Energy Analysis

Course goals

• explain energy demand with the concept of energy functions, and analyse energy demand of a single site and describe methods to manage energy demand;
• describe the energy supply/demand systems and the energy markets for the various energy carriers and use (national) energy statistics;
• explain the concepts exergy, higher and lower heating value, primary and secondary energy and load factor and use these concepts in calculations with regard to energy demand applications, like refrigerators, boilers, cars etc.; 
• compute physical and monetary energy intensity indices and use the concepts of volume, structure and efficiency to carry out a simple decomposition analysis of energy demand;
• use economic and techno-economic tools and the theories of technological scaling and learning to assess energy technologies and to describe energy savings potentials; 
• analyze an energy chain and apply life cycle energy analysis to energy systems, using tools like process- and input-output analysis, and allocation methods;
• describe the main energy policy intruments and the main approaches to energy modelling and scenario development, and apply these in simple settings.

Content

This course provides tools to analyse energy systems. Questions involving energy systems are not limited to a specific discipline; concepts are needed from natural sciences (physics, chemistry, …) but also from economics and from policy studies to approach these questions.
 
In this course the necessary thermodynamic background will be reviewed. Various parts of energy systems are studied: energy supply, energy demand, and the energy markets that connect supply and demand. After this background, various methodologies are used to analyse specific sites (like buildings, or production facilities), continuing with energy chains, energy life cycle analysis and tools to measure energy efficiency.
 
Tool and concepts relevant for future development of energy systems are also addressed: cost-benefit analysis, learning curves, analysis of energy saving potentials and energy scenarios. Finally, the evaluation of energy policies is discussed.


This course is an entry requirement for:

• Bachelor’s thesis GSS (GEO3-2422) cohort 2023 and later