power plant with multiple storages for United States commercial buildings. Renewable Energy. 2021; 179 ():705-722.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; Daniele Chiappini; Laura Tribioli; Raffaello Cozzolino. 2021. "A biogas-solar based hybrid off-grid power plant with multiple storages for United States commercial buildings." Renewable Energy 179, no. : 705-722.

Journal article
Published: 11 February 2021 in Sustainability
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This study deals with the life cycle assessment (LCA) and an exergo-environmental analysis (EEvA) of the geothermal Power Plant of Hellisheiði (Iceland), a combined heat and power double flash plant, with an installed power of 303.3 MW for electricity and 133 MW for hot water. LCA approach is used to evaluate and analyse the environmental performance at the power plant global level. A more in-depth study is developed, at the power plant components level, through EEvA. The analysis employs existing published data with a realignment of the inventory to the latest data resource and compares the life cycle impacts of three methods (ILCD 2011 Midpoint, ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint-Endpoint, and CML-IA Baseline) for two different scenarios. In scenario 1, any emission abatement system is considered. In scenario 2, re-injection of CO2 and H2S is accounted for. The analysis identifies some major hot spots for the environmental power plant impacts, like acidification, particulate matter formation, ecosystem, and human toxicity, mainly caused by some specific sources. Finally, an exergo-environmental analysis allows indicating the wells as significant contributors of the environmental impact rate associated with the construction, Operation & Maintenance, and end of life stages and the HP condenser as the component with the highest environmental cost rate.

ACS Style

Vitantonio Colucci; Giampaolo Manfrida; Barbara Mendecka; Lorenzo Talluri; Claudio Zuffi. LCA and Exergo-Environmental Evaluation of a Combined Heat and Power Double-Flash Geothermal Power Plant. Sustainability 2021, 13, 1935 .

AMA Style

Vitantonio Colucci, Giampaolo Manfrida, Barbara Mendecka, Lorenzo Talluri, Claudio Zuffi. LCA and Exergo-Environmental Evaluation of a Combined Heat and Power Double-Flash Geothermal Power Plant. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (4):1935.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Vitantonio Colucci; Giampaolo Manfrida; Barbara Mendecka; Lorenzo Talluri; Claudio Zuffi. 2021. "LCA and Exergo-Environmental Evaluation of a Combined Heat and Power Double-Flash Geothermal Power Plant." Sustainability 13, no. 4: 1935.

Journal article
Published: 11 August 2020 in Energies
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Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) represents one of the emerging and most promising technologies for upgrading biomass. Among the residual biomass waste, olive pomace and olive mill wastewater may be seen as valuable energy sources, especially for the Mediterranean countries, given the key role of the olive oil industry in those regions. This paper deals with the thermo-fluid dynamic performance of the HTC process of olive pomace. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling is employed in this study to numerically simulate such a process in batch reactor with the aim of understanding the complex fluid dynamics, heat transfer and reaction kinetics phenomena occurring under hydrothermal conditions. A parametric analysis is performed to evaluate the temperature fields inside the reactor and the output mass yields as a function of the power input required by the process. Velocity flow fields and the spatial distribution of the mixture during the process are also investigated to understand the change in feed conversion at different regions within the tubular reactor under different reaction times. The numerical results are validated and compared with experimental measurements conducted previously on a similar batch reactor. The model predictions are found to be in line with the experimental findings, thus laying the foundations for further modeling improvements towards the design optimization and scale-up of HTC reactors.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; Giovanni Di Ilio; Lidia Lombardi. Thermo-Fluid Dynamic and Kinetic Modeling of Hydrothermal Carbonization of Olive Pomace in a Batch Reactor. Energies 2020, 13, 4142 .

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, Giovanni Di Ilio, Lidia Lombardi. Thermo-Fluid Dynamic and Kinetic Modeling of Hydrothermal Carbonization of Olive Pomace in a Batch Reactor. Energies. 2020; 13 (16):4142.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; Giovanni Di Ilio; Lidia Lombardi. 2020. "Thermo-Fluid Dynamic and Kinetic Modeling of Hydrothermal Carbonization of Olive Pomace in a Batch Reactor." Energies 13, no. 16: 4142.

Journal article
Published: 09 July 2020 in Energies
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Geothermal energy could play a crucial role in the European energy market and future scenarios focused on sustainable development. Thanks to its constant supply of concentrated energy, it can support the transition towards a low-carbon economy. In the energy sector, the decision-making process should always be supported by a holistic science-based approach to allow a comprehensive environmental assessment of the technological system, such as the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. In the geothermal sector, the decision-making is particularly difficult due to the large variability of reported results on environmental performance across studies. This calls for harmonized guidelines on how to conduct LCAs of geothermal systems to enhance transparency and results comparability, by ensuring consistent methodological choices and providing indications for harmonized results reporting. This work identifies the main critical aspects of performing an LCA of geothermal systems and provides solutions and technical guidance to harmonize its application. The proposed methodological approach is based on experts’ knowledge from both the geothermal and LCA sectors. The recommendations cover all the life cycle phases of geothermal energy production (i.e., construction, operation, maintenance and end of life) as well as a selection of LCA key elements thus providing a thorough base for concerted LCA guidelines for the geothermal sector. The application of such harmonized LCA framework can ensure comparability among LCA results from different geothermal systems and other renewable energy technologies.

ACS Style

Maria Laura Parisi; Melanie Douziech; Lorenzo Tosti; Paula Pérez-López; Barbara Mendecka; Sergio Ulgiati; Daniele Fiaschi; Giampaolo Manfrida; Isabelle Blanc. Definition of LCA Guidelines in the Geothermal Sector to Enhance Result Comparability. Energies 2020, 13, 3534 .

AMA Style

Maria Laura Parisi, Melanie Douziech, Lorenzo Tosti, Paula Pérez-López, Barbara Mendecka, Sergio Ulgiati, Daniele Fiaschi, Giampaolo Manfrida, Isabelle Blanc. Definition of LCA Guidelines in the Geothermal Sector to Enhance Result Comparability. Energies. 2020; 13 (14):3534.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Maria Laura Parisi; Melanie Douziech; Lorenzo Tosti; Paula Pérez-López; Barbara Mendecka; Sergio Ulgiati; Daniele Fiaschi; Giampaolo Manfrida; Isabelle Blanc. 2020. "Definition of LCA Guidelines in the Geothermal Sector to Enhance Result Comparability." Energies 13, no. 14: 3534.

Journal article
Published: 14 March 2020 in Renewable Energy
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This work is aimed to analyse environmental impacts of a stand-alone solar-based polygeneration power plant that consists of a photovoltaic panel array, a battery pack, a unitised regenerative polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell and a diesel backup generator. Life Cycle Assessment was performed for the same plant layout and control strategy applied to a reference commercial building located in different climate zones in the United States. Specifically, Global Warming Potential, Cumulative Energy Demand, Acidification and Eutrophication Potentials were analysed. Results showed the critical impact of manufacturing and use phases, highlighting the significant differences between the contributions of these phases, strongly depending on the plant location, which affects both power supply and demand, while the contribution of the end of life phase was negligible. The environmental impact of the entire system is driven by manufacturing of different units, i.e. photovoltaic panel arrays and batteries. Besides, a sensitivity of the results was investigated to identify the major factors affecting the manufacturing of these components. The unitised regenerative fuel cell was found to have a low impact during its entire life-cycle, and this may suggest increasing its size to reduce or replace batteries and diesel generator, which strongly affect manufacturing and use phases.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; Laura Tribioli; Raffaello Cozzolino. Life Cycle Assessment of a stand-alone solar-based polygeneration power plant for a commercial building in different climate zones. Renewable Energy 2020, 154, 1132 -1143.

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, Laura Tribioli, Raffaello Cozzolino. Life Cycle Assessment of a stand-alone solar-based polygeneration power plant for a commercial building in different climate zones. Renewable Energy. 2020; 154 ():1132-1143.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; Laura Tribioli; Raffaello Cozzolino. 2020. "Life Cycle Assessment of a stand-alone solar-based polygeneration power plant for a commercial building in different climate zones." Renewable Energy 154, no. : 1132-1143.

Conference paper
Published: 17 December 2019 in SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MATERIAL SCIENCE, SMART STRUCTURES AND APPLICATIONS: ICMSS-2019
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Biomass hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is the thermochemical conversion of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin and lipids into organic, homogenized, carbon rich and energy dense solid fuel, called hydrochar. Process occurs under high – temperature and pressure conditions in the presence of subcritical water. The HTC process represents an effective alternative solution to the common treatments for wet biomass, i.e. composting and anaerobic digestion, over which HTC has several advantages. It is faster compared to the conventional treatments, and it is not affected by inhibiting or toxic substances. Moreover, the HTC process generates a solid product exploitable in different fields such as energy production, soil improvement or raw material for high added value applications. In this study, olive pomace is analyzed as raw material in HTC. A batch reactor (Vreactor: 5.0 L; Pdesign: 100 bar; Tdesign: 310 °C) was designed and constructed to investigate the HTC process in terms of mass yield, product composition and High Heating Value of the generated hydrochar. Experiments with temperature in the range of 260 °C to 305 °C (remaining in subcritical conditions) and reaction time from 60 to 180 minutes were carried out to investigate the mass yield of the produced hydrochar, the concentration of carbon in the produced solid and the High Heating Value (HHV). Depending on the test conditions, the obtained char showed a HHv up to 31.14 MJ/kg, with a definitive increase with respect to 22.4 MJ / kg of the initial olive pomace biomass. The effects of the HTC high temperature process on the olive mill waste water were also investigated in terms of residual Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD)5.

ACS Style

Francesco Micali; Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi; Marco Milanese; Giovanni Ferrara; Arturo De Risi. Experimental investigation on high-temperature hydrothermal carbonization of olive pomace in batch reactor. SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MATERIAL SCIENCE, SMART STRUCTURES AND APPLICATIONS: ICMSS-2019 2019, 2191, 020112 .

AMA Style

Francesco Micali, Barbara Mendecka, Lidia Lombardi, Marco Milanese, Giovanni Ferrara, Arturo De Risi. Experimental investigation on high-temperature hydrothermal carbonization of olive pomace in batch reactor. SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MATERIAL SCIENCE, SMART STRUCTURES AND APPLICATIONS: ICMSS-2019. 2019; 2191 (1):020112.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Francesco Micali; Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi; Marco Milanese; Giovanni Ferrara; Arturo De Risi. 2019. "Experimental investigation on high-temperature hydrothermal carbonization of olive pomace in batch reactor." SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MATERIAL SCIENCE, SMART STRUCTURES AND APPLICATIONS: ICMSS-2019 2191, no. 1: 020112.

Review
Published: 24 May 2019 in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
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Nowadays, wind energy is taking on primary role within renewable energies scenario. However, impact of wind energy industry on the environment still requires to be fully understood and better quantified. This study provides an updated review of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies of electricity produced from onshore and offshore wind turbines (WTs). Special emphasis is put on results harmonization and simplified LCA models existing in the literature. The synthesis of the results is performed for wide range of WTs capacities, providing an exhaustive and general frame of the environmental impacts of WTs systems. Moreover, new simplified LCA models, which make use of a non-linear regression, were developed in this work for the following impact categories: Acidification Potential (AP), Eutrophication Potential (EP), Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) and for onshore (1–5000 kW) and offshore (500–8000 kW) WTs. Nonlinear data fitting models are provided with a sufficiently high correlation coefficient for total life cycle impacts. Moreover, the proposed simplified LCA models predict the final results with acceptable uncertainty. This indicates that the one-term power series describes the behavior of the impact indicators accurately, providing a useful correlation to estimate the life cycle environmental performance for a specific turbine model with a given nominal power. Furthermore, obtained simplified LCA models were generalized for different site-specific wind conditions, i.e. wind speeds and wind classes. By analyzing all the considered impact indicators for electricity generation, we notice that the highest values of life cycle impacts of electricity, for a particular WT correspond to the highest wind velocities. This is particularly valid for low nominal power turbines, which seem to be significantly affected by wind conditions. The trends exhibit an asymptotic behavior, indicating that, on the contrary, wind conditions are a minor contributor to the environmental impact of large-scale systems.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi. Life cycle environmental impacts of wind energy technologies: A review of simplified models and harmonization of the results. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 2019, 111, 462 -480.

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, Lidia Lombardi. Life cycle environmental impacts of wind energy technologies: A review of simplified models and harmonization of the results. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 2019; 111 ():462-480.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi. 2019. "Life cycle environmental impacts of wind energy technologies: A review of simplified models and harmonization of the results." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 111, no. : 462-480.

Journal article
Published: 18 May 2019 in Energy
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Geothermal power plants can provide clean and renewable energy and can be proposed as integrated units for simultaneous production of cooling and power. This paper presents a cascade arrangement of an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and a water/lithium bromide (LiBr) absorption chiller (ABS). Starting from a literature reference layout which is taken as benchmark, some improvements are proposed at system level. To assess the performance of the system, a thermodynamic model is developed in EES and the energy and exergy balance is calculated. The proposed system is re-evaluated with reference to resource conditions corresponding to a planned power plant in central Italy, Torre Alfina (TA). A sensitivity analysis is performed in order to investigate the operating range of the plant and the possibility of adapting its design to the requirements of the customers. Under optimized conditions, the TA Case (targeted on a 5 MW power output) showed an energy utilization factor (EUF) of 46.2% and an exergy efficiency of 27.7%, neglecting the brine reinjection loss. The highest exergy destructions occur in the ORC economizer (8.6%), in the ABS generator (6.3%) and absorber (5.5%). The good resource conditions in TA case drive the design optimization to production of power rather than cold.

ACS Style

Martina Leveni; Giampaolo Manfrida; Raffaello Cozzolino; Barbara Mendecka. Energy and exergy analysis of cold and power production from the geothermal reservoir of Torre Alfina. Energy 2019, 180, 807 -818.

AMA Style

Martina Leveni, Giampaolo Manfrida, Raffaello Cozzolino, Barbara Mendecka. Energy and exergy analysis of cold and power production from the geothermal reservoir of Torre Alfina. Energy. 2019; 180 ():807-818.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Martina Leveni; Giampaolo Manfrida; Raffaello Cozzolino; Barbara Mendecka. 2019. "Energy and exergy analysis of cold and power production from the geothermal reservoir of Torre Alfina." Energy 180, no. : 807-818.

Journal article
Published: 10 April 2019 in Energy
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In this paper, an integrated system aiming for heating and cooling production using solar energy is investigated. The system consisting of a solar driven adsorption chiller and radiation heating coupled with thermal energy storage is analysed thermodynamically, and its overall performance is assessed through energy and exergy efficiencies. The main goal is to compare performances of the system equipped with different thermal energy storage tank. Two thermal storage tank arrangements - a water TES and PCM TES - are discussed. These cases are later compared with the reference system without a storage tank. The results of the energy and exergy analyses of the reference case without thermal storage show that the seasonal energy and exergy efficiencies are 24.2 % and 10.5 %. Furthermore, by introducing thermal storage, energy and exergy performances of the system have improved significantly compared to the reference case. The annual energy and exergy efficiencies of the integrated system with water TES were 31.9 % and 14.3 %, respectively. Moreover, it was observed that the annual energy and exergy efficiencies of the system with PCM TES are slightly higher than for the system with water TES (1.5 and 0.7 percentage points, respectively) for the same storage capacity.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; Raffaello Cozzolino; Martina Leveni; Gino Bella. Energetic and exergetic performance evaluation of a solar cooling and heating system assisted with thermal storage. Energy 2019, 176, 816 -829.

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, Raffaello Cozzolino, Martina Leveni, Gino Bella. Energetic and exergetic performance evaluation of a solar cooling and heating system assisted with thermal storage. Energy. 2019; 176 ():816-829.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; Raffaello Cozzolino; Martina Leveni; Gino Bella. 2019. "Energetic and exergetic performance evaluation of a solar cooling and heating system assisted with thermal storage." Energy 176, no. : 816-829.

Journal article
Published: 08 March 2019 in Waste Management & Research: The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy
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Hybridisation of waste to energy with solar facility can take competing energy technologies and make them complementary. However, realising the benefits of solar integration requires careful consideration of the technical feasibility as well as the economic and environmental benefits of a proposed system. In this work, a solar-integrated waste-to-energy plant scheme is proposed and analysed from an energy, environmental and economic point of view. The new system integrates a traditional waste-to-energy plant with a concentrated solar power plant, by superheating the steam produced by the waste-to-energy flue gas boiler in the solar facility. The original waste-to-energy plant – that is, the base case before introducing the integration with concentrated solar power – has a thermal power input of 50 MW and operates with superheated steam at 40 bar and 400 °C; net power output is 10.7 MW, and the net energy efficiency is equal to 21.65%. By combining waste-to-energy plant with the solar facility, the power plant could provide higher net efficiency (from 1.4 to 3.7 p.p. higher), lower specific CO2 emissions (from 69 to 180 kg MWh-1 lower) and lower levellised cost of electricity (from 13.4 to 42.3 EUR MWh-1 lower) comparing with the standalone waste to energy case. The study shows that: (i) in the integrated case and for the increasing steam parameters energy, economic and ecological performances are improved; (ii) increasing the solar contribution could be an efficient way to improve the process and system performances. In general, we can conclude that concentrated solar-power technology holds significant promise for extending and developing the waste to energy systems.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; L Lombardi; Paweł Gładysz. Waste to energy efficiency improvements: Integration with solar thermal energy. Waste Management & Research: The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy 2019, 37, 419 -434.

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, L Lombardi, Paweł Gładysz. Waste to energy efficiency improvements: Integration with solar thermal energy. Waste Management & Research: The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy. 2019; 37 (4):419-434.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; L Lombardi; Paweł Gładysz. 2019. "Waste to energy efficiency improvements: Integration with solar thermal energy." Waste Management & Research: The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy 37, no. 4: 419-434.

Journal article
Published: 01 December 2018 in Renewable Energy
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ACS Style

Lidia Lombardi; Barbara Mendecka; Ennio Carnevale; Wojciech Stanek. Environmental impacts of electricity production of micro wind turbines with vertical axis. Renewable Energy 2018, 128, 553 -564.

AMA Style

Lidia Lombardi, Barbara Mendecka, Ennio Carnevale, Wojciech Stanek. Environmental impacts of electricity production of micro wind turbines with vertical axis. Renewable Energy. 2018; 128 ():553-564.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Lidia Lombardi; Barbara Mendecka; Ennio Carnevale; Wojciech Stanek. 2018. "Environmental impacts of electricity production of micro wind turbines with vertical axis." Renewable Energy 128, no. : 553-564.

Journal article
Published: 01 August 2018 in Energy Conversion and Management
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In this paper, we apply a life cycle thermoecological cost (LC-TEC) approach to evaluate the environmental performance of wind turbines with different capacities and performance characteristics. LC-TEC expresses the cumulative consumption of non-renewable exergy burdening the fabrication of the considered consumption of the product with the additional inclusion of necessity of compensating adverse environmental effects due to harmful waste products rejection. Differently, from what has been recently done in the literature on the environmental performance of wind turbines, where the attention has been mainly drawn by analysis of single turbine, we focus on the synthesis of the results for wind turbines with different capacities and the generalisation of the results under different environmental conditions. The selected functional unit for the comparison was 1 MJ of produced electricity, assuming a service lifetime equal to 20 years. Concerning the contribution analysis, the construction phase is the most intensive one for wind energy technologies with a share varying from 64 to 77% in the overall effect. Substantial differences in LC-TEC are observed for wind turbines of different capacity and different locations of the power plant. Results show that the LC-TEC of electricity significantly decrease while the turbine nominal power increases. For instance, for the average site, described by Weibull distribution parameters of mean wind speed of 5 m/s and shape coefficient 2, the TEC-LC for 1 kW micro wind turbine is estimated to be equal to 0.436 MJex/MJ, while for a larger, 2 MW one, fall in the range of 0.053–0.063 MJex/MJ. We found that a power function can successfully describe such a trend. Moreover, we observed considerable changes in the final results for different Weibull distribution parameters. Specifically, the LC-TEC differs significantly for the sites with lower mean wind speed and different shape factors. Finally, we propose the supporting system for wind energy basing on the LC-TEC and pro-ecological taxing. According to this concept, the power units with LC-TEC below unity are to be supported, and the proposed level of pro-ecological support (ExTAX – Exergy TAX) is proportional to the thermo-ecological cost. The obtained results of exergy supporting for wind energy technologies are applied in the Italian electricity market and compared with the existing financing system for wind energy based on green certificates and feed-in tariff system.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi; Wojciech Stanek. Analysis of life cycle thermo-ecological cost of electricity from wind and its application for future incentive mechanism. Energy Conversion and Management 2018, 170, 73 -81.

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, Lidia Lombardi, Wojciech Stanek. Analysis of life cycle thermo-ecological cost of electricity from wind and its application for future incentive mechanism. Energy Conversion and Management. 2018; 170 ():73-81.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi; Wojciech Stanek. 2018. "Analysis of life cycle thermo-ecological cost of electricity from wind and its application for future incentive mechanism." Energy Conversion and Management 170, no. : 73-81.

Journal article
Published: 01 August 2018 in Energy Procedia
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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was applied to evaluate the environmental impact of a hybrid energy system based on the integration of a Waste to Energy plant with concentrated solar energy plant. In the Waste to Energy (WtE) section only saturated steam is produced, while the superheating takes place in an external superheater fed by the concentrated solar energy or, when this is not enough, by a natural gas backup boiler. Different couples of pressure and temperature, for the superheated steam (51 bar, 440 °C; 60 bar, 480 °C; 70 bar, 520 °C), different values for the solar multiple (1.5, 2.0 and 2.5) and different values for the thermal storage capacity (6 h, 10 h and 14 h) were considered, leading to 27 possible cases. Construction, operation and end-of-life phases were included in the LCA system boundary. Calculated global warming indicator, in kg of equivalent CO2 per MJ of produced electricity, slightly decreases for increasing steam parameter cases and for increasing storage hour cases, while a more relevant reduction was observed for increasing solar multiple values. The main contribution to global warming derives from the operation phase of the WtE part (67-86% of the operation), while the remaining part (14-33%) is given by the solar section, for which, in turn, the main contribution is the impact deriving from the natural gas combustion in the backup boiler.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi. Environmental evaluation of Waste to Energy plant coupled with concentrated solar energy. Energy Procedia 2018, 148, 162 -169.

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, Lidia Lombardi. Environmental evaluation of Waste to Energy plant coupled with concentrated solar energy. Energy Procedia. 2018; 148 ():162-169.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi. 2018. "Environmental evaluation of Waste to Energy plant coupled with concentrated solar energy." Energy Procedia 148, no. : 162-169.

Journal article
Published: 09 July 2018 in Energy
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An increased wind capacity penetration reduces loading on conventional thermal units causing higher fuel requirements due to the off-design operation. Regarding the environmental analysis, such an adverse effect should be allocated to the operational phase of wind turbines. In the present work, we apply Thermo-ecological Cost (TEC) to evaluate the environmental performance of wind power systems operating in Poland and Italy. The analysis focuses on the quantitative assessment of the effect of additional chemical energy consumption due to part-load operation of the conventional power units in both analyzed electricity systems. We present the results for two different dispatch strategies. The results confirm high environmental effectiveness of wind power systems. However, the TEC resulting from the compensation for wind generation variations has a significant contribution to the overall LC-TEC index. In particular, without considering the effect of compensation, the TEC for wind turbines are from 47 to 65 times lower than for coal-fired power plants and 35 to 48 times lower than for NGCC plants. Concerning the real load conditions, and considering the effects resulting from the compensation for wind generation variations, the TEC index for this phase contributes between 36% and 75% to the total TEC value.

ACS Style

Wojciech Stanek; Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi; Tomasz Simla. Environmental assessment of wind turbine systems based on thermo-ecological cost. Energy 2018, 160, 341 -348.

AMA Style

Wojciech Stanek, Barbara Mendecka, Lidia Lombardi, Tomasz Simla. Environmental assessment of wind turbine systems based on thermo-ecological cost. Energy. 2018; 160 ():341-348.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Wojciech Stanek; Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi; Tomasz Simla. 2018. "Environmental assessment of wind turbine systems based on thermo-ecological cost." Energy 160, no. : 341-348.

Journal article
Published: 01 June 2018 in Journal of Environmental Management
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The separate collection of Used Cooking Oil (UCO) is gaining popularity through several countries in Europe. An appropriate management of UCO waste stream leads to substantial benefits. In this study, we analyse two different possibilities of UCO energy reuse: the direct feed to a reciprocating internal combustion engine (ICE) for cogeneration purpose, and the processing to generate biodiesel. Concerning biodiesel production, we analyse four among conventional and innovative technologies, characterised by different type and amount of used chemicals, heat and electricity consumptions and yields. We perform a systematic evaluation of environmental benefits and drawbacks by applying life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis to compare the alternatives. For the impact assessment, two methods are selected: the Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Cumulative Exergy Consumption (CExC). Results related only to the processing phases (i.e. not including yet the avoided effects) show that the recovery of UCO in cogeneration plant has in general lower values in terms of environmental impacts than its employment in biodiesel production. When products and co-products substitution are included, the savings obtained by the substitution of conventional diesel production, in the biodiesel cases, are significantly higher than the avoided effects for electricity and heat in the cogeneration case. In particular, by using the UCO in the biodiesel production processes, the savings vary from 41.6 to 54.6 GJ per tUCO, and from 2270 to 2860 kg CO per tUCO for CExC and GWP, respectively. A particular focus is put on sensitivity and uncertainty analyses. Overall, high uncertainty of final results for process impacts is observed, especially for the supercritical methanol process. Low uncertainty values are evaluated for the avoided effects. Including the uncertain character of the impacts, cogeneration scenario and NaOH catalysed process of biodiesel production result to be the most suitable solutions from the process impacts and avoided effects perspective.

ACS Style

Lidia Lombardi; Barbara Mendecka; Ennio Carnevale. Comparative life cycle assessment of alternative strategies for energy recovery from used cooking oil. Journal of Environmental Management 2018, 216, 235 -245.

AMA Style

Lidia Lombardi, Barbara Mendecka, Ennio Carnevale. Comparative life cycle assessment of alternative strategies for energy recovery from used cooking oil. Journal of Environmental Management. 2018; 216 ():235-245.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Lidia Lombardi; Barbara Mendecka; Ennio Carnevale. 2018. "Comparative life cycle assessment of alternative strategies for energy recovery from used cooking oil." Journal of Environmental Management 216, no. : 235-245.

Journal article
Published: 28 March 2018 in Energies
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Hybridization of Waste to Energy (WtE) plants with solar facilities can take competing energy technologies and make them complementary. However, realizing the benefits of the solar integration requires careful consideration of its efficiency. To analyse such systems from the point of view of resource efficiency, the pure energy analysis is not sufficient since the quality of particular energy carriers is not evaluated. This work applies the exergo-ecological analysis using the concepts of thermoecological cost (TEC) and exergy cost for the performance evaluation of an integrated Solar-Waste to Energy plant scheme, where solar energy is used for steam superheating. Different plant layouts, considering several design steam parameters as well as different solar system configurations, in terms of area of heliostats and size of the thermal storage tank, were studied. The results for the solar integrated plant scheme were compared with the scenarios where superheating is performed fully by a non-renewable energy source. The presented results of exergy cost analysis indicate that the most favorable system is the one supported by non-renewable energy. Such an analysis does not consider the advantage of the use of renewable energy sources. By extending the system boundary to the level of natural resource and applying the thermoecological cost analysis, an opposite result was obtained.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi; Paweł Gładysz; Wojciech Stanek. Exergo-Ecological Assessment of Waste to Energy Plants Supported by Solar Energy. Energies 2018, 11, 773 .

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, Lidia Lombardi, Paweł Gładysz, Wojciech Stanek. Exergo-Ecological Assessment of Waste to Energy Plants Supported by Solar Energy. Energies. 2018; 11 (4):773.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi; Paweł Gładysz; Wojciech Stanek. 2018. "Exergo-Ecological Assessment of Waste to Energy Plants Supported by Solar Energy." Energies 11, no. 4: 773.

Journal article
Published: 15 May 2017 in Renewable Energy
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Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a widely adopted tool, which is regarded as a suitable set of methods to evaluate sustainability in a variety of energy applications. The MCDA is usually performed employing a deterministic approach. Such an approach is rather not adequate to include model uncertainties connected with both: decision maker preferences (criteria weights) and process input data. By considering the stochastic nature of uncertainties, it is possible to generate results that can easily be analyzed statistically. In addition, such an approach allows investigating the consequences of the resulting uncertainty of multi-attribute aggregation on the final decision. In this study, we define, analyze and compare four different technologies of biodiesel production from used cooking oil (UCO) using probabilistic MCDA. Among the criteria, we consider energy, economic, environmental, as well as social aspects. To evaluate the uncertainty of the final results, we propose a novel method, coupling Monte Carlo simulation and method of data reconciliation. Firstly, we present the results of the deterministic case, in which we assume the exact values of criteria and the preferences. Besides, we investigate on a sensitivity of the results to identify the major factors affecting the economic, energy, environmental and social viability of biodiesel production. Furthermore, we conduct an analysis of the contributions of the different phases of the UCO processing to the resulting criteria. Finally, we introduce inaccurate or uncertain criteria values and criteria preferences to evaluate the uncertainty of the results.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi; Joachim Kozioł. Probabilistic multi-criteria analysis for evaluation of biodiesel production technologies from used cooking oil. Renewable Energy 2017, 147, 2542 -2553.

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, Lidia Lombardi, Joachim Kozioł. Probabilistic multi-criteria analysis for evaluation of biodiesel production technologies from used cooking oil. Renewable Energy. 2017; 147 ():2542-2553.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; Lidia Lombardi; Joachim Kozioł. 2017. "Probabilistic multi-criteria analysis for evaluation of biodiesel production technologies from used cooking oil." Renewable Energy 147, no. : 2542-2553.

Conference paper
Published: 17 October 2016 in E3S Web of Conferences
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Nowadays, the technologies of electricity generation in distributed systems are usually associated with Renewable Energy Sources (RES). The choice of the construction site depends mainly on the availability of the power system. However, energy planning, especially in case of RES, is a complex process involving multiple and often conflicting objectives. The complexity of the selection of the electricity system is typically addressed with the use of multi-criteria tools, involving all of the considered criteria and also different methods of their aggregation. The result is a final ranking of the available alternatives. This paper describes the application of a multi-criteria decision tool for the comparative analysis of the use of alternative options of the PV technology for electricity production. Four decision variants are considered, including the different construction of solar farms (static and movable structure) and different types of configuration of individual installation (off and on-grid). The construction of each new sources of electricity generation, including PV, is the multi-threaded and multi-dimensional decision problem. The criteria used in the analysis combine economic, environmental and social issues. The first of the considered criterion is the Net Present Value (NPV) which determines the economic viability of the project. The second criterion, thermo-ecological cost (TEC), connecting energy and environmental issues. Finally, the Land Use (LU) is considered as a social criterion. As aggregation function, the Weighted Sum Method (WSM) is used. The sensitivity analysis of the criteria weights was performed with the use of a novel method involving Monte Carlo simulation and a method of data reconciliation.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; Alicja Stoltmann. Application of multi-criteria methods to compare different solutions of supplying buildings in electricity from photovoltaic systems. E3S Web of Conferences 2016, 10, 56 .

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, Alicja Stoltmann. Application of multi-criteria methods to compare different solutions of supplying buildings in electricity from photovoltaic systems. E3S Web of Conferences. 2016; 10 ():56.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; Alicja Stoltmann. 2016. "Application of multi-criteria methods to compare different solutions of supplying buildings in electricity from photovoltaic systems." E3S Web of Conferences 10, no. : 56.

Journal article
Published: 01 December 2015 in Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems
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ACS Style

Joachim Kozioł; Barbara Mendecka. Evaluation of Economic, Energy-environmental and Sociological Effects of Substituting Non-renewable Energy with Renewable Energy Sources. Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems 2015, 3, 333 -343.

AMA Style

Joachim Kozioł, Barbara Mendecka. Evaluation of Economic, Energy-environmental and Sociological Effects of Substituting Non-renewable Energy with Renewable Energy Sources. Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems. 2015; 3 (4):333-343.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Joachim Kozioł; Barbara Mendecka. 2015. "Evaluation of Economic, Energy-environmental and Sociological Effects of Substituting Non-renewable Energy with Renewable Energy Sources." Journal of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems 3, no. 4: 333-343.

Journal article
Published: 01 March 2015 in Archives of Thermodynamics
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The multicriteria decision process consists of five main steps: definition of the optimisation problem, determination of the weight structure of the decision criteria, design of the evaluation matrix, selection of the optimal evaluation method and ranking of solutions. It is often difficult to obtain the optimal solution to a multicriterion problem. The main reason is the subjective element of the model – the weight functions of the decision criteria. Expert opinions are usually taken into account in their determination. The aim of this article is to present a novel method of minimizing the uncertainty of the weights of the decision criteria using Monte Carlo simulation and method of data reconciliation. The proposed method is illustrated by the example of multicriterion social effectiveness evaluation for electric power supply to a building using renewable energy sources.

ACS Style

Barbara Mendecka; Joachim Kozioł. Application of the method of data reconciliation for minimizing uncertainty of the weight function in the multicriteria optimization model. Archives of Thermodynamics 2015, 36, 83 -92.

AMA Style

Barbara Mendecka, Joachim Kozioł. Application of the method of data reconciliation for minimizing uncertainty of the weight function in the multicriteria optimization model. Archives of Thermodynamics. 2015; 36 (1):83-92.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Barbara Mendecka; Joachim Kozioł. 2015. "Application of the method of data reconciliation for minimizing uncertainty of the weight function in the multicriteria optimization model." Archives of Thermodynamics 36, no. 1: 83-92.