The need for a more efficient electrical grid has made the smart grid concept popular in recent years. The aims of this study are to identify the conditions in Sweden for implementing a smart grid and to analyse the opinions of stakeholders. One finding is that the large capacity of Sweden?s existing electrical grid decreases the immediate need for smart grid solutions. However, the rapid increase in wind power might push the development of a smart grid in the coming years.

The dependency of fossil fuels has to decrease in order to reduce emissions of green house gases. Wind turbines generate electricity with low environmental impact, but the local opinion in Sweden is sometimes an obstacle to new developments. The acceptance of nuclear power increases at the same time. Mining uranium is once again on the agenda and prospectors are currently drilling for uranium. This cross-sectional study deals with acceptance of wind farms and uranium drilling.

The first part of this essay is about a single-family house that we have planned and projected. Thesecond part is a deeper study in ways to further insulate windows when they are not in use.In the first part the building?s design and its most important construction elements are described.The planning of all major installations (heating, domestic water, ventilation, sanitation, electricity)are reported so that one can in principle start construction of the house. In addition there arecalculations done on the building?s energy management.The result is a two stored house angled toward the south.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, OTEC, is a sustainable energy conversion technology that is not yet commercialized. OTEC is a technology that utilizes the temperature difference in oceans between the warm surface water and the cold water at 1 000 m depth to run a Rankine Cycle. This technology can produce electricity and provide synergies like fresh water, air conditioning and aquaculture. A simulation program for three alternative OTEC systems has been created in order to decide which OTEC system is most profitable; closed, open or hybrid system. In this simulation a production cost analysis is performed in order to investigate and decide which one of the three systems that has the lowest production cost. The production cost analysis also analyzes if the profitability is affected by the size of the facility. After these analyzes, the most profitable of the three different OTEC-systems is expanded by an installation of solar collectors in order to see if the thermal efficiency is improved. The result shows that the most profitable system varies with the size of the facility.

District heating covers most of the residential areas and industries in the twoneighbouring Swedish municipalities Nyköping and Oxelösund. In Nyköping,Vattenfall AB Värme produces heat in a bio-fuelled CHP plant. In Oxelösund,waste heat and use of waste gases from the steel production at SSABOxelösund is the basis in the district heating system.This report examines the environmental consequences of a connection betweenthe two district heating systems. A broad system approach is used and the focusis on environmental effects in the system.A system analysis has been performed on the result of simulations of differentheat and electricity production alternatives. The alternatives simulated wereone where Vattenfall Nyköping covers the base load in the joint district heatingsystem and two where the power plant at SSAB Oxelösund supplies the heatbase load.The conclusion in this report is that the consequences of connecting the twodistrict heating systems can be both positive and negative, depending onsystem boundaries and on the environmental focus.

Environmental impact and management of energy is a highly topical issue in today's society. Climate impact must be reduced. The Government has set a target to reduce energy consumption in buildings by 20 % by 2020 and 50 % by 2050 compared to the energy use in 1995.With this in mind, we chose to examine how property owners can work on improving energy efficiency in existing apartment buildings. We also wanted to investigate profitability of different increasing energy efficiency measures and the calculation methods and the risk assessment performed by such investments. To tie in with government objectives, we also saw the possibilities of achieving these goals.20 companies were interviewed, of which 14 were property owners and 6 were consulting firms that works with energy efficiency.

Biogas is increasingly used for fuel in for example vehicles and it´s produced in a biogas processconsisting of the steps of pretreatment, digestion and gas cleaning. The pretreatment is a method usedto increase the gas production and / or destroy pathogens. The digestion is the stage when anaerobicmicroorganisms convert bio-mass of a substrate to a raw gas containing about 65% of methane. Thegas cleaning is used to increase the methane content to about 97% so the gas can be used for motors invehicles. The biogas part of the Ekeby sewage plant in Eskilstuna is using multiple substrates.

The electric vehicle market has potential to contribute to Sweden?s national goal to have a fossil fuel independent transport sector by 2030. However, the market answers to a lot of challenges making it difficult for the market to fully reach its potential. The volume of electric vehicles has seen a steady increase during the last year (2012), although many of these vehicles are mostly for PR purposes or bought by the public sector that wants to lead by example. Still, barriers in the form of high purchase costs, an anxiety for the limited battery capacity and the lack of standardisation are some of the problems that the market is struggling to solve.

The essay's aim is to explain how responsibility distribution between private and public bodies, primarily within three important service areas, can be visualised in light of the fact that they have experienced different forms of readjustment. We have chosen to study this by looking at the restoration work taking place after the hurricane Gudrun swept across southern Sweden on January 8-9, 2005; and we have chosen to concentrate on the service areas of electricity- and telephone supply, and public transport. The responsibility distribution has been depicted by carrying out qualitative interviews with employees within both private and public bodies included in the restoration work. The conclusion produced is that there were obscurities in the formal responsibility distribution between private and public actors taking place in conjunction with the hurricane restoration work.In a deeper analysis, the result can be explained by a ?several hands? problem arising since the number of actors has increased as the public sphere has adopted leadership forms influenced by the private business sector.

According to the EC fuel regulations 2 % bio fuel has to be blended in all fuel by the year 2005, and 5.75 % by the year 2010, which means ethanol for gasoline driven vehicles, so there will be a substantial demand for ethanol. Brazil already has an established industry for producing ethanol and is the leading producer and exporter of fuel ethanol. My purpose with this paper is to investigate why Brazil decided to develop ethanol production on a large-scale operation and to find out today?s situation. Focus will mainly be on ethanol production with sugarcane as a feedstock.

The electric vehicle market has potential to contribute to Sweden?s national goal to have a fossil fuel independent transport sector by 2030. However, the market answers to a lot of challenges making it difficult for the market to fully reach its potential. The volume of electric vehicles has seen a steady increase during the last year (2012), although many of these vehicles are mostly for PR purposes or bought by the public sector that wants to lead by example. Still, barriers in the form of high purchase costs, an anxiety for the limited battery capacity and the lack of standardisation are some of the problems that the market is struggling to solve.

The purpose of this thesis is to assist the Swedish energy company NIBE Energy Systems in their studies of adaptive regulation applicable to electrical water heaters. Due to coming energy classifications of these appliances in the European Union, NIBE Energy Systems needs to use adaptive regulation, called Smart Control, to keep their products in the best possible energy class and remain competitive to the market. By using this Smart Control regulation a 2-3 % improve-ment of efficiency can be credited the system. This is a small number, but heavily needed, since the energy classes are based on the idea that the European Union is provided with electricity from coal condensate power resulting in a 40 % maximum efficiency. Furthermore, doing noth-ing will result in some water heaters not being approved to use on the market from 2015 due to low efficiency.

Energy efficiency is important both to reduce costs and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. Reducing costs will also help maintain business competitiveness.Scania in Södertälje is a company where the optimization of energy use is an ongoing and continual process. One area with potential to make energy and cost savings is the effectiveness of the ventilation systems in offices and industrial premises at Scania. During the summer months an increased demand for cooling occurs, leading to increased ventilation and a peak in district cooling system usage. Sorptive cooling is a technology where the supplied air is cooled by applying external heat.

It is a difficult task to define the little word ?modernity?. One may argue quite a lot about what modernity is as well as when modernity breaks trough. The burgess class was the group who initiated modernity in most cases. Since these people mainly dwelled in the cities it was in the cities were modernity started.

The electric vehicle market has potential to contribute to Sweden?s national goal to have a fossil fuel independent transport sector by 2030. However, the market answers to a lot of challenges making it difficult for the market to fully reach its potential. The volume of electric vehicles has seen a steady increase during the last year (2012), although many of these vehicles are mostly for PR purposes or bought by the public sector that wants to lead by example. Still, barriers in the form of high purchase costs, an anxiety for the limited battery capacity and the lack of standardisation are some of the problems that the market is struggling to solve.