Sharif Digital Repository

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate indoor radon distribution and ventilation effects. This technique was used to predict and visualize radon content and indoor air quality in a one-family detached house in Stockholm. The effects of intake fans, exhaust fans and doors on radon concentration were investigated. Design/methodology/approach: In this study a mechanically balanced ventilation system and a continuous radon monitor (CRM) were used to measure the indoor ventilation rate and radon levels. In a numerical approach, the FLUENT CFD package was used to simulate radon entry into the building and ventilation effects.... 

Purpose: Lack of a consistent standardized housing pricing system in Iran has led housing valuation to become solely dependent on appraisers' opinions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate some behavioral aspects of real estate decision makers, i.e. buyers and appraisers. Design/methodology/approach: First, and based on a content analysis of the valuation literature, a preliminary housing valuation model is proposed. This model is then contextualized and tested on two separate samples of 23 appraisers and 145 buyers, using interviewing technique and self-administered questionnaires. Findings: This study shows that buyers and appraisers may have different views about property valuation... 

Deteriorated land-uses constitute vast portions of the metropolitan areas, being small lots of land, hardly accessible, structurally unstable, and extremely vulnerable to moderate earthquakes. We present the results of a stated preference survey done to support the viability of administering a novel tri-lateral Public–Private Partnership of Build-Operate-Transfer type proposal of Government (G)-Residents (R)-Private Sector Investors (P). In this proposal, the (low income) R in a zone trade their lands for an equivalent value of safe housing built by P next to a newly constructed Bus Rapid Transit line built by G in the same zone, thus a Transit-Oriented Development. P, in return, receives... 

This paper presents an incentive-based demand response (DR) scheme for a small residential area including several houses. It is supposed that there is an aggregator on one side and the residential consumers on the other side, which both of them want to achieve an optimal solution for themselves. For this reason, the Stackelberg game is adopted in this paper to consider the interaction between aggregator and consumers. This game would have one leader (aggregator) and N followers (consumers). Each consumer is assumed to have two kinds of load, namelycritical load, which is not intended for DR, and Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, which is considered as a potential for... 

These days the number of nonlinear loads in power systems is increasing dramatically. These nonlinear loads inject harmonic currents and the voltages. Accordingly, the modeling of these loads and analysis of their effects on power quality has gained much attention. This paper presents harmonic models for residential appliances. The model is based on Norton equivalent technique. The parameters of appliances models are determined using measurements. These models are then verified by comparison with the measurements results for each load. Based on the developed individual loads, an estimate for a household/an office customer is found and the harmonic content for such customers is estimated. An... 

Demand response enabled by time-varying prices can propel the power industry toward a greater efficiency. However, a noncoordinated response of customers may lead to severe peak rebounds at periods with lower prices. In this regard, a coordinated demand response scheme can mitigate concerns about the peak rebounds. This paper presents a system-wide demand response management model to coordinate demand response provided by residential customers. The objective of the model is to flatten the total load profile that is subject to minimum individual cost of customers. The model is first formulated as a bi-level optimization problem. It is then casted into equivalent single-level problems, which... 

Residential and commercial sectors, share a significant portion of energy consumption in Iran; 37 percent of the total per capita consumption. Therefore, identification of the relation between revenue and energy consumption could be a great assistance to policy makers for clarification of policies employed in energy sector. This paper attempts to explore and analyze the relationship between revenue and energy consumption in residential and commercial sectors for the years 1969 to 2009 in Iran by Smooth Transition Regression Models. Smooth transition regression model is a nonlinear time series model which can be considered as a developed form of Switching Regression Model. The obtained... 

Today, as a consequence of the growing installation of efficient technologies, e.g. micro-combined heat and power (micro-CHP), the integration of traditionally separated electricity and natural gas networks has been attracting attentions from researchers in both academia and industry. To model the interaction among electricity and natural gas networks in distribution systems, this paper models a residential customer in a multi-energy system (MES). In this paper, we propose a fully automated energy management system (EMS) based on a reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm to motivate residential customers for participating in demand side management (DSM) programs and reducing the peak load in... 

Harmonic producing loads, which are increasingly used in industries, cause power quality problems as well as increase in system losses. To deal with the problems associated with harmonics and to reduce their effects on power networks, study of the effects of non-linear loads on distribution networks is essential. In this paper, the non-linear loads of residential consumers are modeled and simulated. A typical residential consumer and a simplified short feeder are simulated in order to make an estimation of the power and energy losses and their corresponding costs. The simulations are verified using practical measurements from real customers. ©2013 IEEE  

Residential energy management (REM) program is a demand response (DR) tool that automatically manages energy consumption of controllable household appliances to improve the energy consumption profile of a house according to electricity price. REM intends not only to improve technical aspects of distribution systems but also motivate customers for active participation in DR programs. In this regard, this paper proposes a two-level REM framework. In the first level, each customer runs an optimization problem to minimize his payment cost and sends the desired operation scheduling of appliances and the payment cost to the system operator. In the second level, a multiobjective (MO) optimization... 

This paper studies the real-time energy management of large-scale residential households and standalone electric vehicles charging stations using a non-cooperative game based on consensus protocol. We consider a set of aggregators, each equipped with a processor, to minimize its own cost function by having access to the local estimation terms of neighboring aggregators. Since the cost function of each aggregator is affected by strategy of other aggregators through total generation cost, such interaction among competitive agents is modeled as a non-cooperative game. An idea based on model predictive control is utilized to deal with highly random behavior of users. In this paper, a time-of-use... 

One way of more efficiently utilizing the existing gas and electrical infrastructures is to consider them as one integrated system in planning and operation of energy systems. The energy hub framework is adopted to determine a modeling procedure for such multi carrier energy systems. This paper presents a residential energy hub model for a smart home. A residential combined heat and power (CHP) as a cogeneration technology, and a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle are employed in the model. Operation of the hub is optimized through a proposed optimization-based formulation. The objective is to minimize customer payment cost. Solving the problem determines how much of each energy carrier the... 

Many countries use a single water meter for multiple units within a building. This creates a cost externality where the cost of water consumed is spread over all units. Using administrative data from Tehran Water and Wastewater Co. for 2013 and 2014, we find an increase in the number of units on a communal meter on average increases per unit use by 0.4%. Estimation at different levels of units reveals that almost all communal meters have higher per unit water use. The results suggest that removing this externality could save 2.7% water consumption in our sample. © 2018 Elsevier B.V