IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i3p1224-d1330894.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring Energy Security and Independence for Small Energy Users: A Latvian Case Study on Unleashing Stirling Engine Potential

Author

Listed:
  • Janis Kramens

    (Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Riga Technical University, Āzenes Street 12/1, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia)

  • Oskars Svedovs

    (Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Riga Technical University, Āzenes Street 12/1, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia)

  • Amanda Sturmane

    (Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Riga Technical University, Āzenes Street 12/1, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia)

  • Edgars Vigants

    (Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Riga Technical University, Āzenes Street 12/1, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia)

  • Vladimirs Kirsanovs

    (Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Riga Technical University, Āzenes Street 12/1, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia)

  • Dagnija Blumberga

    (Institute of Energy Systems and Environment, Riga Technical University, Āzenes Street 12/1, LV-1048 Riga, Latvia)

Abstract

Nowadays, energy systems are continuously impacted by external and internal conditions. The worldwide events of recent years have led to the need to consider not only the requirements for moving towards climate neutrality but also the security and independence of energy supply when creating new or transforming existing energy systems. The aim of this study was to answer the question of whether there is a possibility of transforming the energy supply process by promoting increased energy security and independence while not reducing energy demand, as well as creating high economic and environmental indicators. The research focuses on developing alternative scenarios for further decision-making studies by introducing modern energy technologies. Scenarios are analysed using the complex method developed, which includes three main steps: assessing the current situation, identifying available technologies, and assessing alternatives. The results suggest that Stirling’s technology can provide 100% energy independence for individual energy consumers. At the same time, thanks to the combination of Stirling technology and solar technologies, there is an opportunity to reduce emissions and energy production costs, but capital investment is increasing.

Suggested Citation

  • Janis Kramens & Oskars Svedovs & Amanda Sturmane & Edgars Vigants & Vladimirs Kirsanovs & Dagnija Blumberga, 2024. "Exploring Energy Security and Independence for Small Energy Users: A Latvian Case Study on Unleashing Stirling Engine Potential," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-27, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:3:p:1224-:d:1330894
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/3/1224/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/3/1224/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lidia Luty & Monika Zioło & Wioletta Knapik & Iwona Bąk & Karol Kukuła, 2023. "Energy Security in Light of Sustainable Development Goals," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-18, January.
    2. Carroll, P. & Chesser, M. & Lyons, P., 2020. "Air Source Heat Pumps field studies: A systematic literature review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    3. Szilárd Karda & Tamás Nagy-György & Iosif Boros, 2023. "Evolution of the Payback Period for Energy-Efficient Residential Buildings in Romania in the Last Decade," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-19, June.
    4. Gurgel, Angelo & Mignone, Bryan K. & Morris, Jennifer & Kheshgi, Haroon & Mowers, Matthew & Steinberg, Daniel & Herzog, Howard & Paltsev, Sergey, 2023. "Variable renewable energy deployment in low-emission scenarios: The role of technology cost and value," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 344(C).
    5. Sudhir Kumar Pathak & Tagamud Tazmeen & K. Chopra & V. V. Tyagi & Sanjeev Anand & Ammar M. Abdulateef & A. K. Pandey, 2023. "Sustainable Energy Progress via Integration of Thermal Energy Storage and Other Performance Enhancement Strategies in FPCs: A Synergistic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-37, September.
    6. Kijo-Kleczkowska, Agnieszka & Bruś, Paweł & Więciorkowski, Grzegorz, 2023. "Economic analysis of heat pump exploitation – A case study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    7. Muhammad Abid & Neil Hewitt & Ming-Jun Huang & Christopher Wilson & Donal Cotter, 2021. "Performance Analysis of the Developed Air Source Heat Pump System at Low-to-Medium and High Supply Temperatures for Irish Housing Stock Heat Load Applications," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-31, October.
    8. Al-Nimr, Moh'd & Khashan, Saud A. & Al-Oqla, Hashem, 2023. "Novel techniques to enhance the performance of Stirling engines integrated with solar systems," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 894-906.
    9. Laurence Amblard & Caitriona Carter, 2022. "Implementing environmental Europe: Non-linearity, nature and institutions," Post-Print hal-03725694, HAL.
    10. Zhu, Shunmin & Yu, Guoyao & Liang, Kun & Dai, Wei & Luo, Ercang, 2021. "A review of Stirling-engine-based combined heat and power technology," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 294(C).
    11. Jacek Strojny & Anna Krakowiak-Bal & Jarosław Knaga & Piotr Kacorzyk, 2023. "Energy Security: A Conceptual Overview," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-35, June.
    12. Liu, Yang & Xie, Xiaoqing & Wang, Mei, 2023. "Energy structure and carbon emission: Analysis against the background of the current energy crisis in the EU," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    13. Lauma Balode & Beate Zlaugotne & Armands Gravelsins & Oskars Svedovs & Ieva Pakere & Vladimirs Kirsanovs & Dagnija Blumberga, 2023. "Carbon Neutrality in Municipalities: Balancing Individual and District Heating Renewable Energy Solutions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-19, May.
    14. Eva M. Urbano & Konstantinos Kampouropoulos & Luis Romeral, 2023. "Energy Crisis in Europe: The European Union’s Objectives and Countries’ Policy Trends—New Transition Paths?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-23, August.
    15. Le Zhang & Huixing Zhai & Jiayuan He & Fan Yang & Suilin Wang, 2022. "Application of Exergy Analysis in Flue Gas Condensation Waste Heat Recovery System Evaluation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-12, October.
    16. İncili, Veysel & Karaca Dolgun, Gülşah & Georgiev, Aleksandar & Keçebaş, Ali & Çetin, Numan Sabit, 2022. "Performance evaluation of novel photovoltaic and Stirling assisted hybrid micro combined heat and power system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 129-138.
    17. Hepbasli, Arif & Kalinci, Yildiz, 2009. "A review of heat pump water heating systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(6-7), pages 1211-1229, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peacock, Malcolm & Fragaki, Aikaterini & Matuszewski, Bogdan J, 2023. "The impact of heat electrification on the seasonal and interannual electricity demand of Great Britain," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 337(C).
    2. Lv, Xiaolong & Yan, Gang & Yu, Jianlin, 2015. "Solar-assisted auto-cascade heat pump cycle with zeotropic mixture R32/R290 for small water heaters," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 167-172.
    3. O'Hegarty, R. & Kinnane, O. & Lennon, D. & Colclough, S., 2022. "Air-to-water heat pumps: Review and analysis of the performance gap between in-use and product rated performance," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    4. Li, Jian & Zuo, Zhengxing & Jia, Boru & Feng, Huihua & Mei, Bingang & Smallbone, Andrew & Roskilly, Anthony Paul, 2024. "Operating characteristics and design parameter optimization of permanent magnet linear generator applied to free-piston energy converter," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).
    5. Chen, Yang & Wu, Ye & Liu, Xing & Ma, Jiliang & Liu, Daoyin & Chen, Xiaoping & Liu, Dong, 2024. "Energy, exergy and economic (3E) analysis of a novel integration process based on coal-fired power plant with CO2 capture & storage, CO2 refrigeration, and waste heat recovery," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 299(C).
    6. Wang, Wenyi & Zhao, Zhongfan & Zhou, Qun & Qiao, Yiyuan & Cao, Feng, 2021. "Model predictive control for the operation of a transcritical CO2 air source heat pump water heater," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 300(C).
    7. Roberto Bruno & Francesco Nicoletti & Giorgio Cuconati & Stefania Perrella & Daniela Cirone, 2020. "Performance Indexes of an Air-Water Heat Pump Versus the Capacity Ratio: Analysis by Means of Experimental Data," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-19, July.
    8. Nord, Natasa & Qvistgaard, Live Holmedal & Cao, Guangyu, 2016. "Identifying key design parameters of the integrated energy system for a residential Zero Emission Building in Norway," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(P3), pages 1076-1087.
    9. Cardinale, Roberto & Cardinale, Ivano & Zupic, Ivan, 2024. "The EU's vulnerability to gas price and supply shocks: The role of mismatches between policy beliefs and changing international gas markets," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    10. Beata Piotrowska & Daniel Słyś, 2023. "Analysis of the Life Cycle Cost of a Heat Recovery System from Greywater Using a Vertical “Tube-in-Tube” Heat Exchanger: Case Study of Poland," Resources, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-17, August.
    11. Li, Qiyuan & Shirazi, Ali & Zheng, Cheng & Rosengarten, Gary & Scott, Jason A. & Taylor, Robert A., 2016. "Energy concentration limits in solar thermal heating applications," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 253-267.
    12. Sakr, Mohamed & Liu, Shuli, 2014. "A comprehensive review on applications of ohmic heating (OH)," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 262-269.
    13. Yu, Minjie & Xu, Lei & Cui, Haichuan & Liu, Zhichun & Liu, Wei, 2024. "Characteristics and potential of a novel inclined-flow stirling regenerator constructed by sinusoidal corrugated channels," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    14. Zou, Lingeng & Liu, Ye & Yu, Jianlin, 2023. "Energy, exergy and economic evaluation of a solar enhanced ejector expansion heat pump cycle," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    15. Antonijevic, Dragi & Komatina, Mirko, 2011. "Sustainable sub-geothermal heat pump heating in Serbia," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(8), pages 3534-3538.
    16. Roman Jurowetzki, 2015. "Unpacking Big Systems - Natural Language Processing meets Network Analysis. A Study of Smart Grid Development in Denmark," SPRU Working Paper Series 2015-15, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    17. Giovanni Murano & Francesca Caffari & Nicolandrea Calabrese, 2024. "Energy Potential of Existing Reversible Air-to-Air Heat Pumps for Residential Heating," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(14), pages 1-23, July.
    18. Aste, Niccolò & Adhikari, R.S. & Manfren, Massimiliano, 2013. "Cost optimal analysis of heat pump technology adoption in residential reference buildings," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 615-624.
    19. Cai, Jingyong & Ji, Jie & Wang, Yunyun & Huang, Wenzhu, 2017. "Operation characteristics of a novel dual source multi-functional heat pump system under various working modes," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 236-246.
    20. Mahmoud Khaled & Mostafa Mortada & Jalal Faraj & Khaled Chahine & Thierry Lemenand & Haitham S. Ramadan, 2022. "Effect of Airflow Non-Uniformities on the Thermal Performance of Water–Air Heat Exchangers—Experimental Study and Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(21), pages 1-14, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:3:p:1224-:d:1330894. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.