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The University of Alcalá in Madrid will organize the "III International Congress on Green Public Procurement and Climate Change" on October 4th and 5th, 2023. The congress aims to receive oral communications on topics related to green public procurement and climate change, as well as tangential aspects such as sustainable food, legislation on climate change, public procurement and depopulation, sustainable infrastructure and energy efficiency, and sustainable or low-emission mobility. The Scientific Committee will review the communications and select the best ones for possible publication in the journal Actualidad Jurídica Ambiental. The deadline for submitting abstracts is May 15th, 2023. [Extracted from the article]

The paper focuses on climate actions through water activity and energy synergies supporting a water public operator—Canal de Isabel II—to fight against climate change in the region of Madrid. Actions for its mitigation such as the generation of electricity through water treatment activity are undoubtedly a great tool to face climate change and mitigate CO2 emissions. Led by the Strategic Plan of Canal, a water & energy cycle has been designed that, taking advantage of the different processes carried out, and thanks to the appropriate technologies, allows the generation of 100% renewable electrical energy. Through its solar energy plan, Canal is making an important technological effort to reduce energy consumption, taking advantage of the extensive area the water company has for its operations. At the same time, wastewater solutions ans possibilities are becoming more attractive. This paper explains how the Canal is transforming biogas from wastewater treatment plants into fuel for vehicles. On adaptation, this document describes measures for increasing the availability of resources, reducing water consumption, and preparing for new challenges, provided that water remains an essential resource affordable and accessible to all. In this sense, Canal's main contribution and responsibility is to ensure its availability in the event of water scarcity and to avoid the effects of extreme weather phenomena. In addition, the paper presents important projects related to such adaptations as the tariff structure to discourage high superfluous uses of water or the water reclaimed production. This integrated approach to water and energy production and consumption represents an unbeatable strategy that is recommended for dealing with this global problem in a sustainable way. Canal's activities prove that a water company can aspire to be more sustainable through the implementation of integrated projects on the water and energy nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasingly widespread use of vehicles has intensified fuel consumption and hence the emission of air pollutants, causing a negative environmental impact on both human health and climate change. It is well known that vehicle fuel consumption depends on several factors such as engine and vehicle technology, road characteristics, traffic conditions, and driver ability. Although the relationship between these variables has been subject of several researches, the combined influence of traffic flow with road type on vehicle fuel consumption has not yet been studied in depth. This paper aims to fill this gap by processing a large dataset of real-world driving data from an experiment carried out in Madrid, Spain; and to develop and validate a new approach using cluster analysis to define real traffic conditions. The results indicate that poor traffic conditions can significantly reduce vehicle's energy efficiency and influence driving behavior, rather drastically depending on the road typology. While on high-capacity roads the speed covariance increases up to 73% in congestion, on low-capacity roads it increases by 31%, since road geometry also covers an important role; indeed, due to their complex and segmented geometry, local streets show 37% less vehicle's energy efficiency compared with highways. The outcomes of this study suggest that energy efficiency depends on avoiding congestion on high-capacity roads, selecting green itineraries using the right road sections and having a more homogeneous driving behavior on low-capacity roads, through eco-driving whenever possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing energy use in healthcare buildings requires identifying consumption profiles regularly. Keeping this in mind, this paper studies the energy intensity of a hospital and sets specific energy performance indicators by healthcare area. The authors analysed a hospital located in the province of Madrid (Spain), equipped with 182 beds and an area of usage of 25,177 m2. The heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system (HVAC) and steam production equipment (63.0%) and medical equipment (18.8%)—which includes electromedicine (11.6%), radiology (4.2%), radiotherapy (0.7%) and nuclear medicine (2.4%)—accounted for 81.8% of the energy consumed. Throughout the analysis, the authors found that operating theatres and intensive care units demanded more than 1000 kWh/m2 per year, while catering and nuclear medicine required between 500 and 1000 kWh/m2 per year and radiology between 350 and 500 kWh/m2, and most of the other units did not exceed 250 kWh/m2. The wide variability of these results shows that each area's energy consumption should be studied separately for an appropriate energy management. These indicators are useful for benchmarking between hospitals, thus prioritising energetically efficient investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feminisation of energy poverty in the city of Madrid is currently impossible to measure through statistics for those women who are not the main breadwinners. However, a crescent body of knowledge about qualitative research applied to the study of energy poverty has disclosed several aspects related to vulnerability to energy poverty and its impacts. The paper shows the results of a qualitative characterisation of 16 women from Madrid based on interviews conducted during the winters of 2019 and 2020, before and after the COVID-19 lockdown. Four different ways in which gender roles shape experiences of energy poverty are revealed. First, the assumption of responsibility for the home well-being is intrinsically linked to women's identity. Second, how patterns and habits of energy consumption are influenced because of gender. In the third place, how emotions are not only a consequence of suffering from energy poverty but can also help to hide it. Lastly, segregation of capabilities by gender roles from the early age contributes to condition knowledge of household energy management. The importance of reformulating gender inequality dynamics by focusing on personal experience and being able to extract conclusions joining quantitative studies shall be included in future studies. • Qualitative research applied to the study of energy poverty has disclosed several aspects related to its impacts. • The assumption of responsibility for the home well-being is intrinsically linked to women's identity • Patterns and habits of energy consumption are influenced because of gender. • Emotions are not only a consequence of suffering from energy poverty but can also help to hide it. • Segregation of capabilities by gender roles since the early ages has an impact on knowledge of household energy management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a methodology for the development of urban energy balances, which has been applied to the city of Madrid for the last ten years and is consistent with the guidelines of the International Energy Agency. The methodology is structured into three major modules: energy imports into the municipality, energy generation from either internal or external sources, and final energy consumption. The paper shows results for the most recent year for which data are available, as well as historical series for the period 2006–2015. It also includes a comparison of the main energy indicators with the national situation. The experience acquired during the ten years performing the energy balance in Madrid served to improve both the greenhouse gases and the air pollutant emission inventories, keeping their consistent with the energy balance, as well as to diagnose the city's current energy situation. This assessment was used to define a series of policies, energy saving and diversification measures, collected in different municipal plans, with the aim of decreasing the external energy dependence and the energy consumption, thereby lowering greenhouse gases emissions. Maintaining the same methodology and updating the historical series each year also allowed tracking the city's energy policy, as well as the evolution of the main energy indicators (i.e. per capita consumption and energy intensity). The methodology could be replicated in other cities worldwide, yielding improvements in their urban emission inventories. • Methodology to develop municipal energy balances • Ten years of experience in its application to the city of Madrid • Breakdown of final energy consumption by source and activity sector • Importance of being consistent with the municipal atmospheric emission inventory • Municipal energy balance as a useful tool for decision-making [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy efficiency is one of the most important current challenges, and its impact at a global level is considerable. To solve current challenges, it is critical that consumers are able to control their energy consumption. In this paper, we propose using a time series of window-based entropy to detect anomalies in the electricity consumption of a household when the pattern of consumption behavior exhibits a change. We compare the accuracy of this approach with two machine learning approaches, random forest and neural networks, and with a statistical approach, the ARIMA model. We study whether these approaches detect the same anomalous periods. These different techniques have been evaluated using a real dataset obtained from different households with different consumption profiles from the Madrid Region. The entropy-based algorithm detects more days classified as anomalous according to context information compared to the other algorithms. This approach has the advantages that it does not require a training period and that it adapts dynamically to changes, except in vacation periods when consumption drops drastically and requires some time for adapting to the new situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While air transport brings very significant economic and social benefits to the cities and regions served by airports, aircraft noise is the single major cause of community opposition to airport operations, becoming a critical issue that affects the sustainability of future traffic growth. However, planning operations exclusively focusing on noise impact may result in an increase of fuel consumption or delays. This paper develops a suitable bi-objective model for landing aircraft, which finds a schedule that minimises noise impact, total fuel consumption and delays, under wake vortex separation and Constrained Position Shifting restrictions. The results of this model are compared with real operations in a major European airport to assess the potential level of improvements. By comparing with real data from Madrid-Barajas airport, the research shows potential improvements of up to 4.5% reduction of total fuel consumption (without increasing noise levels) only by modifying the sequence of arrivals, and up to 43% (without extra fuel consumption) of reduction in noise impact over the populations under study. • Reduce fuel consumption and delays considering CPS restrictions is possible. • Current schedule can be improved in terms of noise and fuel without changing STAR routes. • A whole Pareto frontier of better solutions in terms of noise and fuel can be easily found. • Experiments using Madrid airport showed significant improvements vs. current operation. • Congestion has a big influence in the possibilities of scheduling improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Basque Y High Speed Rail connection between Madrid and the Basque Autonomous Community is, quite exceptionally, a mixed freight and passengers HSR line, that has been presented as a fundamental step towards a more sustainable mobility. In this paper, a life-cycle assessment (LCA) is conducted to assess the environmental performance of the line throughout its lifetime, based on the latest data available, including both construction and maintenance burdens. Results show that this new corridor is not justified in terms of reducing emissions and energy consumption, mainly due to its low transport density. It also has a negligible impact on Spanish current low rail freight traffic. We conclude, therefore, that Spain needs to reconsider its AVE network expansion if aiming at increasing rail's modal share and meeting the emissions targets set by the EU. From a policy perspective, many information inconsistencies have been found regarding the demand projections of freight transport, which cast serious doubt about the decision-making process behind Trans-European transport projects. [Display omitted] • Life-cycle assessment (LCA) of the Basque Y high-speed rail line under construction in 2023. • It verifies whether this project is justified in terms of environmental impacts reductions. • Net balance of the Basque Y high-speed rail is very modest, when not detrimental. • This project would not be justified in terms of environmental impacts reductions. • Alternatives to high-speed rail in the transport hierarchy provide better environmental balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An innovative hybrid solar-biomass system in a multi-family building was studied. • Deep reinforcement learning was applied to improve the control of the system. • Energy consumption was reduced by 35% in winter compared to a standard control. • No significant energy savings were obtained in summer despite innovative elements. Concerns related to climate change put renewable energy at the centre of most of the policies aimed at achieving a deep decarbonisation of the building sector. The combined use of two or more renewable energy sources in the same energy system can lead to an increase in the total share of renewable energy and in the flexibility of the system. In this direction, the SolBio-Rev project aims to develop an innovative system that uses solar thermal collectors and a biomass boiler to meet energy demand in buildings in different climatic regions. An advanced control that used deep reinforcement learning techniques was considered in this paper to find an optimal control strategy for a specific SolBio-Rev system installed in a standard multi-family residential building located in Madrid. The advanced control was developed to minimize the total cost of operation of the system. The results indicated that the advanced control strategy achieved a cost reduction of 35% in winter, compared to a standard rule-based control strategy. However, the improved control was not able to produce a significant cost reduction in summer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract: The aim of this paper is to carry out a comparative study with regard to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, in respect of two types of engines with three different fuels. The fuels analysed are diesel, biodiesel 30% (B30) and compressed natural gas (CNG). The engines tested were a spark ignition engine (Otto cycle) and two compression ignition engines (Diesel cycle), the first fed with CNG and the last two with B30 and diesel. What is new about this study is its scope of application concerning refuse collection services in the city of Madrid. The tests were carried out on refuse trucks of the FCC Company along actual urban routes in the city of Madrid. Also taken into account were the energy input and the greenhouse gases emitted for each of the paths taken by the fuels analysed, from resource recovery to delivery to the vehicle tank. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The characteristics of urbanism and its construction properties are critical factors in shaping energy demand and citizens' quality of life. Urban typology approaches classify the urban built environment through common patterns, facilitating building energy analysis and energy retrofitting. However, current methods struggle between detailed local building classifications and broad land spatial distributions, which include built environments. This paper presents a systematic methodology to objectively identify and classify residential urban areas according to representative Homogeneous Urban Zones (HUZs), aiming at improving the analysis of urban block energy behaviour by considering buildings and their surrounding urban conditions. Based on the characterisation of urban clusters, this methodology merges current urban classifications and defines representative urban block indicators using geographic information systems. The urban clusters are statistically delimited by testing a set of urban indicators grouped by constructive systems, morphology, and surface cover. If they successfully meet the statistical criteria of the outlier's filter, test-of-goodness-fit, and non-overlapping check, the clusters are then validated as HUZs; otherwise, they are merged, split, or rejected. Finally, the urban residential areas classified as HUZs are characterised by average, maximum, and minimum range values based on a set of representative urban indicators. This methodology was applied to the city of Madrid resulting into the definition of 10 statistically significant HUZs, grouped into four different categories. Because of the shown good adaptability of HUZs to the local urban context, it is expected that the present HUZ method represents an improvement for the standardisation of the residential building energy modelling evaluation. • A method to systematically classify Homogeneous Urban Zones (HUZs) is presented. • HUZs discern urban zones relevant for the residential buildings' energy evaluation. • The urban block scale of HUZs considers local urban and building characteristics. • HUZs are delimited statistically throughout 10 urban block indicators. • 10 statistically significant HUZs were identified in Madrid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, mesoscale meteorological models coupled to Urban Canopy Parameterizations (UCP) can be used to complement and interpret the information gathered from intensive meteorological campaigns on the behaviour of the Urban Boundary Layer (UBL). Moreover, the impact of the air conditioning (AC) systems on the air temperature, the relationships existing between energy consumption (EC) and meteorological conditions, and the evaluation of strategies to mitigate the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon can be evaluated using detailed UCP. In this work, a new UCP implemented in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model (version V3.2) has been tested over the city of Madrid using two different turbulent parameterisations of the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) under atmospheric conditions that were favourable for a large UHI. Two selected days were analysed coinciding with the Dual-use European Security IR Experiment (DESIREX) campaign that took place in the summer of 2008, and focused on Urban Heat Island (UHI) and Urban Thermography (UT) monitoring and assessment. For the two simulated days (30 June and 1 July) a high UHI intensity (5-6 °C) was observed and modelled. Numerical results for the surface air temperature and wind speed were compared against measurements showing a global satisfactory performance of the model. Some differences in the air temperature predictions were observed within the two turbulent schemes. Subsequently, the impact of the AC systems and the EC were evaluated for the simulated period. The heat fluxes coming from AC systems were responsible of an increase in the air temperature up to 1.5-2 °C in some dense urban areas. Effects of modifications in the roof albedo and building material properties reduced the total EC by 4.8 and 3.6%, respectively, affecting the intensity of the UHI. When AC systems were not ejecting the heat fluxes out in the atmosphere, the EC was reduced to 2.5%. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are experiencing a process of suburbanization and last-mile delivery has grown, worsening traffic congestion, pollutant emissions, and citizens' quality of life. Based on a real-life case study, this research compares the environmental performance of different delivery routes carried out by Diesel Light-Duty Vehicles (LDV) according to delivery area, city center or peri-urban. Some 242 delivery routes performed by thirteen drivers were recorded for one month, including instantaneous GPS position, speed, and other parameters (7262 km travelled). Four different delivery routes typologies were compared, and the drag function of the vehicles was characterized. It enabled calibration and modelling dynamics to calculate fuel consumption and pollutant emissions according to delivery routes. The results show that pedestrian crossings, traffic lights, and traffic congestion reduce the average operating speed by up to 57% in the city center and consequently overall energy efficiency. Our results highlight the urgency of replacing diesel LDV for deliveries in the city center with no-motorized transport modes and of implementing intermodality to cover deliveries in residential peri-urban areas. Due to low speeds and frequent start-stops, the efficiency of vehicles in these areas is reduced to a minimum and pollutant emissions increase. The outputs set a basis for recommendations for using LDV only for delivery routes with less traffic interruptions and foster intermodal solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]