Human respiratory effort can be harvested to power wearable biosensors and mobile electronic devices. The very first step toward designing a harvester is to estimate available energy and power. This paper describes an estimation of the available power and energy due to the movements of the torso during breathing, using Doppler radar by detecting breathing …

Wearable health and fitness monitoring systems are a promising new way of collecting physiological data without inconveniencing patients. Human energy harvesting may be used to power wearable sensors. In this paper, we explore this zero-net energy biosensor concept through sensing and harvesting of respiratory effort. An off the shelf servo motor operation in reverse was …

Energy is indispensible inmodern society and is one of themost important components of socio-economic development. Nepal is one of the least developed countries with more than 80% of its population residing in rural communities. Per capita energy usage – often viewed as a key index of the development – in the country is far less …

This paper studies the effect of a trade restriction on the incentive for a trade partner to tax the emission of greenhouse gases. We are motivated by the recent debate on border tax adjustments in climate change policies, i.e., whether developed economies such as the EU and US could use trade measures to encourage developing …

 The most popular method used in traditional power system state estimation is the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE). It assumes the state of the system is a set of deterministic variables and determines the most likely state via error included interval measurements. In the distribution system, the measurements are often too sparse to fulfill the system …

Extinction of steady, spherical diffusion flames stabilized by a spherical porous burner was investigated by activation energy asymptotics. An optically-thin radiation model was employed to study the effect of radiation on flame extinction. Four model flames with the same adiabatic flame temperature and fuel consumption rate but different stoichiometric mixture fraction and flow direction, namely …

This report provides an overview of the European experience with tradable green certificates (TGCs) and Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) for the support of production of electricity from renewable energy sources (RES-E). This report focuses on       I.            The relative performance of support schemes based on TGCs versus FITs in ensuring the deployment of RES-E (TGCs are …

Wind and solar electricity are increasingly attractive as their costs decline and greater value is given to avoiding greenhouse gas emissions. However, these technologies generate power only when the wind and sun are available, so it is unclear how large a role they should play in the future power system.   To address this question, …

This paper assess the complete life‐cycle emissions of several cutting‐edge power generation technologies: state‐of‐the art combined‐cycle natural gas turbine (CCGT) , pulverized coal (PC) and integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal plants (with or without carbon capture and sequestration systems), and modern wind farms.

Wind farms provide electricity with no direct emissions. However, their output cannot be forecasted perfectly, even a short time ahead. Consequently, power systems with large amounts of wind power may need to keep extra fossil-fired generators turned on and ready to provide power if wind farm output drops unexpectedly. In this work, I introduce a …

Hager, R., Fernadez, N. and Teng, M.H. (2012) “Geometric Effects on Power Absorption for a Single Two-Dimensional Heaving Body”, the 22nd International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference (ISOPE-2012), Greece, June 2012.

Increases in population, standard of living, and dependency on technology indicate a future increase in energy demand (Fujita, 2002). This increase in energy demand coupled with recent concern for climate change and rising oil prices has generated interest in wave energy. This project has been inspired by Salter’s work to better understand wave power absorption …

This study surveyed a representative sample of 1,536 adult residents in the four counties of the State of Hawai‘i to understand their attitudes and behaviors, and to gauge their preferences for and sensitivities to various energy-efficiency strategies in transportation.

This report, Biofuels in H!m!kua: A Case Study of Hawai‘i, investigates the motivations for and perceptions of a biofuels industry, as well as its potential community impacts in Hawai‘i Island. The report offers a set of recommendations based on contextualizing international, national, and State issues regarding energy, land use, production technology, policies, and biofuel crops, …

This paper assesses the use of the Environmental Review (ER) system in Hawaii, as a process to disclose information on environmental impacts in order to aid in the State’s goals to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This paper provides a review of other jurisdictions currently considering and/or implementing greenhouse gas reduction measures into the ER …

The objective of this study is to identify and evaluate potential economic impacts from the production of biofuels at points along the value chain. The “value chain” is here defined as: feedstock production, feedstock logistics, conversion, distribution, and end use. To accomplish this task, a macroeconomic model of Hawaii’s economy, representing macro and sector-level inter-linkages, …

This report is one of a series of reports prepared as part of a request by the Secretary of Energy to evaluate the economic consequences of Hawaii’s dependence on petroleum under a number of scenarios, as authorized under Section 355 in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This particular report provides a set of analyses …

The “Smart Grid” represents a new vision for the electrical infrastructure of the United States, whose goals include more active participation by consumers, new generation and storage options including renewable energy, and new products, services, and markets. To reach its full potential, the Smart Grid must provide information to consumers in a way that enables …

Kukui nut oil was used by ancient Hawaiians to light their homes. In honor of this original form of energy in the islands, we propose to design and implement a Dorm Energy Competition for the University of Hawaii called the “Kukui Cup”. It will be held for the first time during the month of October, …

WattDepot is an open source, Internet-based, service-oriented framework for collection, storage, analysis, and visualization of energy data. WattDepot differs from other energy management solutions in one or more of the following ways: it is not tied to any specific metering technology; it provides high-level support for meter aggregation and data interpolation; it supports carbon intensity …

Enterprise-scale energy data collection and analysis is becoming increasingly important with the advent of the “Smart” grid. We have developed and released an open source, sensor-based system called WattDepot for collecting, storing and analyzing energy data to fill this niche that is greater than individual households but less than entire utility grids. WattDepot is designed …

The Kukui Cup is an advanced dorm energy competition whose goal is to investigate the relationships among energy literacy, sustained energy conservation, and information technology support of behavior change. Two general purpose open source systems have been implemented: WattDepot and Makahiki. WattDepot provides enterprise-level collection, storage, analysis, and visualization of energy data. Makahiki is a …

Our research seeks to investigate the relationships among energy literacy, sustained energy conservation, and information technology support of behavior change through an advanced dorm energy competition to take place in Fall 2011. Game design techniques are used to attract competition participants, keep them engaged, and have a lasting impact in their energy use behavior through …

Tarui, Nori and Stephen Polasky “Environmental Regulation with Technology Adoption, Learning and Strategic Behavior.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 50(3), 447-467, 2005.

We analyze a model of environmental regulation with learning about environmental damages and endogenous choice of emissions abatement technology by a polluting firm. We compare environmental policy under discretion, in which policy is updated upon learning new information, versus under rules, in which policy is not updated. When investment in abatement technology is made prior …

We model a dynamic common property resource game with unobservable actions and non-linear stock-dependent costs. We propose a strategy profile that generates a worst perfect equilibrium in the punishment phase, thereby supporting cooperation under the widest set of conditions. We show under what set of parameter values for the discount rate, resource growth rate, harvest …

Using a dynamic intergenerational game, this paper analyzes the effects of inequality among resource users and their access to outside markets and credit on cooperative use of a local commons. The study finds that, depending on the agents’ harvest sharing rule, the conditions under which homogeneous agents can cooperate in equilibrium may not be sufficient …

This paper delineates circumstances in which a first-best cooperative solution can be supported as a subgame perfect equilibrium in a dynamic common property renewable resource game. In a game with nonlinear resource stock effects on cost, we characterize a worst perfect equilibrium that supports cooperation for the widest range of parameter values for the discount …

This paper studies incentives to develop advanced pollution abatement technology when technology may spillover across agents and pollution abatement is a public good. We are motivated by a variety of pollution control issues where solutions require the development and implementation of new pollution abatement technologies. We show that at the Nash equilibrium of a simultaneous- …

This paper develops a model of invasive species control when the species’ population size is unknown. In the face of an uncertain population size, a resource manager’s species-control efforts provide two potential benefits: (1) a direct benefit of possibly reducing the population of invasive species, and (2) an indirect benefit of information acquisition (due to …

R. Brewer and P. Johnson, “WattDepot: An open source software ecosystem for enterprise-scale energy data collection, storage, analysis, and visualization“, First IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications, Gaithersburg, MD, October, 2010.

WattDepot is an open source, Internet-based, service-oriented framework for collection, storage, analysis, and visualization of energy data. WattDepot differs from other energy management solutions in one or more of the following ways: it is not tied to any specific metering technology; it provides high-level support for meter aggregation and data interpolation; it supports carbon intensity …

X. Song, E. L. Miller, and D. Garmire, “Experimental study of solar spectrum impact on solar cells,” Clean Technology Conference and Expo 2010, Anaheim, CA, 6/21-6/24, 2010, pp. 116-119.

Variations in solar spectrum can lead to changes in the performance of solar cells which operate at peak efficiency over a relatively narrow band of the spectrum. In this work, the variations of the solar spectrum were measured at different times during the day under different sunlight and weather conditions using a spectroradiometer. The spectroradiometer …

J. Hirano and D. Garmire, “Low-cost 3D Wind Anemometers for Architectural Wind Modeling and Prediction,” Clean Technology Conference and Expo 2010, Anaheim, CA, 6/21-6/24, 2010, pp. 175-178.

With the advancement in distributed power generation and growth of the sustainability movement there has been time and money spent on small-scale wind turbine generation. This movement has created a need for the detailed studying and surveying of small-scale wind patterns and architectural wind. The greatest challenge of this field is gathering high-resolution data in …