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Research ESRIG - Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen Events

ESRIG-EES colloquium: Charilaos (Harry) Vasilakopoulos, Alessandro Zanchetta and Sander Leuning, MSc EES students

When:Tu 28-01-2020 15:30 - 17:00
Where:5159.0110, Nijenborgh 6 (Energy Academy)

Speaker | Charilaos (Harry) Vasilakopoulos, MSc EES student.

Title | Strategies to improve the sustainability of the Athenian residential sector.

Summary | The improvement of the sustainability of the residential sector is of high importance for the reduction of greenhouse emissions by 2050. The aim of this study is to gain a deeper insight on the energy system of the Athenian residential sector and explore the strategies that can improve its energy performance. A shift to an energy system powered from lignite to RES requires exploring the possible margins for implementation of alternative technologies. A performance of a small scale analysis is essential to understand the energy patterns for heating and cooling of a reference case building in order to identify how the retrofitting strategies affect the energy consumption patterns. To compensate for the energy demand of the building, installment of PV panels is also considered. Constructing different scenarios for the energy use of one building was one step towards understanding how a smaller scale system works and then expanding that logic into a city can pinpoint factors for a larger scale concept and identify important parameters. For implementing an analysis on a city level it is required to also formulate scenarios that are a result of governmental policies, financial aspects, legislative framework and the environmental scope of relative matters. Even though Greece is far from achieving all of its environmental goals, it has to be noted that there is a significant potential for a bigger RES penetration and significant efforts are being made.


Speaker | Alessandro Zanchetta, MSc EES student.

Title | Identification and quantification of anthropogenic emissions of carbonyl sulfide.

Summary | Carbonyl sulfide (COS) is the most abundant reduced sulfur gas in the atmosphere. It plays a role as a greenhouse gas, as well as in the formation of atmospheric aerosols. Moreover, it has been suggested as a tracer for gross primary production. In fact, it is uptaken at leaf level by plants following the same path of CO2 in the photosynthesis process but, unlike CO2, it does not get emitted by plants through respiration. At present, this practice is limited by the uncertainties related to the COS budget in terms of sources and sinks. In addition, recent measurements at the Lutjewad meteorological station reported strong and long-lasting enhancements of COS which were attributed to ploughing activities. The aim of this project was to identify and quantify COS emissions in the province of Groningen, in order to help in achieving a proper assessment of the local COS budget and, hopefully, to extend it to wider scales. On top of that, it wanted to provide further evidence for ploughing as a source of this gas species. In parallel, co-emissions of COS with other trace gases were studied, as they could have resulted in specific ratios for different sources and, therefore, used as a proof to demonstrate the origin of COS enhancements. This was realised by investigating selected locations in the province, both by collecting air samples in flasks and by performing in-situ measurements on a mobile station.  


Speaker | Sander Leuning, MSc EES student.

Title | TBA

Summary | TBA