Optimization

Explore the Mind Map to learn about Optimization!

The second main principle of approaches that use ICT to enable emissions savings is optimization, which is a very general term that leaves room for interpretation. To clarify this term, optimization makes things more efficient regarding to energy consumption or the usage of other resources. In opposition to the concept of dematerialization, the focus of the principle of optimization is not the replacement of things by ICT. In this case, ICT enables improvements in energy consumption and emissions reductions by making units or processes more efficient. Therefore, in the taxonomy the optimization potential of ICT is split up into unit efficiency and the optimization of processes. The first taxon groups together approaches which improve the energy efficiency of machines, production units, devices or any other physical object. Process optimization is divided into two main concepts, where automation is one and coordination the other. Automation makes use of technology to execute tasks without the need for manpower. Alongside production processes this principle is also used in lighting systems in buildings for example. The taxon coordination stands for improved coordination of processes and work flows by using information and communication technology. This involves computer applications used to optimize transport routes, as well as smart grids developed to coordinate energy supply more efficiently.

Optimization can also be considered as making things smart, as ICT enables to build smart motor systems and to improve energy efficiency in buildings and transport by smart buildings and smart logistics [1]. One the one hand the term smart stands for a kind of intelligence that inheres these improved units or processes, on the other hand The Climate Group defines the actions the ICT sector can take to improve the global emissions situation by the five letters of SMART [2]:

• Standardization of how energy consumption and information about emissions can be traced and made accessible throughout different processes in economy. 
• Monitoring of energy consumption and emissions in real time. 
• Accountability for energy consumption and emissions should be established beside other business priorities. This can be achieved by the application of network tools. 
• Rethinking about how we should live, learn, play and work in a low carbon society, enabled by ICT as an information platform, which can also help working together to gain efficiency improvements. 
• Transformation of the economy will happen if the enabling effect of ICT can be turned to account. 

This assessment of The Climate Group concerning the optimization potential of ICT suggests that Information Technology can support and enable a transformation process to a low carbon economy and society in a great extent. But this implies the acceptance and commitment of other economic sectors and governments.

References

[1] The Climate Group. Smart 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Technical report, The Climate Group on behalf of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), 2008.

[2] The Climate Group. Smart 2020 report summary. Technical report, The Climate Group on behalf of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), 2008.

Intelligent Building Systems - Lighting Automation - HVAC Automation

Intelligent Building Systems

The term Intelligent Building System refers to the integration of various building facilities by computer systems. Such a system provides a centralized control application for example for HVAC (heat, ventilation and air conditioning), security systems, lighting systems, energy management, access control and telecommunications [1]. In other words, Intelligent Building Systems try to integrate several building automation systems. As mentioned before, these systems are developed to control innovative technologies to increase energy efficiency as well as user benefits. Approaches of this kind address the fundamental issue of achieving reductions in energy demand in buildings without lowering the quality of in-building conditions for occupants. This is of special importance for the distribution of energy efficient technology, since it can also bring direct benefits for users, beside the positive environmental impact. To reduce energy consumption in buildings Intelligent Software Agents (ISA) can be installed at different levels of automation. The focus of this approach is set on individual climate control to adjust the conditions to user preferences by an optimal setting of parameters. This implies profound knowledge of the actual weather situation and data about the building like window orientations. An approach of this kind was tested in field in office buildings in the Netherlands [2]. Although this technology is still in research phase, it is a promising concept to deal with the trade-off between energy savings and individual comfort.

Lighting automation 

Lighting is responsible for about 20 percent of total energy demand in commercial buildings and for about 10 percent of energy demand in residential homes [3]. One possibility to reduce this energy consumption is to use more efficient illuminants, like light-emitting diodes (LED). On the other hand the inefficiencies in lighting of today’s buildings arise from light usage. Light should be turned on when it’s needed and should be turned off when it’s not necessarily needed. This approach can be named as occupancy-based lighting [4]. At this point automated lighting systems come to play. Modern lighting control systems are computer systems that allow automated control and optimization of lighting in office or private buildings, that maximize efficiency and therefore save energy. The energy savings from these control systems can be numbered as up to 70 percent of today’s energy demand for lighting [5]. The global potential of emissions savings by lighting automation is estimated by about 0.12 GtCO2e [4], which would bring a significant environmental benefit. Additionally there are important social and economic benefits, like improved and individually adjusted room lighting and lower operational costs due to lower energy consumption.
Typical features of modern lighting control systems are the following [5, 6]:

• Direct on/off and dimming controls provided to the occupants at a centralized control user interface. 
• Possibility of remote management of lighting control of all individual lights in a whole building or several buildings combined. 
• Scheduling functions and timers, switching lights on and off or dimming lights automatically at predefined times. 
• Integration of photo-sensors to detect illumination levels of natural lighting. This allows to adjust additional artificial lighting efficiently to meet the required illumination levels and save a significant amount of energy. 
• Occupancy sensors, to enable occupancy-based lighting, especially useful in areas with varying usage. 
• Functions for measuring and monitoring energy consumption of lighting, which provide real-time or historical data on energy usage for decision making. 

As already mentioned lighting control systems can not only provide energy savings, they can also bring advancements in lighting characteristics like illumination levels in respect to the requirements at different places. As an example, lighting can be individually adjusted to several specific workplaces in the same room. Beside environmental benefits, this induces significant economic and social improvements, since it is the sense of artificial lighting to improve the productivity and wellbeing of a buildings occupants. To achieve individuality in lighting and to adjust it to user preferences, a flexible structure of the lighting network is needed. This involves a multiple-circuits configuration with local and remote control functions and individually positioned luminaries at specific areas per room [7]. Approaches like this focus at ensuring that savings in energy are not achieved at the cost of performance. However a simple case study at a small office showed, that automated lighting control could lower energy usage to about 30 or 40 percent of energy usage without any lighting control facilities [7].
One problem for adoption of lighting control systems in existing buildings are the high costs of installation and rewiring [8]. Wireless technology could help overcome this hurdle, since it is better compatible with economic considerations due to lower investment expenses for retrofitting. In the case of wireless lighting control a network of wireless photo- and occupancy sensors, as well as wireless light switches and dimmers is installed, which means that “each endpoint is wirelessly enabled” [5]. Figure 1 shows a schema of a simple wireless lighting architecture, using wireless actuation modules for luminaries with dimming functions and a base server for lighting control. The system is designed as wireless networked intelligent lighting actuation system, to gain energy savings and satisfy the needs of individual occupants [8].

Figure 1: Wireless networked lighting architecture [8]

More complex wireless lighting networks use mesh-architectures, meaning that every endpoint can communicate with the controller by at least two channels, which makes the network more stable and more resistant to failures due to redundancy [5]. Beside the relatively low costs of retrofits, the major benefits of wireless lighting control are flexibility in placing lighting controls and reconfigurations of the network, as well as high scalability in respect of adding devices and expanding the network.

Heat, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) automation 

Similar to lighting control, heating, ventilation and air conditioning can also be automated by special building automation system (BAS). In this case the BAS is a computer network integrating the controls of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems of buildings, which also can be automated [6]. A main goal of these systems is to adjust HVAC settings to occupants needs in order to save energy and improve room conditions. In China HVAC systems are responsible for more than 70 percent of total energy use in buildings [9]. Globally the automation of HVAC systems could save up to 0.13 GtCO2e [4].
The full potential of energy savings from improving HVAC systems in the building sector can be tapped by developing hybrid systems for heating and cooling that use efficient and low carbon energy sources. An example of a hybrid air conditioning system is a combination of a vapor-compression system, a desiccant dehumidification system and a indirect evaporative cooling system [9]. To achieve maximum efficiency of such combined systems information technology is needed to optimize and operate them. For proper and efficient building ventilation there are hybrid concepts too. These systems use a combination of natural ventilation and air conditioning [10].
Another approach of reducing energy demand for heating and cooling is to exploit geothermal energy. This brings significant environmental benefits, since this type of energy is carbonfree and widely available. The main principle of these systems is the heat pump, which works like a “reverse refrigerator” [11]. The ground heat is used for building heating in winter, since the soil is warm relatively to the air on the surface. In summer the soil can be used to cool the building by reversing this principle. Figure 2 depicts a simple schema of a heat pump system.

Figure 2: Ground source heat pump system for building heating and cooling [11]

Geothermal systems are often used in context of passive building concepts with a low grade of natural ventilation. These concepts often optimize energy consumption at the cost of room conditions. To improve room conditions, additional active ventilation systems are necessary, to achieve the required level of air exchange in these buildings. In contrast to this, there are approaches in research to use geothermal energy with the help of ground air collectors to realize active conditioning systems. The advantage of this method is, that the whole building construction is warmed by naturally preheated air in winter and cooled by natural cool air in summer [12]. The principle is similar to traditional heat pumps, but the main difference is that air is used to heat or cool the building instead of water. By collecting ground air a higher level of ventilation can be achieved to improve room conditions and the need for additional ventilation can be avoided.
Heating of buildings by traditional systems using fossil fuels has large environmental impact. In the UK tempering buildings accounts for about 49 percent of total carbon emissions [13]. There are several technology approaches for low carbon domestic and nondomestic heating, to lower this environmental impact. Such heating systems are called microgeneration heat technology, since they are built in small-scale factor and mainly used to heat single building units [13]. Some samples for microgeneration heat technology used for room and water heating are heat pumps, solar thermal hot water, biomass stoves and boilers fuelled by wood or pellets. Just as for other building technologies the role of ICT is to control these microgeneration heat systems, integrate them with other building automation systems and therefore optimize the efficiency.
A study from the UK about the use and adoption of low carbon microgeneration technology addressed the reasons for or against the adoption of these technologies [13]. The survey showed that a big part of the adopters of microgeneration heat technologies considered themselves as “environmentally conscious” and took also different actions to reduce their energy demand, like using public transport for example. Households in rural areas, with no children, or where children already left home, are more likely to adopt low carbon technology as well. The main reason for adoption is the idea to lower bills and carbon emissions. On the other hand, the largest barriers for adoption are mainly financial: high initial costs, uncertain and long payback periods, small subsidies [13]. In summary there are financial, regional and ideological factors that influence the decision for or against adopting new technology to lower the environmental impact of domestic heating systems. The uncertainty about payback periods and efficiency of these systems that prevents many households from adoption. Therefore a well-directed information campaign and higher incentives given by governments could help overcome these barriers and support a faster distribution of low carbon heating technologies.

References

[1] Diamond Electronic Systems Ltd. http://www.diamondsystems.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=81&Itemid=84. Accessed: 2013-03-08.

[2] W. Zeiler, R. Houten, and G. Boxem.  Smart buildings:  Intelligent software agents.  In
Robert J. Howlett, Lakhmi C. Jain, and Shaun H. Lee, editors, Sustainability in Energy
and Buildings, pages 9–17. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2009.

[3] B. Metz. Controlling climate change. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

[4] The Climate Group. Smart 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Technical report, The Climate Group on behalf of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), 2008.

[5] Daintree  Networks,   Inc.      White  paper:    The  value  of  wireless  lighting  control.
http://www.daintree.net/downloads/whitepapers/smart-lighting.pdf.  Accessed: 2013-03-08.

[6] R. Wolsey.  Controlling lighting with building automation systems.  Lighting Answers, Vol. 4 Number 1:1 – 8, May 1997.

[7] G. Parise and L. Martirano.  Impact of building automation, controls and building management on energy performance of lighting systems.  In Industrial Commercial Power Systems Technical Conference - Conference Record 2009 IEEE, pages 1 –5, May 2009.

[8] Y.-J. Wen and A.M. Agogino. Wireless networked lighting systems for optimizing energy savings and user satisfaction. In Wireless Hive Networks Conference, 2008. WHNC 2008. IEEE, pages 1 –7, Aug. 2008.

[9] K. Sumathy, Li Yong, Y. J. Dai, and R. Z. Wang.   Study on a novel hybrid desiccant dehumidification and air conditioning system. In Robert J. Howlett, Lakhmi C. Jain, and Shaun H. Lee, editors, Sustainability in Energy and Buildings, pages 413–421. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2009.

[10] A. Elmualim. Integrated building management systems for sustainable technologies: Design aspiration and operational shortcoming. In Robert J. Howlett, Lakhmi C. Jain, and Shaun H. Lee, editors, Sustainability in Energy and Buildings, pages 275–280. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2009.

[11] B. Metz. Controlling climate change. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

[12] W. Zeiler and G. Boxem. Geothermal active building concept. In Robert J. Howlett, Lakhmi C. Jain, and Shaun H. Lee, editors, Sustainability in Energy and Buildings, pages 305–314. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2009.

[13] S. Caird and R. Roy. Adoption and use of household microgeneration heat technologies. Low Carbon Economy, 1(2):61–70, December 2010.

Industrial Motor Systems

In many industrial processes electrical energy is transformed into mechanical power to drive machines, pumps or belt conveyors [1]. Also compressed air, fan and pumping systems include motor systems, in total accounting for about 60 percent of energy consumption in manufacturing processes [2]. The manufacturing sector is growing, together with energy demand, especially in countries where wages and resources are inexpensive compared to welfare states. Most of the needed energy still is generated from fossil fuels, which leads to increasing greenhouse gas emissions as well. It is estimated that industrial motor systems will account for 7 percent of global carbon emissions by 2020 [1]. Exclusively considering China, this number can be assumed to be 10 percent [3].

There is a classification scheme for motor systems based on energy efficiency, which was established by the European Commission and the CEMEP , ranging from EFF1 (high efficiency) over EFF2 (medium efficiency) to EFF3 (low efficiency) [4]. Sales figures show that in 2005 only 4 percent of purchased motor systems were classified EFF1, while the major part of motors sold was EFF2 (87%) [5]. By now the classification scheme has been changed to new international efficiency (IE) classes, where IE1 stands for standard efficiency (consistent with EFF2), IE2 stands for high efficiency (consistent with EFF1) and IE3 stands for premium efficiency [4]. Due to technological progress the low efficiency class EFF3 is not considered anymore.

As in vehicles, optimized engineered and controlled motor systems can provide energy and emissions savings as well as long-term cost reductions in production processes. Such motor systems are controlled and optimized by microelectronics. Basically there are three different possibilities to improve the energy efficiency of motor systems:

• Replacement of existing motor systems by high efficiency systems: The potential for improvements by using motor systems of the highest efficiency classification grade is estimated at 10 percent [5]. 
• Equipment of motor systems with electronic rotation speed control: Such motor systems are called variable speed drives (VSD) [1] and are controlled and optimized by microelectronics, to adjust rotation speed and power consumption to match the required level. This minimizes energy losses due to over-sized motor power. It is assumed that electronic speed control could account for efficiency improvements of 30 percent [5]. 
• Optimization of mechanics: Improvements in gears, belts, bearings and lubricants can significantly increase decrease friction and losses and therefore increase energy efficiency. The improvement potential is estimated at 60 percent [5]. 

The role of ICT in the optimization of motor systems is to enable improvements by electronic rotation speed control, accounting for significant efficiency gains. In this context the main principle of optimization is to apply highly efficient frequency converters, as it is necessary to convert the electricity from energy grids to make it applicable to motor systems [5]. The conversion of electricity is always accompanied by energy losses of a certain extent, which can be optimized by microelectronics. Another possibility to improve energy efficiency is to use frequency inverters, which convert direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC) and can there- fore minimize energy losses in acceleration and breaking applications, due to the adjustment of frequency to rotation speed [5]. It is assumed that the efficiency of industrial motor systems can be increased by 30 percent, considering all of the existing options. If this technology is applied at 60 percent of industrial motors this would lead to global savings of 0.68 GtCO2e in 2020 [1].

References

[1] The Climate Group. Smart 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Technical report, The Climate Group on behalf of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), 2008.

[2] United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO). Motor systems efficiency
supply curves, December 2010.

[3] G. Philipson. Ict’s role in the low carbon economy. Technical report, Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), 2010.

[4] European Committee of Manufacturers of Electrical Machines and Power Electronics (CEMEP). New efficiency classes for low-voltage three-phase motors (IE-Code). http://www.cemep.org/index.php?id=53. Accessed: 2013-03-06.

[5] Bio Intelligence Service. Impacts of information and communication technologies on energy efficiency, final  report. ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/ict/docs/sustainable-growth/ict4ee-final-report_en.pdf, September 2008. Accessed: 2013-02-12.


 

Automation and Optimization of Industrial and Business Processes

In today’s industry there are several processes regarding to the production of goods, which are supported by computer systems. In this context four application areas of ICT support of indus- trial and business processes can be differentiated [1]:

• Product Lifecycle Management (PLM): The whole life-cycle of a product, from design to disposal is managed computer-aided. 
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM): ICT provided advanced possibilities to identify business markets and improve customer communication and service. 
• Supply Chain Management (SCM): Logistics systems allowing optimization of acquisition, inventory management and delivery by increased information exchange between and within companies. 
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): ICT systems integrate business data on several internal and external corporate activities and processes to provide a single application to manage all business areas. 

Some of the most energy and resource intense industrial processes are part of the several steps of a product’s life-cycle, from the extraction of raw materials and resources to the disposal of the product. Figure 1 depicts this life-cycle. The first step of production usually is the extraction of raw materials, needed for the production of product components and base materials, which is a process with direct impact on the environment. The extent of this impact depends on the intensity of resource usage in production. After the production of base materials and the assembling and production of the final product, the product has to be packaged and transported to the end-user, where it fulfills its actual purpose during the in-use period. The last stages of a product’s life-cycle after usage, are determined by re-use, recycling or landfilling or incineration. It has to be highlighted that a product causes environmental pollution in every step of the life-cycle, basically in form of energy consumption and emissions. The types of emissions range from greenhouse gas emissions, over dust and noise emissions to waste emissions.

Figure 1: The product life-cycle and its impact on the environment [2]

By considering the environmental impacts of the different life-cycle stages it gets apparent, that methods and tools for Product Life-Cycle Management (PLM) provided by ICT enable environmentally conscious product design and production processes. There are different tools for separated application areas within Product Life-Cycle Management, like Product and Portfolio Management (PPM), Digital Product Development (DPD), Manufacturing Planning Management (MPM) and Product Data Management (PDM) [1]. A research project and awareness raising campaign on behalf of the European Commission came to the conclusion that “80% of a product’s environmental impact is determined in the design phase” [2]. This finding confirms the relevance of product design methods aiming at efficiency and sustainability. Therefore environmental considerations have to be taken into account at the design stage of a product, to determine the processes of the whole life-cycle in a way to conform to economical as well as ecological requirements. This approach is called EcoDesign [2].
There are several computer-aided technologies for Digital Product Development. These automation tools represent the basis of computer-aided production methods [1]:
• Computer-aided design (CAD) is a term for the design of physical objects or processes supported by computer systems. CAD systems are commonly used for on-screen development of physical products or buildings.
• Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) is the use of computers and software tools to manufacture physical products and prototypes, which where engineered with CAD support.
• Computer simulation (CS) provides functionalities to generate computational models of real life products, processes and systems. Computer simulations enable fast and flexible verification of design concepts with low intensity of resource use. CS is a method of dematerialization since it substitutes physical testing systems.
• Computer-aided engineering (CAE) is a general term for analysis, design, planning, manufacturing and simulation tools based on computer systems. By the possibilities of simulation CAE provides functionalities for validation and optimization of products and processes. Therefore CAE tools also act as decision support systems for engineerings in planning and design.

The extent of the environmental benefits by Digital Product Development is hard to determine. Regarding to energy consumption, computer-aided tools definitely enable higher efficiency and savings. These savings arise from process optimization, reducing the effort in production and the needed input of resources to a minimum. Some of the automation tools like computer simulation tools provide all benefits of dematerialization, reducing the demand for energy and physical materials.

Beside the computer automated design of products, production processes are supported by information technology as well. A prominent term in the context of ICT applied in industrial production is process automation. The use of computer systems enables efficiency gains in several steps of production. For example, there are multi functional production machines, which are controlled by computers, an approach called computerized numerical control (CNC), as well as computers controlling movements between production stations, creating flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) [3].

Another example of process automation, which is related to production in the context of procurement, can be found in logistics, more precisely in supply chain management. The management of the supply chain is a business process containing a series of activities, linking vendors, service providers and customers [4]. The development of e-commerce brought fundamental changes in the structure of the supply chain and the flow of information and goods. The processes within todays supply chains are automated to a large extent. Automatic re-orders of raw and production materials result in smaller stocks, enabled by just-in-time delivery for example [5]. The reason for automation are information and communication systems providing efficient methods to exchange information within the whole supply chain, between customers and suppliers. This improves cooperation and therefore optimizes the transportation of goods, for example by improved coordination of transport routes and loading. The term describing such systems for information exchange is interorganisational information systems (IOIS) [4]. It is the possibility to share information, in order to match demand and supply, that enables companies to improve production and distribution planning. There is several research work done on the impact of ICT on improving supply chain management, which shows that ICT can be considered as key enabler in this context [4]. The information that is shared within organizations and within the whole supply chain contains several issues, ranging from demand forecast, over levels of inventory and raw materials, to plans of delivery, sales and production. The shared knowledge about the status and plans of several trade partners provides economical advantages, as well as a positive environmental impact due to lower energy utilization.

All kinds of process automation are generally developed to reach time and cost efficiency gains and therefore primarily serve for economical purposes. This optimization is realized on the basis of information and data about industrial processes, which also contains information that is relevant for sustainability. Energy and resource use can be monitored for each single process, which means that potential improvements can be identified. In this context economical and environmental interests do not conflict, as energy savings have positive impact on aspects. The potential emissions savings by automation of industrial processes are estimated by 0.29 GtCO2e in 2020 [6]. This number is based on the assumption that energy consumption in industrial processes can be decreased by 15 percent, due to a 33 percent penetration of process optimization technology.

References

[1] Bio Intelligence Service. Impacts of information and communication technologies on energy efficiency, final  report. ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/ict/docs/sustainable-growth/ict4ee-final-report_en.pdf, September 2008. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

[2] Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM – Department Environmental Engineering. 1:    Introduction to EcoDesign – What is  it all about? http://www.ecodesignarc.info/servlet/is/810/, 2005. Accessed: 2013-03-06.

[3] M.A.R.M. Salih. Climate change and sustainable development: new challenges for poverty reduction. Edward Elgar, 2009.

[4] M. Kollberg and H. Dreyer. Exploring the impact of ict on integration in supply chain control: A research model, 2006.

[5] B. Cushman-Roisin. Environmental impacts of e-commerce. http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/~d30345d/courses/engs171/eCommerce.pdf, 2011. Accessed: 2013-03-06.

[6] The Climate Group. Smart 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Technical report, The Climate Group on behalf of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), 2008. 

 

Environmental Policy

The public sector provides some approaches to contribute to sustainability by making use of ICT. But the role of public institutions in establishing a low carbon economy has to be seen as more comprehensive. The governmental agencies have to fulfill the institutional dimension of the concept of sustainable development. They have to plan, monitor, control and asses sustainable development in order to meet the social, environmental and economic aims of this process. This involves the definition of a strategy and goals, the use of systems and facilities for monitoring, platforms and channels for the distribution of information, as well as capabilities to take action to correct course. The Climate Group sees the responsibility of policy makers in sending “clear signals that overall emissions reduction will be required” and setting up “appropriate policy frameworks” [1]. ICT can provide supportive systems for most of these responsibilities and the enforcement of an environmental policy:

• Decision support systems for creating strategies and taking actions on the basis of profound data. 
• Monitoring systems to assess compliance with regulations and constraints in the economic sectors. Especially the compliance to greenhouse gas emission policies have to be monitored. Also the achievement of sustainability objectives can be monitored by ICT systems using business ratios and benchmarks. 
• Information platforms, accessible via the Internet or other communication technologies, can serve to increase the common awareness of sustainability issues. This could help gaining acceptance of strategies and policies and inspire individual participation. 

The need for ICT as enabling technology partly results from the fact, that dealing with environmental issues involves the observation of complex systems. To reach the environmental, social, political and economic goals conforming to sustainable development decision support systems are needed, due to the overwhelming complexity of this context. Such systems enable the storage and management of data records and ratios, analyzing real time data and trends of environmental processes, forecasting and other supportive functions. A possible approach to serve such decision making support are information systems based on a multi-agent architecture [2]. The multi-agent paradigm allows to model complex systems in order to “understand the real nature of the processes, their influence and interconnections, and the possible outcomes in order to make preventive actions and to make correct decisions” [2].

The environmental policies assigned by governments have to contain incentives for several stakeholders involved in the process of establishing sustainable development. In the building sector there have to be increased regulations on building standards, promoting energy efficient building materials and systems. Subsidies by the public sector could give incentives to the business and private sector to increasingly integrate energy efficient technology. An example are low interest loans for renovations of buildings regarding energy performance [3]. This could help to address the current waste of energy by inefficient building design [4]. As a concrete example microgeneration heat technologies can be mentioned, which are still a market niche and not commonly adopted. Subsidies and price reductions combined with advanced information on the possibilities and suitabilities of these technologies, highlighting advantages and benefits could force to speed up adoption process. The uncertainty about performance and payback periods among potential users can still be considered as one of the main reason for non-adoption [5]. Additionally there is the widespread opinion that energy efficient buildings generally implicate higher capital costs, which leads to the reliance on established building designs in many cases, without even considering to make use of more energy efficient technology [3]. This underpins the importance of information and education on the topic of energy efficiency and the possibilities of sustainable development.

An important governmental incentive in the transport sector is the “encouragement of greater investment in public transport infrastructure [4]. There have to be economical benefits by the use of public transportation, to reduce dependence on fuel-based transportation methods. The governmental actions could also include the assignment of additional taxes on fuel and emissions from the transport sector, as well as increased taxes on road usage and vehicles with high fuel demand. As air pollution is a major topic in transport too, policies on tightened pollutant standards have to be assigned [3]. In the industrial sector the most common incentives on emissions reductions are negotiated voluntary agreements and tax reductions for investments in energy efficient technology [3]. In relation to the enabling potential of ICT, governments should establish information initiatives to propagate the benefits of energy efficient technologies and their potential application areas.

The development of energy efficient technologies like ICT, which have the potential to reduce carbon emissions by energy savings, strongly depends on investments in research and development (R&D). Data on research investments of the 28 IEA member states shows that the money spent on energy efficient technologies and renewable sources of energy stagnated over the past decades (c.f. figure 1, being highly correlated to the development of the oil price [3]. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the support for energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy was increased due to the high oil price [3], but at the same time the budget for research on nuclear energy was raised by roughly the same proportion. For many years the budgets for research and development in the areas of fossil fuels and nuclear power have been significantly higher than these for research done on renewable energy sources and energy efficient technologies.

Figure 1: Development of the allocation of the total R&D budget of IEA member states (in Million Euro) by energy sector from 1974 to 2010 (data from [6])

Given the current environmental issue of climate change, there have to be increased investments in R&D of energy efficiency and renewable energy to reach long-term emissions reductions and achieve carbon-free energy generation. Actual data of 2010 shows that the trend of investments has already started to change in some countries (c.f. figure 2). In Germany the support of R&D of fossil fuels has the smallest share of all energy sectors, as it is in the United States of America. The USA spent most of the R&D budget for energy in 2010 on energy efficiency and renewable energy. Japan strongly supported nuclear energy in 2010, but after the disaster of Fukushima in March of 2011 a rethinking process started and 14 out of 17 nuclear power plants in Japan have been taken offline until January of 2012 [7].

By considering the statistics of 2010 of the R&D budgets of all IEA member states in total, it gets apparent that the share of research done on fossil fuels was smaller compared to other energy sectors, including renewable energy sources (c.f. figure 3). Nuclear power still has the largest governmental support, but the gap to renewable sources of energy tends to get smaller, as it is shown in figure 1.

Figure 2: Allocation of R&D budgets of selected IEA member states (in Million Euro) by energy sector in 2010 (data from [6])

Figure 3: Allocation of the total R&D budget of IEA member states by energy sector (in Million Euro) in 2010 (data from [6])

References

[1] The Climate Group. Smart 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Technical report, The Climate Group on behalf of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), 2008.

[2] M. V. Sokolova and A. Fernandez-Caballero. Multi-agent systems technology for composite decision making in complex systems. In Sustainability in Energy and Buildings, pages 29–38. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2009.

[3] L.D.D. Harvey. Energy and the new reality 1: Energy Efficiency and the Demand for Energy services. Earthscan, 2010.

[4] G. Philipson. Ict’s role in the low carbon economy. Technical report, Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), 2010.

[5] S. Caird and R. Roy. Adoption and use of household microgeneration heat technologies. Low Carbon Economy, 1(2):61–70, December 2010.

[6] International Energy Agency (IEA). RD&D Statistics. http://www.iea.org/stats/rd.asp. Accessed: 2013-03-05.

[7] K. Lah. U.N. Experts OK Japan’s nuclear ’stress tests’. http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/31/world/asia/japan-nuclear/index.html, January 2012. Accessed: 2013-03-05.

E-Health

Another major application area of ICT in public institutions is the health sector. Health care is responsible for a large amount of administrative and financial efforts. In Austria health care accounted for about 30 billion EUR in the year 2009, which represents about 11 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Austria [1]. The high costs of public health care are the main reason why governments seek methods to achieve efficiency gains in this area. One possibility in this context is the extensive use of information technology. E-health is a subset of e-government [2], but is often discussed in separate, due to its high economical and social relevance. Improvements by electronic support systems in health care are expected from optimized management of medication and a more efficient use of available information [3]. Beside cost efficiency, the e-health approach aims at improving the quality of health care by advanced accessibility, enhanced rapidity in processing and treatment and increased effectiveness of treatments [2]. A more comprehensive use of ICT should bring benefits to all stakeholders in health care, including health professionals, patients, hospital operators and financiers. Especially information management of patient data and medical records provides a large potential of improvements in the current state of the art of health care. An example proofing this argument is the fact, that the inappropriate use of medicine in public hospitals accounts for high costs and additionally can be harmful to patients. Studies in Australia came to the conclusion, that faulty medication accounts for about 600 million Dollar a year [3]. More than half of the mistakes made in medication are considered as “definitely preventable” and furthermore 35 percent of the referrals to hospital are regarded as inappropriate [3].
There are several ICT applications in development or already in use, which address the inefficiencies of current “paper-based, fragmented and duplicated patient management systems” [3] and inaccurate medication:

• Electronic medical records [4] can substitute paper-based medical records of patients, providing the benefit of a lower administration effort of electronic systems compared to traditional record systems. The storage device of electronic medical records usually is a unique smart card per patient, which has to be presented by the patient at any treatment. This e-health card combines the functionalities of confirmation of insurance, electronic billing and storage of medical records. The benefits of such card-based systems are faster patient registration processes, summarized care records available to medicals and easier insurance accounting. Additionally e-health cards reduce the risk of “fraudulent reimbursement claims” [5] compared to the use of paper documents. 
• Medication management systems could address the problem of medication mistakes. Such systems could support the decision on medication types and dosing and therefore ensure adequate medication and prevent errors, that lead to preventable medical incidents and increased costs [3]. Basically such systems provide summarized medication records of patients, listing prescriptions by several medicals involved in treatment [4]. This overview of medication together with detailed patient data could prevent adverse effects and incompatibilities. 
• Decision Support Systems provided to medicals are aiming to achieve significant improve- ments in treatment. Examples of systems offering additional information and knowledge to medical professionals are knowledge enrichment systems or Clinical Decision Support Systems(CDSS), which can be used for decision on treatments, prevention and monitoring, drug prescribing or the calculation of medication doses and scheduling [4]. 
• ICT provides significant improvements to administrative systems applied in health care. Patient management systems and electronic scheduling [4] can reduce the average length of hospital stays and prevent multiple visits in some cases, which enables the optimization of capacity utilization in hospitals. These patient management systems are usually based on e-health cards. This combination allows faster processing of administrative tasks together with reducing intermediate steps, resulting in reduced work load [5]. 
• A rather new approach is telemedicine, which aims at providing health services via ICT networks. The aspired applications of telemedicine can be divided into three categories [6]: 
• Tele-visits are remotely conducted visits of medicals with patients. Tele-visit applications include audio and video communication, as well as the option to share patient data [6]. 
• Tele-consults are consultations of several medicals about a common patient. These systems allow communication as well as shared access to patient data and medical records [6]. Tele-consults should provide the benefit of combined know-how and could enable a more integrated treatment. 
• Tele-monitoring allows patients to collect health data (e.g. weight, blood pressure) and provide it to medicals via ICT networks. Special medical devices assist the patient in data collection and allows the patient to access medical care from home. Tele-monitoring is also termed as patient self-monitoring and is generally used for the treatment of chronical deseases [6]. 

A significant environmental benefit of e-health applications is the reduction in paper use. This starts at providing online health information instead of using information leaflets. One of the most effective applications of ICT regarding to environmental improvements is the use of smart cards, applied as e-health cards for insurance verification and the storage of medical records. Examples of e-health cards are the e-card established in Austria as national insurance card, or the carte vitale, constituting the equivalent in France [2]. E-health card systems are already in use in countries all over the world, for example in Germany, Algeria, Slovenia, Gabon, Azerbaijan, Mexico, Bulgaria [5] and many others. Smart cards in health care bring the benefit of electronic invoicing. The environmental benefit arising from the utilization of smart cards mainly is based on reductions in paper use. Data from France showed that in 2007, 60 percent of all medical care related invoices were processed electronically due to the distribution of 55 million e-health cards [2]. The positive environmental impact of reduced paper use is not restricted to slow down deforestation, because the production of paper consumes energy and therefore causes greenhouse gas emissions. Estimations show that using a computer for about 4 hours accounts for the same CO2 emissions as the production of 150 grams of paper [2]. According to this the dematerialization by e-health applications can enable significant savings of carbon emissions.
Another benefit of telemedicine is the ability to provide health services remotely in rural areas, overcoming long distances with rather low effort. As an example Australia was already considered to be a leader in the advancement of telemedicine already in 2002 [4]. The early development of medical services provided via ICT networks can be related to the large share of remote areas of this country. A positive environmental implication of telemedicine is that it has the potential to reduce travel routes for visits and consultations [6].

References

[1] Statistik Austria. Gesundheitsausgaben in Österreich. http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/gesundheit/gesundheitsausgaben/index.html. Accessed: 2013-03-05.

[2] Bio Intelligence Service. Impacts of information and communication technologies on energy efficiency, final  report. ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/ict/docs/sustainable-growth/ict4ee-final-report_en.pdf, September 2008. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

[3] G. Philipson. Ict’s role in the low carbon economy. Technical report, Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), 2010.

[4] J. Houghton. Information technology and the revolution in healthcare. Working Paper. Victoria University, Melbourne, 2002.

[5] Gemalto. Electronic healthcare solutions - putting the patient at the center of modernization. http://www.gemalto.com/brochures/download/electronic_healthcare.pdf, August 2010. Accessed: 2013-03-05.

[6] CSC Healthcare Group. Telemedicine: An Essential Technology for Reformed Healthcare. http://www.ehealthnews.eu/images/stories/pdf/csc_telemedicine.pdf, May 2011. Accessed: 2013-03-05.

Smart Grids

One approach to modernize and improve the efficiency of electrical grids is marked by the term Smart Grid, which can be defined as “a set of software and hardware tools that enable generators to route power more efficiently” [1]. In more detail, the efficiency gains can be achieved by additional functionalities of electrical grids, enabling two-way communication between power providers and customers and sensing along transmissions lines. Therefore a Smart Grid is characterized by a high grade of automation and the use of digital technology, that enables the grid to respond to changes in power demand [2].

Traditional electrical grids grew over decades to it’s current size and can be constituted as patchwork, which is the reason for inefficiencies. The electrical grid of the United States of America experienced a growth in peak energy demand since 1982 and was expanded to keep up with the increasing transmission [3]. At the time the grid was designed it was not necessary to consider environmental aspects or energy efficiency. To meet today’s requirements a modernization of the electrical grids of industrial nations all over the world is needed. Therefore ICT technology can be integrated throughout the grid to optimize them. From an environmental view an increase of efficiency of electric grids would be big step towards low carbon emission goals: Only a 5 percent efficiency gain of the electrical grid of the USA would equate the greenhouse gas emissions of 53 million cars. In total the USA produce 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, while half of U.S. power production is still based on fossil fuels [3]. These numbers illustrate the enormous savings potential of optimizing power generation and transmission processes.

Beside the U.S. government the European Union communicates the important role of Smart Grids for future energy management and fulfillment of Europe’s energy and climate goals in compliance with the EU2020 agenda. The Smart Grid will give energy consumers strong incentives to save energy, because of the distribution of smart meters and information and communication systems: “It opens up unprecedented possibilities for consumers to directly control and manage their individual consumption patterns, providing, in turn, strong incentives for efficient energy use if combined with time-dependent electricity prices” [4]. According to the communication of the European Comission there are projects which show that households which have been equipped with smart meters reduced their energy consumption by as much as 10 percent. The Smart Grid is considered as “the backbone of the future decarbonised power system” [4], as it enables the integration of renewable energy sources. A study by the European Bio Intelligence Service detected a possible reduction in carbon emissions by 9 percent by the year 2020 due to Smart Grids [5].

 Figure 1 illustrates the features of a Smart Grid. Electricity is increasingly generated from renewable sources and distributed by the Smart Grid to private and business customers. All over the grid intelligent ICT systems are implemented, enabling faster failure detection and increasing reliability. There are control centers for management and operation, which are analyzing information on energy consumption from the grid in real-time to forecast demand peaks. Customers are provided with smart meters and Intelligent Building Systems to monitor and control their energy consumption. The power generators of customers’ homes are connected to the Smart Grid and can deliver power to the community that is not needed locally. The Smart Grid also provides plug-in functionality for electric cars to reload their batteries [6].

Figure 1: Smart Grid [6]

The advantages of a Smart Grid, arising from the use of ICT to enable bidirectional energy and information exchange, support the development towards a more sustainable energy management [2]:

• Reduced losses in transmission of electricity and therefore a higher level of energy efficiency. 
• A higher grade of automation and more efficient technical equipment will decrease operation, management and maintenance costs, resulting in lower power costs. 
• Quicker electric recovery in case of outages, because of automatic rerouting by the Smart Grid. Failures will occur less often and can be detected and isolated faster, avoiding large-scale blackouts. • Reduced power outages imply improved security. 
• Integration of large-scale renewable energy power plants. 
• Smart Grids also enable the integration of distributed small-scale sources of renewable energy, like customer-owned power generators (e.g. photovoltaics). 
• Increased consumer participation and control, due to real-time information on power consumption and cost control functionality (smart meters). 

Figure 2: Grid connected solar home system [7]

In contrast to traditional centralized energy generation by large-scale power plants, using fossil or nuclear sources, the trend in renewable energy production is towards decentralized small-scale energy generators. This brings new requirements for electricity grids, in order to integrate various types of generators with partly wider spatial distribution. Energy generators using sun or wind power can be installed as part of buildings, to cover part of the local energy demand and to supply energy to the grid at times when some part of the produced energy is not needed locally. Figure 2 shows a schema of a home photovoltaic (PV) system that is connected to the electrical grid. The solar PV system generates electricity that is used to power building appliances and also can be stored in backup batteries to partly balance supply shortcomings due to the dependence of PV systems on weather conditions. If needed additional power can be purchased from the grid, while it is also possible to feed electricity back to the grid.

The approach of small-scale distributed power generation allows parts of the electricity network to operate in separation from the main grid, assuming that enough power is generated to cover the local energy demand. Such areas are called Micro Grids, which are based on the principle that energy customers can supply their own demand by distributed small-scale power generators, as well as serve exceeding power to their local neighbors [8]. Micro Grids enable the development of more sustainable energy generation and management, and could create stronger incentives for the distribution of small-scale power generators to gain a certain level of independence from the main electricity grid and decrease energy costs. The financial effort of investing in micro generation systems is much lower in comparison to large scale power plants, which could be an important aspect for public participation. Another big environmental advantage of Micro Grids is the reduction of energy losses and thereby greenhouse gas emissions. Today’s centralized power generation and distribution suffer from losses of 7 to 10 percent of total energy generation due to long distances of transmission [8].

Concepts based on the idea of buildings as small-scale power plants require Smart Grids to integrate them into large-scale electricity grids [2]. Therefore applications are needed to coordinate different energy sources and adjust energy demand and supply to gain maximum efficiency from generators. Such systems for modeling, analysis and control of multiple energy sources are a current research topic [9]. The main feature of a control system for multiple energy sources is the adjustment of energy production, energy consumption and energy storage (cf. figure 3). By designing a system for this purpose following features and circumstances have to be considered: [9]

• Energy production by wind and solar generators is stochastic since intensity of wind and sunlight varies in relation to the weather situation. Therefore the system needs an applicable model to assume and predict the produced amount of energy. 
• To optimize the alignment of energy demand and supply, also an assumption of energy demand is needed. 
• In consideration of these requirements the system has to achieve a optimum balance of energy production, consumption and storage. 

 

Figure 3: Control system for multiple energy sources [9]

References

[1] The Climate Group. Smart 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Technical report, The Climate Group on behalf of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), 2008.

[2] U.S. Department of Energy. What is the smart grid? http://www.smartgrid.gov/the_smart_grid. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

[3] U.S. Department of Energy. The Smart Grid: An Introduction. http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/oeprod/DocumentsandMedia/DOE_SG_Book_Single_Pages%281%29.pdf, 2008. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

[4] European Commission. Smart grids: from innovation to deployment, April 2011.

[5] Bio Intelligence Service. Impacts of information and communication technologies on energy efficiency, final  report. ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp7/ict/docs/sustainable-growth/ict4ee-final-report_en.pdf, September 2008. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

[6] Consolidated Edison, Inc. Smart Grid Initiative. http://www.coned.com/publicissues/smartgrid.asp. Accessed: 2012-01-06.

[7] B. Metz. Controlling climate change. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

[8] R. M. Kamel. Carbon emissions reduction and power losses saving besides voltage profiles improvement using micro grids. Low Carbon Economy, 01(01):1–7, 2010.

[9] A. Naamane and N. K. M’Sirdi. Macsyme: Modelling, analysis and control for systems with multiple energy sources. In Robert J. Howlett, Lakhmi C. Jain, and Shaun H. Lee, editors, Sustainability in Energy and Buildings, pages 229–238. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2009.

Smart Logistics

A large proportion of logistics is constituted by the transportation of goods. Logistics can be defined as the “planning, execution, and control of the procurement, movement, and stationing of personnel, material, and other resources” [1]. In other words, the challenge of logistics is the management of travel routes for transportation of goods and passengers, and of storage facilities. An optimization of logistics leads to savings in travel routes, travel times and travel costs and therefore also savings in CO2 emissions. Logistics globally account for a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions. As an example, in Australia the logistics and transport industry causes about 15 percent of total emissions annually, which can be numbered as 79 Mt of CO2e [2].

ICT systems can be used to improve transport routes and load planning, for example to minimize empty trucks [3]. This can be referred to as smart logistics, that “comprise a range of software and hardware tools that monitor, optimize and manage operations, which helps reduce the storage needed for inventory, fuel consumption, kilometers driven and frequency of vehicles traveling empty or partially loaded” [4]. By tapping the full potential of smart logistics 1.52 GtCO2 emissions could be saved by 2020 [4]. The set of features that ICT provides to optimize logistics and transport contains several innovations to the sector [2]:

• Logistics management systems: A general term for systems used to manage, control and optimize logistics, including several of the following functions to manage transportation, information, inventory and warehouses. 
• Automatic ordering systems: Orders and re-orders of resources and goods are automatically executed relating to demand, in order to optimize stocks and warehouse sizes. These systems avoid non-essential transport routes and reduce the need for oversized warehouses, which leads to lower greenhouse gas emissions caused by warehouse construction. 
• Mobile and wireless communication: These communication systems include voice communication of personnel, as well as the wireless exchange of field data (e.g. barcode scanning). The integration of mobile devices into the communication network allows real-time information exchange and therefore more flexibility. This brings advantages for route and load planning and the possibility to react to failures and delivery delays [5]. 
• Fuel and emissions control systems: ICT provides systems to collect, store and process data about fuel consumption of fleets of vehicles. These systems also support fuel cost analysis. Beside fuel consumption, the carbon emissions arising from fuel powered vehicles can be measured. This ensures the compliance to emission standards and enables the planning of service times of vehicles. 
• Vehicle tracking: The tracking of vehicles on transport routes is achieved by mobile and wireless networks and eases the centralized management of fleets. The vehicles of a fleet can be located due to positioning standards like GPS, which allows a more efficient usage of fleet resources. 
• Navigation systems: Mapping software in combination with positioning technology provides assistance for drivers of vehicles. Navigation systems diminish failures in travel routes and therefore decrease wasted time and fuel, as well as unnecessary emissions. 
• Real-time traffic monitoring and feedback systems: Information about the traffic situation in real-time enables re-planning of travel routes in respect of traffic flow. These systems help preventing delivery delays and inefficiencies due to traffic volume or construction work on traffic infrastructure. 
• Route planning: Systems that allow the creation of complex route plans for fleets, ensuring maximum efficiency of the combination of transport routes. 
• Freight matching and optimization: Freight matching is an approach to reduce travel ways of empty trucks [6]. As an example, there are several websites on the Internet where companies can post their freight that needs to be shipped to a specified location. Companies of the logistics sector can look up these information and offer the free load capacities of their vehicles. Many freight matching websites work in reverse too, meaning that logistics companies can inform about free capacities. In each case it is a win-win situation, providing a transportation service to companies with freight to ship and optimizing the loads of trucks, which also has a positive impact on the environment. 
• Ambient intelligence: This term generally specifies the effort of computing to make the ambiance of people more supporting and functional by integrating electronic equipment into everyday life [7]. In today’s road traffic ambient intelligence is represented by sensor networks used for Intelligent Transportation Systems (cf. section ITS), real-time traffic monitoring, navigation systems and wireless communication. In logistics all these technologies act as supporting systems and enable real-time information retrieval about route plans, traffic situation or order status. 

Logistics are both part of the transport sector and the industry sector. Beside transportation, the challenges of logistics are the management of inventory and other production factors. A common term in the context of logistics is supply chain management, which is described as an example for the possibilities of process automation in the industry & business section.

References 

[1] Business Dictionary. http://www.businessdictionary.com/. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

[2] G. Philipson. Ict’s role in the low carbon economy. Technical report, Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), 2010.

[3] B. Metz. Controlling climate change. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

[4] The Climate Group. Smart 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Technical report, The Climate Group on behalf of the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), 2008.

[5] The Descartes Systems Group Inc. Business white paper: Wireless capabilities a must-have for fleet operators. http://www.descartes.com/resources/whitepapers/ds_wp_wireless_capabilities.pdf, May 2008. Accessed: 2012-01-03.

[6] posteverywhere.com. Definition of freight matching. http://www.posteverywhere.com/freight_matching.html. Accessed: 2013-02-12. 

[7] R. Harwig and E. Aarts. Ambient intelligence: invisible electronics emerging. In Interconnect Technology Conference, 2002. Proceedings of the IEEE 2002 International, pages 3 – 5, 2002.

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)

In the USA 44 percent of CO2 emissions arise from road traffic [1]. Traffic jams and slow traffic flow account for increasing fuel consumption of vehicles and therefore contribute to high emission levels of the transportation sector. Beside this inefficiencies in traffic systems result in losses of time and lead to higher general costs of transport. In the USA transportation is the second largest household expense, after accommodation costs [1].

To address these high costs and the environmental impact of transportation, methods to use the existing transportation facilities as efficient as possible are needed. Therefore Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) are developed. This term describes ICT systems that improve traffic infrastructure in terms of utilization and safety, and enable vehicles to interact with the infrastructure and with each other [2]. As ITS are not only restricted to individual traffic, it is a general term describing management and control systems for every type of transportation systems, including road, rail and air traffic. The following goals of traffic management can be achieved by implementing ITS [3]:

• Safety in traffic systems, by variable information and warning systems. 
• Time and cost savings, due to reductions in traffic volume and optimization of travel routes. 
• Lowering the environmental, by enhanced traffic flow and positive discrimination of pub- lic transport. 
• Higher efficiency in mobility, because of optimized utilization of traffic systems. 

The basis of Intelligent Transportation Systems are networks of traffic sensors, which provide real-time traffic data. On the one hand, this data is used for operational traffic management [4], which includes short-term actions, like the operation of adaptive traffic lights and variable message signs, or the calculation of the current traffic situation for informational purposes. One example of an information platform about the current traffic situation in Austria is the website www.AnachB.at, which is a service provided by ITS Vienna Region. The website contains an online map with routing functionality, using traffic data of stationary and mobile traffic sensors to calculate the real-time traffic situation in the supported area. The map can be displayed as street map or as satellite photograph for route planning purpose. In traffic situation mode, the current traffic flow, as well as information about road work, roadblocks and real-time pictures of traffic web cams are integrated and updated every 15 minutes. Figure 1 shows a screenshot of the website www.AnachB.at at about 2 pm on 2011-11-29, displaying the current traffic situation in Vienna.

The second application area of traffic data is strategic traffic management [4], which incorporates long-term planning and execution of traffic infrastructure construction works and traffic simulation, used for decision making in traffic management strategy. In terms of traffic system infrastructure there are some approaches in development to enhance information supply and communication methods. One example are Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) [5], which is a term for infrastructure-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-vehicle communication. Therefore ICT is used to increase coordination and multi-direction information exchange between vehicles and infrastructure of traffic systems. With the IEEE 802.11p standard for wireless LANs, there is a agreed platform for this type of communication in traffic systems via smart vehicle communication systems [5]. A general term for the trend of information and communication systems in traffic systems and vehicles is cooperative vehicle-infrastructure systems (CVIS) [6]. These ICT systems increase safety and efficiency of traffic systems by using traffic data to inform users and act as support for route planning. The improved capability of communication between traffic infrastructure, vehicles and travelers can be seen as part of the ambient intelligence paradigm [7], which is a term describing the effort to link sensor networks, ICT infrastructure and mobile devices.

Figure 1: Screenshot of www.AnachB.at at 2 pm on 2011-11-29

References

[1] Siemens AG. Its magazine. http://www.mobility.siemens.com/mobility/global/SiteCollectionDocuments/de/news/customer-magazines-and-newsletters/its-magazine/its-03-09-de.pdf,  July  2009. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

[2] B. Williams. Intelligent Transport Systems Standards. Intelligent Transportation Systems. Artech House, 2008.

[3] G. Gottardi  and  A. Fellmann. ITS – Umfang,  Ziele  und  Zukunft  von  intelligenten Verkehrssystemen. http://www.jennigottardi.ch/images/publikationen/S+V9_97.pdf, September 1997. Accessed: 2013-02-12 (in German).

[4] M. Königsmayr. Wartung und Instanhaltung von infrastrukturseitigen Sensornetzwerken. Master’s thesis, Vienna University of Technology, 2011.

[5] J. Zhu and S. Roy. Mac for dedicated short range communications in intelligent transport system. IEEE Communications Magazine, Vol. 41 Issue: 12:60 – 67, 2003.

[6] F. Penwill-Cook. Intelligent transport systems: Driving into the future.
http://www.roadtraffic-technology.com/features/feature42979/. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

[7] G. Philipson. Ict’s role in the low carbon economy. Technical report, Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), 2010.

Hybrid Engine Motor Systems

A hybrid engine motor system is an approach to combine different types of engines in one vehicle, to reach an energy efficiency gain in comparison to traditional engines. Usually a combustion engine is combined with an electric drive [1]. The whole drive system is called power-train, which is optimized in order to access the advantages of both engine types. The electrical drive can provide power at zero pollution in certain cases and enables higher fuel efficiency of the combustion engine. Therefore such hybrid systems use methods like regenerative braking, which is using the kinetic energy while braking to reload the battery, or start-stop mechanisms, to automatically stop the combustion engine while the car is standing still and restart the engine when it is needed. To sum this up, the benefit of hybrid cars is “to operate the combustion engine in more suitable regimes with better fuel combustion conditions” [2]. There are different construction methods for hybrid engines, varying in the way the two engines are working together. Figure 1 shows three possible schemas of a hybrid drive powertrain, including a construction in series, in parallel and a combined construction [2]:

Figure 1: Series hybrid drive (l), parallel hybrid drive (m) and combined switched hybrid drive (r) [2]

The role of ICT in the context of hybrid motor systems is to enable the optimization of design and control of these systems. Information technology therefore provides tools for offline planning and simulation of motor systems, that allow the calculation of the parameters providing maximum efficiency of the motor system [1]. Beside offline optimization, hybrid motor systems have to be controlled online to adjust the workload of both engine types. This function is fulfilled by built-in computer systems as well [3]. A study in 2008 came to the conclusion that a hybrid engined car had a reduced fuel consumption by about 13,6 percent in comparison to the same type of car powered by a traditional combustion engine [2]. The fuel-saving potential of hybrid cars can therefore be assumed to be environmentally relevant, but rather low. The hybrid engine technology is particularly efficient for delivery vehicles and buses, where frequent stops are necessary, rather than long-distance road travel [4]. This statement is based on the fact, that the hybrid technology is characterized by producing electricity from recovering breaking energy, which is used to reload the battery for the electric engine. In general the environmental benefits of hybrid motor systems compared to traditional commercial cars are:

• reduced greenhouse gas emissions, due to increased energy and fuel efficiency, 
• a lower noise level at idle and slow speeds, due to the use of the electrical drive, and 
• reduced fine dust emissions, which is an essential environmental factor, especially in cities.

In comparison to hybrid cars the positive environmental impact of completely electric powered vehicles would be more substantial. An immediate benefit of electric cars is that there are no fine-dust emissions arising from these engines. But the electricity needed for powering electric cars primarily is still generated by fossil fuel power plants. Therefore greenhouse gas emissions savings can only be achieved by reloading electric cars from renewable sources of energy. One promising concept are Smart Grids, which enable the efficient integration of small-scale power generators based on renewable sources of energy [5]. Smart Grids could also supply charging stations as well as simplified charge billing, by logging in to the owner’s account when a vehicle is plugged into the grid. Additionally, the batteries of electric cars could be used as distributed power storage in Smart Grids [4]. By this electric vehicles could help balancing the energy on the electrical grid, a concept that is called vehicle to grid [5]. This approach could be especially beneficial in peak times.

References

[1] A. Kleimaier and D. Schroeder. Hybrid cars, optimization and control. In Industrial Technology, 2004. IEEE ICIT ’04. 2004 IEEE International Conference on, volume 2, pages 1084 – 1089 Vol. 2, dec. 2004.

[2] Z. Cerovsky and P. Mindl. Hybrid electric cars, combustion engine driven cars and their impact on environment. In Power Electronics, Electrical Drives, Automation and Motion, 2008. SPEEDAM 2008. International Symposium on, pages 739 –743, june 2008.

[3] B. Tomlinson. Greening through IT - Information Technology for Environmental Sustainability. The MIT Press, 2010.

[4] B. Metz. Controlling climate change. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

[5] U.S. Department of Energy. What is the smart grid? http://www.smartgrid.gov/the_smart_grid. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

Navigation Systems

It was already mentioned that ICT systems can be used to optimize traffic systems. This can be considered as a kind of high-level optimization by traffic management. On the other hand information technology also serves for optimizing the routes of individual participants in traffic system, and therefore enables efficiency gains in travel time, travel distances and energy needed for transportation. Such systems are for example in-car navigation systems using the GPS standard for real-time route planning, or online mapping and routing software. All these systems can be categorized as navigation systems and lead to less CO2 emissions in theory [1]. Navigation systems are used in private individual transport, as well as in commercial transport and logistics. Navigation systems using the Global Positioning System (GPS), which today are implemented as on-board features of modern cars, as discrete mobile devices or as part of many mobile phones, are based on satellite navigation. The principle of determining positions via satellites is trilateration [2]. This method allows determining positions by measuring distances to a minimum of three points with known coordinates. The method of trilateration is shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: Principle of trilateration - The measured distances to three points of reference (S1, S2, S3) determine the position of P [2]

The GPS standard uses 24 satellites, which orbit the Earth on 6 different orbital planes. These satellites are positioned in a way that allows more than 99 percent of GPS users all over the world to contact at least four satellites at any given time [2]. The GPS satellites are equipped with atomic clocks and transmit signals at a frequency of 1575.42 MHz directed to Earth [3]. A GPS signal contains the Navigation Message, consisting of it’s on-board time and orbit parameters, which can be processes by any GPS receiver to compute satellite coordinates. The atomic clocks of each of the 24 satellites are regularly synchronized from control stations on Earth, while the clocks of GPS receivers are not synchronized with the clocks of satellites and are far less precise [4]. Since the distance between a GPS receiver and a satellite is determined by measuring the time delay of the transmission and the reception of the satellite’s signal, which is moving by the speed of light, there is a certain time error influencing the measurement, due to the non-synchronized clocks of satellite and receiver. This time error is unknown, together with the coordinates of the GPS receiver, which means that there are four unknown variables that have to be determined for positioning in three-dimensional space [3]: longitude (x), latitude (y), height (z) and time error (4t). To determine four unknown variables, four independent equations are needed. For this reason the minimum number of satellites for GPS locating is four. Figure 2 illustrates the basic function of GPS, which is calculating the coordinates of a location by measuring the distances to four GPS satellites.

Figure 2: The basic function of GPS [3]

Beside the economical and environmental benefits of navigation systems in form of fuel and emissions savings, there are social and personal advantages for the users of these systems. Route planning software and GPS navigation increases the efficiency of traveling and therefore saves time. Navigation systems can ease the complex activity of way finding and therefore leave more capacity for engagement with the surroundings. On the other hand it is reasonable to argue, that navigation systems disengage the users from their environment, in case they fully rely on it.

There was a study in 2008 about how navigation systems alter the users’ experience of their environment [5]. For this reason observations and interviews where done with in-car GPS users, to determine how using a navigation system changes the behavior and the experience while driving. The findings of the study where partly claiming a trend to disengagement from the environment, due to the reduced need for orientation and keeping track of locations. Additionally some users of navigation systems are just following the instructions whether they are correct or not. On the other hand the researchers found out, that there was an enriched engagement with the environment in some cases, because of the discovery of new points of interest and the safety of not getting lost in unknown areas [5]. Due to the results of this study, navigation systems are an example for the fact that the social impact of information and communication technologies is often hard to classify.

References

[1] B. Tomlinson. Greening through IT - Information Technology for Environmental Sustainability. The MIT Press, 2010.

[2] accessscience.com. Satellite navigation systems. http://accessscience.com/content/Satellite-navigation-systems/602800. Accessed: 2013-02-12.

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