The constant consumption of resources exerts pressure on the environment. In this sense, waste management has obtained increasing attention from the view of a circular economy. The European Union deals with these mentioned aspects, trying maintain long-term competitiveness and to provide sustainable development in accordance with all related environmental aspects. This paper focuses on the evaluation of the production of communal waste in 36 EU countries. The main aim is to evaluate the success of countries’ efforts to decrease waste production and increase recycling rates. The methodology used for the evaluation included data collected from the publicly available database Eurostat, consequent analyses and evaluation in the statistical software JMP 13 through regression, distribution, and cluster analysis, and the interpretation of the results. The results of the cluster analysis showed that despite clear EU waste management legislation, EU member states have significantly different waste management systems at the national level. However, generally, we could see positive correlation between the generation of waste and recycling rates. Although, Malta, Austria, Greece, and Norway recorded a decreasing level of waste recycling over the last several years, some countries (Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania) had significantly lower recycling rates accompanied by low landfill taxes. The evaluation of waste production and recycling can be used for government policy in the area of waste management, as well as for individual communities dealing with communal waste.
In the European Union, basic strategy results from the need to provide intelligent, sustainable, and inclusive growth, along with respect to social and economic impacts of waste treatment. The paper focuses on municipal waste and its separation. Generally, within global waste management initiatives, the main goal is to minimize the negative effects of waste on the environment, as well as to increase and optimize the sources’ efficiency in the waste economy. Research on municipal waste development and its separation was done in individual regions of Slovakia to find if socially weaker regions have worse waste treatment. The results were compared according to the waste development per inhabitant and per household, as well as through rate indexes, which are connected to relationships between waste, social, and economic indexes. The results confirmed research results from other countries that show that the volume of municipal waste is increasing due to increased living standards of inhabitants. However, on the other hand, waste separation rates also increased—mainly based on the legislative support.
Recently, the use of photovoltaic (PV) cells and the increase in the number of photovoltaic power plants has led to a detailed examination of their operating parameters. In this article, we discuss material and operating parameter influences on the performance and efficiency of photovoltaic panels in a photovoltaic power plant. The plant consisted of 3600 pieces of polycrystalline PV panels from Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) Solar (type REC 230AE) with a maximum power of 230 Wp. Parameter measurements were made three years after the power plant was started. The measured and computed data were statistically processed using multidimensional statistical methods where the relationships between input and output variables were examined, which was subsequently quantified by regression analysis. Using the ANOVA, the variability of the measured efficiency of the panels and the performance for individual years was examined. Efficiency has been found to increase significantly over the years. The reason for this is the statistically proven prevailing operating time of the PV power plant in conditions with lower temperature than standard operating conditions (25 °C). Ageing was not confirmed in optimal conditions and calculated efficiency was constant.
The energy storage field is nowadays a highly ranking topic. This research deals with the installation and analysis of the ice storage system which combines heat pump, solar absorber, and ice storage tank (phase change material—PCM). This system uses a special kind of solar absorber – header pipes (HDP), which have no thermal isolation compared to the common solar absorber. Thanks to that the HDP, pipes can absorb thermal energy not only from the sun but also from the environment. The rain or snow also affects heat exchange. All that is provided by one technical device. The system can store thermal energy gained from the solar absorber into the ice storage tank for future usage. Research works with data from the real operation, for a period of the year covering all working phases/modes of the system. The analysis of the data led to the identification of several specific modes of the system, especially from the processes taking place in the PCM storage tank during its charging and discharging at various time stages of operation of the whole system. The installation and analysis of the ice storage system probably took place for the first time in Slovakia and Slovak Republic’s conditions. Besides, this system was not installed on a new low-energy house, but on an older family house with thermal insulation. The aim of this installation was also to demonstrate the usability of the ice storage system in an older house and potentially reduce the homeowner’s fees thanks to new technology with higher efficiency. We managed to comprehensively analyze and describe the operation of this system, which also appears to be highly efficient even in a family house with a lower energy certificate, than today’s new low-energy buildings. The results showed a significant efficiency difference in favor of the ice storage system compared to conventional heating systems. The total analysis time was 1616 h and the total efficiency of this heating system—the seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) was 4.4. Compared to the average SCOP 3.0 of conventional heating systems for new low-energy houses, the total efficiency increased by 46.6%. These results could therefore be considered as beneficial, especially if we take into account that this system was installed on an approximately 40-year-old family house. The analyzed ice storage system is still working today. The main goals of this paper were to describe the heat pump’s duty cycle with ice storage (PCM) based on real-life data and bring a detailed description of the heat transfer medium behavior at various phases of storing/utilizing heat in the vertical ice storage’s profile for increasing efficiency.
The constant rise in the consumption of resources puts the environment under pressure. Most resources are non-renewable in nature, which is why they must be utilized with great care. For this reason, the European Union devotes increasingly more attention to their efficient use. It deals with these aspects, making an effort to maintain the long-term competitiveness and to secure sustainable development in line with all of the related environmental impacts. In this context, several goals have been set out, to which the individual EU member states are bound. A method for monitoring resource efficiency was developed, consisting of indicators, the aim of which is to assess the efficiency of the use of soil, water, energy, with the most fundamental one being resource productivity. The results of the efficiency of use of the individual resources in the member states greatly differ, even without further investigating the links and correlations between the indicators. Research on the interrelationships of the individual indicators in terms of mutual influence has not yet been completed. The aim of our study was to define the correlation between the main indicator, resource productivity, and the other indicators at the level of the EU and its member states. For this purpose, we prepared a database with data which, for the sake of uniformity, were obtained from the publicly available Eurostat database. Subsequently, the data were analyzed and evaluated using the statistical software JMP 15 by a regression and correlation analysis. By using the multiple regression analysis, we created a model describing the significance of the impact of the observed variables on the resulting resource productivity of the EU member states. Generally, there is a positive correlation between the resource productivity and the Eco-Innovation index, as well as the utilization rate of recycled materials. For the sake of comparison, we developed a regression model at the level of the V4 countries, with the aim of evaluating the impact of the historical background of the countries on their contemporary ability to reach the goals set out by the environmental policy. The V4 countries are lagging far behind in meeting all of the environmental policy objectives, not only in tracking the main indicator (resource productivity) on which the multiple regression analysis is based. It was interesting to find that the multiple regression model at the V4 level does not include the indicators defined by the EU level model, the key ones, in this case, being water productivity, energy dependence, energy productivity, and environmental tax. This finding may also, after further analyses, be the key for other countries joining the EU in the future, in defining the weaknesses of the newly acceding states in terms of the EU’s move towards a circular economy.
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