Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is now a profitable method to decarbonize the grid, but if catastrophic climate change is to be avoided, emissions from transportation and heating must also decarbonize. One approach to renewable heating is leveraging improvements in PV with heat pumps (HPs). To determine the potential for PV+HP systems in northern areas of North America, this study performs numerical simulations and economic analysis using the same loads and climate, but with local electricity and natural gas rates for Sault Ste. Marie, in both Canada and U.S. Ground-mounted, fixed-tilt, grid-tied PV systems are sized to match 100% of electric loads considering cases both with and without air source HPs for residences with natural gas-based heating. For the first time the results show North American residents can profitably install residential PV+HP systems, earning up to 1.9% return in the U.S. and 2.7% in Canada, to provide for all of their electric and heating needs. Returns on PV... [more]

Bio-oils produced by biomass pyrolysis are substantially different from those produced by petroleum-based fuels and biodiesel. However, they could serve as valuable alternatives to fossil fuels to achieve carbon neutral future. The literature review indicates that the current use of bio-oils in gas turbines and compression-ignition (diesel) engines is limited due to problems associated with atomisation and combustion. The review also identifies the progress made in pyrolysis bio-oil spray combustion via standardisation of fuel properties, optimising atomisation and combustion, and understanding long-term reliability of engines. The key strategies that need to be adapted to efficiently atomise and combust bio-oils include, efficient atomisation techniques such as twin fluid atomisation, pressure atomisation and more advanced and novel effervescent atomisation, fuel and air preheating, flame stabilization using swrilers, and filtering the solid content from the pyrolysis oils. Once these... [more]

Energy obtained from renewable sources is an important element of the sustainable development strategy of the European Union and its member states. The aim of this research is, therefore, to assess the potential and use of renewable energy sources and their effectiveness from the regional perspective in Poland. The research covered the years 2012 and 2018. The diversification of production and potential of renewable energy sources was defined on the basis of biogas and biomass. Calculations made using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method showed that, in 2012, only three voivodeships achieved the highest efficiency in terms of the use of biogas and biomass resources; in 2018, this number increased to four. Comparing the effective units in 2012 and 2018, it can be seen that their efficiency frontier moved upwards by 56% in terms of biogas and 21% in terms of to biomass. Despite a large relative increase in the production of heat from biogas by 99% compared to the production of heat... [more]

This paper presents an analysis of the economic performance of photovoltaic (PV) self-consumption systems at an industrial park in the Basque Country (north of Spain). The economic feasibility of the installations is largely dependent on self-consumption and compensation due to electricity injected into the grid, as well as the assumed evolution of the electricity prices. A sensitivity analysis is carried out for different installation sizes and different evolution scenarios concerning electricity prices. The potential for installations for shared self-consumption with dynamic and static distribution coefficients is also analyzed. The results show that medium sized installations are generally a cost effective way to reduce energy bills, while the economic performance of larger installations is more uncertain, and is largely dependent on the selling price for electricity injected into the grid. This case study found that the economic benefits of shared self-consumption between different... [more]

Renewable energy is considered the one of the most promising solutions to meet sustainable development goals in terms of climate change mitigation. Today, we face the problem of further scaling up renewable energy infrastructure, which requires the creation of reliable energy storages, environmentally friendly carriers, like hydrogen, and competitive international markets. These issues provoke the involvement of resource-based countries in the energy transition, which is questionable in terms of economic efficiency, compared to conventional hydrocarbon resources. To shed a light on the possible efficiency of green hydrogen production in such countries, this study is aimed at: (1) comparing key Russian trends of green hydrogen development with global trends, (2) presenting strategic scenarios for the Russian energy sector development, (3) presenting a case study of Russian hydrogen energy project «Dyakov Ust-Srednekanskaya HPP» in Magadan region. We argue that without significant change... [more]

Renewable energy is considered the one of the most promising solutions to meet sustainable development goals in terms of climate change mitigation. Today, we face the problem of further scaling up renewable energy infrastructure, which requires the creation of reliable energy storages, environmentally friendly carriers, like hydrogen, and competitive international markets. These issues provoke the involvement of resource-based countries in the energy transition, which is questionable in terms of economic efficiency, compared to conventional hydrocarbon resources. To shed a light on the possible efficiency of green hydrogen production in such countries, this study is aimed at: (1) comparing key Russian trends of green hydrogen development with global trends, (2) presenting strategic scenarios for the Russian energy sector development, (3) presenting a case study of Russian hydrogen energy project «Dyakov Ust-Srednekanskaya HPP» in Magadan region. We argue that without significant change... [more]

Attaining sustainable development and cleaner production is a major challenge both for developed and developing economies; income, institutional regulations, institutional quality and international trade are the key determinants of environmental externalities. The current work attempts to study the role of environmental taxes and regulations on renewable energy generation for developed economies. For that, the authors have used the annual dataset for the period 1994 to 2018. More specifically, the study investigates the impacts of environmental taxes, environment-related technologies and the environmental policy stringency index on renewable electricity generation in 29 developed countries. Given the short available data of these countries, the authors have developed panel cointegration and panel regressions models (fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS), quantile regressions). The heterogeneous panel empirics stated that environmental regulations and income level support renewab... [more]

In the context of the increasing popularity of self-sufficient communities around the globe, this study aims to compare the economic performance of energy management in two distinct situations: whether it is conducted individually or collectively within a community. After setting the context and completing a literature review, a research gap concerning the influence of regulatory frameworks in the economic results is identified. Therefore, this work presents this comparison under several frameworks employed to promote renewable energy, in order to provide a more realistic point of view and deliver insights in policy making. To this end, a mixed integer linear program (MILP) is developed, and the formulation of three key regulatory schemes is embedded into it: feed-in tariff, net metering, and self-consumption schemes. A what-if analysis is performed in order to take into account different combinations of rewarding parameters for each regulatory framework, as well as different profiles... [more]

Solar chimney power plants (SCPPs) collect air heated over a large area on the ground and exhaust it through a turbine or turbines located near the base of a tall chimney to produce renewable electricity. SCPP design in practice is likely to be specific to the site and of variable size, both of which require a purpose-built turbine. If SCPP turbines cannot be mass produced, unlike wind turbines, for example, they should be as cheap as possible to manufacture as their design changes. It is argued that a radial inflow turbine with blades made from metal sheets, or similar material, is likely to achieve this objective. This turbine type has not previously been considered for SCPPs. This article presents the design of a radial turbine to be placed hypothetically at the bottom of the Manzanares SCPP, the only large prototype to be built. Three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were used to assess the turbine’s performance when installed in the SCPP. Multiple referen... [more]

In this paper, we study a wind energy conversion system designed for domestic use in urban or agricultural areas. We first present the turbine, which was specifically designed to be installed on the buildings that it supplies. Based on turbine characteristics, we perform analytical sizing of a Permanent Magnet Vernier Machine (PMVM), which will be used as a generator in our energy conversion system. We show the influence of this generator on system operation by studying its association with a PWM rectifier and with a diode bridge rectifier. We then seek to improve generator design so that the turbine operates closely to maximum power points, while using a simple and robust energy conversion system. We use simulation to show the improvements achieved by taking into account the entire energy conversion system during machine design.

With the roll-out of smart meters and the increasing prevalence of distributed energy resources (DERs) at the residential level, end-users rely on home energy management systems (HEMSs) that can harness real-time data and employ artificial intelligence techniques to optimally manage the operation of different DERs, which are targeted toward minimizing the end-user’s energy bill. In this respect, the performance of the conventional model-based demand response (DR) management approach may deteriorate due to the inaccuracy of the employed DER operating models and the probabilistic modeling of uncertain parameters. To overcome the above drawbacks, this paper develops a novel real-time DR management strategy for a residential household based on the twin delayed deep deterministic policy gradient (TD3) learning approach. This approach is model-free, and thus does not rely on knowledge of the distribution of uncertainties or the operating models and parameters of the DERs. It also enables lea... [more]

DC microgrid has been gaining popularity as solution as a more efficient and simpler power system especially for remote areas, where the main grid has yet to be built. This paper proposes a DC microgrid system based on renewable energy sources that employs decentralized control and without communication between one grid point and another. It can be deployed as an individual isolated unit or to form an expandable DC microgrid through DC bus for better reliability and efficiency. The key element of the proposed system is the power conditioner system (PCS) that works as an interface between energy sources, storage system, and load. PCS consists of modular power electronics devices and a power management unit, which controls power delivery to the AC load and the grid as well as the storage system charging and discharging sequence. Prototypes with 3 kWp solar PV and 13.8 kWh energy storage were developed and adopt a pole-mounted structure for ease of transportation and installation that are... [more]

In this study, a standalone hybrid wind turbine (WT)/photovoltaic (PV)/biomass/pump-hydro-storage energy system was designed and optimized based on technical, economic, and environmental parameters to provide the load demand with an objective function of minimum cost of energy (COE). The constraints of the proposed approach are the loss of power supply probability, and the excess energy fraction. The proposed approach allows the combination of different sources of energy to provide the best configuration of the hybrid system. Therefore, the proposed system was optimized and compared with a WT/PV/biomass/battery storage-based hybrid energy system. This study proposes three different optimization algorithms for sizing and minimizing the COE, including the whale optimization algorithm (WOA), firefly algorithm (FF) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) and the optimization procedure was executed using MATLAB software. The outcomes of these algorithms are contrasted to select the most effec... [more]

This paper applied the optimization model of the biogas utilization pathway with the biogas utilization availability assessment to examine the effect of biogas system parameters on biogas utilization. The model analyzes the biogas utilization pathway availability and maximum profit to value added and productivity in biogas from industry wastewater in Thailand. The results showed that profit and availability of biogas utilization reduce biogas loss to flare, that it entails several conversion processes. The scenario for the biogas utilization pathway and storage with biogas production technology improves. Evaluated are operation time, waste and energy demand to the cassava starch usage during the production for 50−1000 tons per day. Five mature biogas production technologies were benchmarked evaluated based on the chemical oxygen demand removal efficiency and biogas yields. Subsequently, low-, medium-, and high-pressure storages and a battery storage were considered and discussed in thi... [more]

This study aims to examine the asymmetric nexus between CO2 emissions and renewable energy and economic and population growth in seven East African countries (EACs) at the regional level and country levels. Common correlated effect means group (CCEMG), nonlinear autoregressive distributed lagged (NARDL), and causality tests were employed for the panel data from 1980 to 2016. The main findings are as follows: (1) Renewable energy consumption negatively affects CO2 emissions, while economic and population growth positively affect CO2 emissions at the regional level. (2) The findings of asymmetric and symmetric linkages between CO2 emissions and its determinants (economic and population growth and renewable energy) are very volatile across the country levels. (3) The causality hypotheses are different across the country and regional levels. (4) This study shows the renewable energy growth nexus, wherein renewable energy positively affects economic growth at the regional level. Lastly, the... [more]

Roadmaps for India’s energy future foresee that coal power will continue to play a considerable role until the middle of the 21st century. Among other options, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is being considered as a potential technology for decarbonising the power sector. Consequently, it is important to quantify the relative benefits and trade-offs of coal-CCS in comparison to its competing renewable power sources from multiple sustainability perspectives. In this paper, we assess coal-CCS pathways in India up to 2050 and compare coal-CCS with conventional coal, solar PV and wind power sources through an integrated assessment approach coupled with a nexus perspective (energy-cost-climate-water nexus). Our levelized costs assessment reveals that coal-CCS is expensive and significant cost reductions would be needed for CCS to compete in the Indian power market. In addition, although carbon pricing could make coal-CCS competitive in relation to conventional coal power plants, it cannot... [more]

The present study is in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs) that address pertinent global issues. This study focuses on the need for access to clean and affordable energy consumption, responsible energy consumption, sustainable economic growth, and climate change mitigation. To this end, this paper evaluates the relevance of the renewable energy sector on the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) framework in Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain for the period 1995−2015. As an econometric strategy, we adopt the use of panel data over the highlighted countries. In the first step, we apply the unit root test recommended by Levin, Lin, and Chu in conjunction with ADF-Fisher, and Phillips-Perron for robustness and consistency. We found that the variables used in this study are integrated I (1) in the first difference. In the second step, we apply the Pedroni cointegration test, and Kao Residual cointegration test, and we observe that the variables are cointegrate... [more]

Despite the growing scientific evidence, the electricity market models used in Chile do not consider the effects of climate change on hydroelectric energy production. Based on a statistical analysis of the historical hydro-energy inflow dataset and a revision of the scientific literature, we suggest a set of technical and statistical criteria to determine an alternative representation of the hydro-energy uncertainty in the Chilean electricity market. Based on these criteria, we then propose an alternative range of historical hydrological data, which is built by shedding the first 35 years of the historical dataset (out of 59 years) and using only a reduced subset of 24 years. Additionally, we propose to capture the potential impacts of even more prolonged droughts on the Chilean electricity system by repeating the last nine years of data at the end of the 24 year-long series. The resulting extended subset of 33 hydro-years is approximately 10% drier on average than the original dataset... [more]

Despite the growing scientific evidence, the electricity market models used in Chile do not consider the effects of climate change on hydroelectric energy production. Based on a statistical analysis of the historical hydro-energy inflow dataset and a revision of the scientific literature, we suggest a set of technical and statistical criteria to determine an alternative representation of the hydro-energy uncertainty in the Chilean electricity market. Based on these criteria, we then propose an alternative range of historical hydrological data, which is built by shedding the first 35 years of the historical dataset (out of 59 years) and using only a reduced subset of 24 years. Additionally, we propose to capture the potential impacts of even more prolonged droughts on the Chilean electricity system by repeating the last nine years of data at the end of the 24 year-long series. The resulting extended subset of 33 hydro-years is approximately 10% drier on average than the original dataset... [more]

There are a lot of studies that show the legitimacy of subsidizing renewable energy; however, some mechanisms are defective, and there are problems with the appropriate allocation of funds. Therefore, this paper aims to look at the situation of allocating funds to photovoltaics (PV) micro-installations in Poland through the “My Electricity” program. The article presents the results of analyses aimed at identifying inequalities between provinces in the use of funds available under the “My Electricity” program and verifying whether these inequalities are getting worse and whether the intensity of support should not be territorially conditioned in terms of maximization an electricity production. As part of two editions of the “My Electricity” program (until 1 August 2020), over 64,000 PV micro-installations were created with an average power of approximately 5.7 kWp. The total installed PV capacity was 367.1 MWp (1st edition: 159.3 MWp, 2nd edition: 207.8 MWp). Financial resources (as a w... [more]

A simplified mathematical model of parabolic-trough solar thermal power plants, which allow one to carry out an energetic characterization of the main thermal parameters that influence the solar field performance, was evaluated through a comparison of simulation results. Two geographical locations were selected to evaluate the mathematical model proposed in this work—one in each hemisphere—and design considerations according with the practical/operational experience were taken. Furthermore, independent simulations were performed using the System Advisor Model (SAM) software, their results were compared with those obtained by the simplified model. According with the above, the mathematical model allows one to carry out simulations with a high degree of flexibility and adaptability, in which the equations that allow the plant to be energetically characterized are composed of a series of logical conditions that help identify boundary conditions between dawn and sunset, direct normal irrad... [more]

Renewable energy and environmental issues are receiving considerable attention worldwide along with the technological development of production system for reducing global warming. Due to the use of smart technologies, the rate of carbon emission and energy utilization have become very high and are directly related to different industries. This study focuses on the effect of renewable energy on the advancement of smart production with a flexible production rate as well as the reduction of carbon emission to build a sustainable smart production system. A mathematical model is developed to maximize the profit of the smart production system for economic development while considering technological and environmental issues. The model is solved analytically, and we obtain closed and quasi-closed form solutions. A numerical experiment is performed, and a comparison with previous studies indicates that our method achieves more profit than existing ones. Additionally, we highlight the major effe... [more]

The present work investigates the techno-economic solution that can address the problem of rural electrification. To maintain a continuous power supply to this village area, a grid-connected microgrid system was designed that consists of solar photovoltaic (SPV) and battery energy storage systems (BESS). The recently introduced multi-strategy fusion artificial bee colony (MFABC) algorithm was hybridized with the simulated annealing approach and is referred to as the MFABC+ algorithm. This was employed to determine the optimal sizing of different components comprising the integrated system as well as to maximize the techno-economic objectives. For validation, the simulation results obtained by the MFABC+ algorithm are compared with the results obtained using HOMER software, the particle swarm optimization algorithms and the original MFABC algorithm. It was revealed that the MFABC+ algorithm has a better convergence rate and the potential ability to provide compromising results in compar... [more]

An increase in energy demand that is caused by fast economic development, a limited and constantly decreasing supply of traditional energy sources, as well as excessive environmental pollution that is caused by an increasing concentration of dust and gases in the atmosphere constitute the main factors that contribute to the ever-increasing interest in renewable sources of energy. The most important and promising renewable source of energy is thought to be solar energy. The aim of the paper is to assess the macroeconomic investment efficiency of photovoltaic installations in order to meet the demand for electric energy in single-family homes in Polish conditions. The conducted analysis comprises market characteristics and legal regulations concerning the sale of electric energy in Poland. Calculations were made for 320 variants that differed with regard to investment location, building orientation, and roof inclination. The results indicate that the most beneficial region for photovolta... [more]

The globalized world has experienced significant environmental degradation together with raising global production and population. In this context, the employment of renewable energy use has become crucial for a sustainable environment and development. In the research, the mutual causality among renewable energy, trade and financial globalization, real GDP per capita, and CO2 emissions in EU transition economies experiencing the integration with global economy was explored through bootstrap panel Granger causality test for the period of 1995−2015. The causality analysis revealed a unilateral causality from trade globalization to renewable energy in Estonia, Latvia, and Slovenia, and from renewable energy to trade globalization in Croatia and Lithuania. However, no significant causality between financial globalization and renewable energy was revealed. On the other side, a unilateral causality from CO2 emissions to renewable energy in Lithuania and Slovenia, and from renewable energy to... [more]