Climate change is the modern society?s common issue. The developed countries areconsuming more than what is sustainable, and the climate change due to the use offossil fuels can be seen clearly. EU has specified goals, in order to stop furtherdamage, which demand that every member state have to reduce its energyconsumption by 20 % before 2020 and 50 % before 2050, relative to 1995.The Swedish government uses a number of instruments to encourage reduction in theusage of energy, but every individual has to contribute to reach the goals.With increasing energy price the cost of living is going up. A lot of people are lookingfor ways to save energy and not be affected as much by the increasing price.Investments for insulation, replacement of windows and replacing old heating systemfor a new efficient heat pump is getting more and more common.This thesis is about investigating the possibilities in becoming independent from buyingenergy for households.

In Sweden the residential and commercial sector is a major user of energy, why the Swedish government has set a specific goal to half the energy usage in buildings by 2050, compared to 1995. The Swedish Energy Agency has therefore started the campaign ?Halvera Mera? to encourage demonstration projects that will show how to renovate in an energy efficient way, and in doing so prove that it is possible to reduce a building?s energy usage by half and still make a profit. These projects are intended to serve as good examples and give inspiration to residential owners to perform energy efficient renovations. To make sure that these projects serve their purpose, it is important to know what will inspire and what will impede a residential owner to invest in energy efficiency improvements.

The European Council agreed in 2008 on a climate and energy package to combat global warming. This package is valid for each EU member country and means that greenhouse gas emissions must fall by at least 20% and the EU's energy use to 20%, consisting of Renewable Energy in 2020. The Swedish Government has set stringent climate and energy with the intention to set an example for the rest of Europe. For example, renewable energy sources account for at least 50% of energy use and our climate emissions to fall by 40% by 2020. A combination of these goals and a steadily rising oil price has led to an increased demand for wood fuel in the form of such branches and tops.

Abstract   This degree project comprises 30 credits, i.e. 20 weeks of work. The work mainly deals with the energy balance for a multi-family house in Västerås and the requirements for energy conservation in the Swedish building code, BBR. Calculations of the energy balance are supplemented by a number of interviews. Energy conservation in general has become more important in recent years and the subject is in line with increased public awareness. This importance and attention is explained by environmental problems in general and global warming in particular, but also by rising energy prices.

The purpose with this work that is the basis for this thesis was to help Nattavaara Economical association to develop a program for handling invoices, customer information, and storage. The program and this thesis have been done in cooperation with the economical association in Nattavaara. Some of the demands on the program are that it shall handle customer information, storage status, invoices and diesel consumption. The program must be able to printout invoices, reminders, delivery notes, a customer list and a storage list. All information will be stored in a database.

The Swedish government has introduced a goal to reduce the energy intensity by 20% to the year 2020. To reach this goal actions need to be taken throughout the energy sector which includes residential and commercial buildings. This thesis considers the possibility to reduce the energy usage in a building located close to Uppsala. The analyzed building is a combined office, cafeteria and entrance and was completed about half a year before this project started. Therefore the measures presented for a more energy efficient building are presented as measures for future constructions.Simulations have been made in VIP-Energy, a dynamic energy calculation program.

Sala Silvergruva AB är ett av många företag som just nu kämpar med höga energi-kostnader. Denna rapport undersöker vilka möjligheter det finns att skapa ett hållbart energisystem i Sala Silvergruva med avseende på ekonomi, miljö samt sociala aspekter. Rapporten undersöker nio tekniker; vindkraft, vattenkraft, solfångare, solceller, pelletspannor, värmepumpar, effektivisering samt lagring av värme från växthus respektive fjärrvärme. Dessa analyseras var för sig med utgångspunkt i tio krav som speglar hållbarhetsaspekterna. I samband med analysen ges rekommendationer angående investering i respektive energilösning. Rapporten mynnar ut i en resultatskarta där det tydligt framgår vilka krav de olika teknikerna uppfyller. Den följande diskussionen leder fram till en slutsats som presenterar vilka åtgärder som bör vidtas i syfte att skapa ett uthålligt energisystem för Sala Silvergruva AB. Pelletspannor och värmepumpar visar sig i nuläget vara de mest uthålliga tekniklösningarna.

Design of a house requires knowledge of both technology and economics. Heating and ventilation shall be designed, costs are calculated and estimated and requirements must be fulfilled. Which heating system is to be elected is also a difficult choice, especially with rising energy prices as a factor.The choice of energy system is not always given, because it depends on several factors. Below is a comparison between district heating, geothermal heat pump and electric boiler from an economic standpoint. In a previous report appears district heating and geothermal heat pump as the best options.

The project has been performed in a close collaboration with Hörsam who works in the field of hearing technology. In a first meeting with the company, the Project group was showed a few existing storage boxes for hearing aids. The company thought they were unnecessarily large with plenty of unused space and wanted a new, smarter solution to be developed.The project began with user studies in which audiologists, maintenance technicians, future users and others were interviewed. The purpose was to obtain their views on today's storage boxes and to find out how well the users maintained their hearing aids. It proved to be a large lack of knowledge regarding the management of hearing aids within the users.

This study examines the use of building modeling and energy simulations in the design process  of  a  building.  The  take-off  point  is  the  notion  of  energy  simulations  being needed early and throughout the building design process, and that the lack of energy simulations may be explained by the fact that they are time consuming and therefore often too expensive. A greater interoperability between software tools used by relevant disciplines,  such  as  the  architect  and  the  energy  specialist,  would  create  smoother workflows, which would reduce this cost and open up for more frequent and iterative energy  simulation  processes.  The  study  is  an  assessment  of  the  modeling  tool  Revit and  the  simulation  tool  Virtual  Environment  and  whether  they  can  create  smoother workflows, and make leeway for a more frequent use of energy simulations throughout the  design  process.  It  also  investigates  the  limitations  of  what  can  be  examined  by simulations in Virtual Environment. This will hopefully help clarify the future role of energy  simulations  in  design  processes.  The  method  is  a  trial  by  error  approach  of testing the two software tools by building and simulating a model. The results of these tests  show  that  the  workflow  is  not  optimal  (and  therefore  time  consuming)  for frequent  and  iterative simulations  throughout the  design  process,  but  it  also  reveals some  great  possibilities  of  what  can  be  performed  with  these  two  powerful  tools  at hand.  Further  development  with  regards  on  platform  independency  of  the  building information  model,  including  seamless  exporting  and  importing,  seems  necessary  to strengthen the future role of energy simulations..

Population growth leads to an increased need for new buildings, both residential and commercial. The regulations of structural design also changes with time. From a sustainable community perspective it may be profitable if existing buildings, that no longer performs their original function, are reconditioned. Knowledge and understanding of the surroundings of the residence must be available. Regulations regarding accessibility to all has increased.

Fossil fuels are affecting our climate negatively and there is a limited amount of them in the world, which leads to the importance of finding alternative fuels. One alternative is biogas, which is produced though a digestion process of different organic materials in a biogasreactor. Organic substrate that comes from farms has the biggest potential to increase the production of biogas in Sweden. Primarily crops from farms, but also waste products like manure are of great importance.Today there is a calculated theoretical potential for biogasproduction of 14TWh per year, which is around ten times larger than Sweden?s production today.

This thesis is intended to review and create a greater understanding for the history and originsof printed scraps from late eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century.A questionnaire survey was sent out to several Swedish museums, containing questionsconcerning their collections, possible exhibits, special difficulties and types of damagesconcerning scraps and their current storage. A visit to the Gothenburg city museum storagewas made to take a closer look at their scrap collection and how they were stored. Thisresearch resulted in an understanding regarding the current situation of printed scraps, whichunfortunately appears to be quite poor and inattentive. These results are presented in the firstchapter.The second chapter describes the history of printed scraps, followed by a chapter presentingrelevant printing techniques and technology. This is followed by various chapters dealing withhow the printed scrap has been used through the ages, history and development of motifs andthe album's significance.

This thesis investigated the possibilities to resume cultivation of an old manor house built of timber and what this would mean from an energy and moisture perspective. The building in this case study is named Sofiedals mansion and was built in 1858 in Valbo 11 kilometers west of Gävle.The structure of the house was documented and used as a starting-point for carrying out calculations focused on energy and moisture aspects. With the help of a number of computer programs and a conducted air tightness test, the buildings energy consumption were calculated and compared with the current building regulations.In addition, the building was analyzed considering energy retrofitting and what it meant for moisture problems. The energy retrofitting consisted of additional insulation, decreasing the buildings permeability through air sealing; window and door replacements. When a building is equipped with natural ventilation it is difficult to know its precise performance and how an energy retrofitting affects it.

Problems with the current energy system, which partially relies on non-renewable fuels, are increasingly recognized. Emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels may speed up global warming, which in turn leads to a number of negative consequences. Nuclear energy is risky and relies on consumption of a scarce resource. This leads to a demand of renewable energy that is also economically feasible. One possible renewable source of energy is solar energy.