AGREA - Analysis Group for Regional Energy Alternatives
Current AGREA Research |
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Offshore Wind Collaborative
– Economic and Environmental Performance
|
Exploratory Research Efforts |
These are smaller ongoing projects which are at an earlier stage, focused on developing methodologiesand early results. |
In 2005, via the
Cambridge-MIT Institute the LFEE joined with Cambridge University's Judge Institute of Management to develop a "
Knowledge Integration Community"
focused on Energy Security.
The MIT-Cambridge team hosted two meetings (Apr, Dec 2005) with UK industry and government to discuss which of the many aspects of "Energy Security" the KIC should focus on. These ideas will be distrbuted soon, and tend to focus on regional energy infrastructure dynamics. The topics of facility security (malevolent threat protection), international energy supply-chain risk management (e.g. geopolitical risks) are areas which are well covered by other groups.
The CMI Centre for Energy Security will be hosting several events in the Spring of 2006 to further develop the "structured dialogue" and research needs related to this topic.
(TPP Graduate Student: K. Donnelly)
Beginning in the Fall of 2005, AGREA and MIT's Center for Transportation and Logistics began looking at some of the energy resource constraints and risks associated with international freight transportation. This represents one of three Supply Chain 2020 Phase II Natural Resource projects. (TPP Graduate Student: D. Cameron)
Past AGREA-related research (Mexico City Project), and that of the
Texas Transportaion Institute
show that worsening traffic congestion may have a large impact on vehicle fuel consumption and emissions.
New vehicle powertrains—parallel hybrids in particular—have substaintially better fuel economy in stop-and-go traffic (e.g. city vs. highway). How much better will such vehicles be as traffic gets even worse? What level of savings might be expected in hybrids become an even larger component of on road fleets? Given these insights, what policy options would play to these strengths, at both the individual consumer and fleet-wide levels? (TPP Graduate Student: W. Feng)
This project is made possible by generous support of Derry and Charlene Kabcenell, through the LFFE Futute Energy Fellowship Program. Thanks!
Building upon 2004's work on TOTEM (TOTal Energy Management) by Davids Craft and Miller, David Miller is continuing his research on the usablity and acceptablity of integrated, end-user energy management systems.
Under the TOETEM architecture, intelligent agents manage each generator and controllable load, optimizing the short and long-term operation of the entire system based on the available data; the capabilities of the local cogeneration system to generate power; and the load requirements of users. The key idea is that there are synergistic benefits of intelligently managing both generation and usage of electrical power simultaneously.
(TMP Graduate Student: D. Miller)
This project is also made possible by generous support of Derry and Charlene Kabcenell, through the LFFE Futute Energy Fellowships. Thanks!