Forestry Product Calculator: Addressing Mismatches Between Energy Provision and Consumption

• Main Author: Thoresen, Ida Katrine
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for datateknikk og informasjonsvitenskap 2014
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-27040

The climate is a still growing problem. By making people aware that they can save money when heating houses using firewood, several people might start using firewood instead of other more polluting heating methods. But to calculate the kWh price of firewood is not something that most people know how to do, and it seems that there does not exist any tools that make this easy today.Trading of forestry products is usually done between forestry specialists and energy specialists. These professional groups do not share standards, thus having problems to understand one another. The \textit{Forestry Product Calculator} calculates prices and amounts between all the necessary annotations. \\\\In view of this, the main goal with this thesis is to develop an application that remove the problems regarding cooperation between different industries when trading forestry products. The Forestry Product Calculator should be so intuitive to use so that everyone participating in such tradings should enjoy using it. The application should be seen as a tool that makes the everyday work go a lot easier.To evaluate the work done with the Forestry Product Calculator application there have been conducted several tests, all which provided valuable feedback. The test persons have also responded to an SUS-form that provided an SUS-score, revealing whether or not they were satisfied with the application. Forestry experts have also been contacted, and they are all looking forward to start usimg the application.All requirements established at the beginning of this thesis is met, and some even better than anticipated. The response time of the application is better than hoped, and the users do not use as much time as expected. We believe, however, that the application can enlighten users about the energy amount in firewood, which makes it easier for the user to see the environmental benefits of firewood heating compared to other heating methods. We also believe that the application will make the regular workday for a forestry expert easier, as calculation annotations are done by the application.