Currently, quality air and renewable energy are main concerns in protecting the environment. Comparing willingness to pay for quality air and renewable energy is rare in the existing literature. However, the public faces these issues simultaneously. In addition, population mobility under China’s household registration system, i.e., urban living experience, may affect the willingness to pay for environmental protection. Consequently, the difference between people’s willingness to pay for quality air and renewable energy in China is discussed. Binary logistic regression is adopted to analyze the correlation factors based on data from the China General Social Survey. The results show that willingness to pay is influenced by environmental attitudes, awareness of energy use, government responsibilities, age, household income level, and trust. The effects of urban living experience on willingness to pay weakens as age decreases. Thus, improving environmental awareness and specialized knowled... [more]

The world’s technological and economic advancements have led to a sharp increase in the demand for electrical energy. Saudi Arabia is experiencing rapid economic and demographic growth, which is resulting in higher energy needs. The limits of fossil fuel reserves and their disruption to the environment have motivated the pursuit of alternative energy options such as wind energy. In order to regulate the power system to maintain safe and dependable operation, projections of current and daily power generation are crucial. Thus, this work focuses on wind power prediction and the statistical analysis of wind characteristics using wind data from a meteorological station in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. The data were collected over four years from January 2015 to July 2018. More than twelve thousand data points were collected and analyzed. Layout and wake effect studies were carried out. Furthermore, the near wake length downstream from the rotor disc between 1 and 5 rotor diameters (1D to 5D) was t... [more]

Challenges in utilising fossil fuels for generating energy call for the adoption of renewable energy sources. This study focuses on modelling and nowcasting optimal tilt angle(s) of solar energy harnessing using historical time series data collected from one of South Africa’s radiometric stations, USAid Venda station in Limpopo Province. In the study, we compared random forest (RF), K-nearest neighbours (KNN), and long short-term memory (LSTM) in nowcasting of optimum tilt angle. Gradient boosting (GB) is used as the benchmark model to compare the model’s predictive accuracy. The performance measures of mean absolute error (MAE), mean square error (MSE), root mean square error (RMSE) and R2 were used, and the results showed LSTM to have the best performance in nowcasting optimum tilt angle compared to other models, followed by the RF and GB, whereas KNN was the worst-performing model.

In response to the rising importance of the climate agenda, many countries have restructured their electricity markets to facilitate the utilization of renewable energy. China is an interesting case because it has expanded its utilization of wind and solar energy with unmatched speed. This review starts with an analysis of the 2002 reforms that uncoupled electricity production from transmission. The investigation covers the period leading up to the 2022 proposal, which aimed to build a nationally integrated electricity market. The analysis suggests that a careful alignment of incentives for key market players to produce and consume renewable energy is vital during the process of energy transition. The introduction of feed-in tariffs in 2009 for wind energy, which were subsequently extended to solar energy, stimulated a high growth in installed capacity. However, a high electricity curtailment rate resulted. Since 2018, the Chinese government has resorted to curtailment caps and renewab... [more]

Renewable energy is increasingly mobilizing more investment around the globe. However, there has been little attention to evaluating economic and regulatory (E&R) uncertainties, despite their enormous impact on the project cashflows. Consequently, this review analyzes, classifies, and discusses 130 articles dealing with the design of renewable energy projects under E&R uncertainties. After performing a survey and identifying the selected manuscripts, and the few previous reviews on the matter, the following innovative categorization is designed: sources of uncertainty, uncertainty characterization methods, problem formulations, solution methods, and regulatory frameworks. The classification reveals that electricity price is the most considered source of uncertainty, often alone, despite the existence of six other equally influential groups of E&R uncertainties. In addition, real options and optimization arise as the two main approaches researchers use to solve problems in energy system... [more]

This article deals with the development of renewable energy sources and their role in the transformation of energy. The main purpose of this article is to analyze the role of local governments in Poland in accelerating energy transformation at the local level through the implementation of municipal investments. The potential activities of the municipalities in the area of local eco-energy were presented, with particular emphasis on their own investment projects. The involvement of municipalities in the implementation of their own projects in the area of energy transformation was assessed, and the sources of financing for such projects were determined. A diagnosis of barriers and limitations to the increase in the participation of communes in this area was also made. This research was carried out in the Podkarpackie and Lublin regions in southern Poland. The research results indicate that local government authorities are willing to accept contributing to eco-energy projects, but only wh... [more]

The urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to achieve a decarbonized society has led to the active introduction of electric vehicles worldwide. Renewable energy sources that do not emit greenhouse gases during charging must also be used. However, the uncertainty in the supply of renewable energy is an issue that needs to be considered in practical applications. Therefore, in this study, we predicted the amount of electricity generated by renewable energy using model predictive control, and we considered the operation of a complete island-operated park and ride EV parking station that does not depend on commercial electricity. To perform appropriate model predictive control, we performed comparative simulations for several different forecast interval cases. Based on the obtained results, we determined the forecast horizon and we simulated the economic impact of implementing EV demand response on the electricity demand side. We found that without demand response, large amounts of... [more]

Given the fundamental role of renewable energy assets in achieving global temperature control targets, new energy management methods are required to efficiently match intermittent renewable generation and demand. Based on analysing various designed cases, this paper explores a number of heuristics for a smart battery scheduling algorithm that efficiently matches available power supply and demand. The core of improvement of the proposed smart battery scheduling algorithm is exploiting future knowledge, which can be realized by current state-of-the-art forecasting techniques, to effectively store and trade energy. The performance of the developed heuristic battery scheduling algorithm using forecast data of demands, generation, and energy prices is compared to a heuristic baseline algorithm, where decisions are made solely on the current state of the battery, demand, and generation. The battery scheduling algorithms are tested using real data from two large-scale smart energy trials in t... [more]

The intensification of countries’ growth causes the depletion of natural resources, biodiversity degradation, ecological imbalances, damage, and disasters. The aggravation of ecological issues requires the development of mechanisms for simultaneous achievement of economic, social, and ecological goals. The energy sector is the core direction of economic decarbonization. Therefore, green economic growth requires economic development due to the extension of innovative technologies for renewable energies and relevant investment for that. The study aims to test the hypothesis on the impact of green field investment on green economic growth. The object of the research was countries in the European Union (EU) for 2006−2020. This study applied the Malmquist-Luenberger Global Productivity Index to estimate green economic growth. It considers the resources available for the production process in the country (labor, capital, energy), the desired outcome (gross domestic product) and undesirable r... [more]

The system presented in this paper can change the energy storage landscape by having the advantages of a compressed air storage system and pump storage, as well as minimizing the disadvantages of these two systems. One of the advantages of this system compared to similar systems is the lack of combustion of natural gas. Correspondingly, for construction, it does not require specific specifications for the executive site, and control of the energy and heat of the system (due to the use of water as an operational fluid) is easier than similar systems. In addition, this system is very scalable and can be designed in low capacities to high capacities, energy analysis of this research to identify the basic and effective parameters of the system and determine the limitations and relationships between them. The amount of energy saved in the current research system compared to previous research is significant, and 92% efficiency can be achieved. The energy analysis of this research determined... [more]

This study aimed to systemize global scholarly publications on corporate social responsibility and renewable energy to detect their influence on green brand development within the SDGs. The initial data are retrieved from the Scopus database. To operate with the most relevant publications, several limitations were applied. The research sample consists of the 2000 most cited articles in the subject areas of (1) Social Sciences, (2) Business, Management, and Accounting, and (3) Economics, Econometrics, and Finance. This study is carried out in the following logical sequence. The first stage involves searching, collecting, and preprocessing articles representing the investigated topic. Then, several bibliometric techniques were employed to analyze and map the findings. The third stage integrated the obtained results and discussed future research directions. This paper offers some theoretical implications by analyzing and visualizing the investigated scientific output, particularly publica... [more]

Load frequency control (LFC) is well known for balancing the load demand and frequency for a multi-area power system. Studies have proven that LFC can improve the global performance of multi-area power systems. In recent years, the increasing proportion of renewable energy, integration of EVs, and cyber-attacks have become the main challenges in LFC power systems. Different strategies have been applied in the literature for LFC power systems and the possible impacts of renewable energy, EVs, and cyber-attacks. This survey paper is devoted to the research on directions in LFC multi-area power systems. The mathematical model of recent challenges in LFC multi-area power systems is summarized and the similarities and differences of these challenges are analyzed. The uncertainty of renewable energy is a frequently noted issue in LFC power systems; however, the uncertainty that exists in controller design is often ignored. In this survey, we analyze methods for treating the uncertainty of re... [more]

Renewable Energy technologies are becoming suitable options for fast and reliable universal electricity access for all. Solar photovoltaic, being one of the RE technologies, produces variable output power (due to variations in solar radiation, cell, and ambient temperatures), and the modules used have low conversion efficiency. Therefore, maximum power point trackers are needed to harvest more power from the sun and to improve the efficiency of photovoltaic systems. This paper reviews the methods used for maximum power point tracking in photovoltaic systems. These methods have been classified into conventional, intelligent, optimization, and hybrid techniques. A comparison has also been made of the different methods based on criteria such as tracking speed, efficiency, cost, stability, and complexity of implementation. From the literature, it is clear that hybrid techniques are highly efficient compared to conventional methods but are more complex in design and more expensive than the... [more]

In Africa, switching to renewable energy sources with low carbon emissions is becoming more popular. In the Economic Community of West African states (ECOWAS), the low-carbon energy transition must overcome significant obstacles, including those posed by policies put in place and their implementation. In order to replace the current fossil fuel-driven economy with low-carbon development that also advances the regional aims and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this paper analyzes the current policy landscape in the region. A total of 75 policies from four categories (energy access, energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate change) were chosen for the policy review. Multicriteria decision analysis and a thorough review of the literature have shed light on how well the policies of the ECOWAS countries could promote low-carbon development and what the main challenges to overcome are. The last step was the comparison of the progress of the two key policies in the region: the Nationa... [more]

Renewable energy technologies can help us combat climate change and hydrokinetic energy conversion systems could play a major role. The simplicity of hydrokinetic devices helps us to exploit renewable sources, especially in remote locations, which is not possible with conventional methods. A new type of hydrokinetic device called the Energy Conveyor Belt was designed, which works on the concept of conveyor belt technology. Numerical simulations are performed on the design of the Energy Conveyor Belt with Ansys FLUENT to optimize its performance. Some of the optimized models produced a maximum power slightly above 1 kW. The numerical results are then compared to the experimental results of other hydrokinetic turbines. The compactness and flexibility of the design give the Energy Conveyor Belt an advantage over other hydrokinetic devices in regions with fluctuating water levels. Further research has to be undertaken into cascading systems to increase the overall power generated by the sy... [more]

The adoption of renewable energy remains Sub-Saharan Africa’s best option to achieve sustainable growth and mitigate climate change. The essence of this study is to examine the factors that determine the adoption of renewable energy adoption in Africa by employing the System Generalized Methods-Of-Moment (GMM) to analyze data sourced from 1990 to 2019 on some selected African economies. The study examined the tripartite role of the economic, environmental, and socio-political factors on renewable energy adoption in Africa and noted that a positive relationship exists between economic and renewable energy adoption, supporting the validity of the feedback hypothesis. Hence, a policy that supports simultaneous growth of the economy and renewable energy could be adopted. The results further show that environmental factors such as carbon emission and ecological footprint negatively impact renewable energy (RE) adoption in Sub-Saharan African economies. The impact of socio-political factors... [more]

The increasing rate of renewable energy penetration in modern power grids has prompted updates to the regulations, standards, and grid codes requiring ancillary services provided by photovoltaic-generating units similar to those applied to conventional generating units. In this work, a comprehensive survey presents a comparison of requirements related to voltage ride through reactive current injection/absorption; active power restoration; frequency stability regulation and active power control; voltage regulation and reactive power control; and the energy quality requisites included in the standards and grid codes of countries around the globe. The survey can be used to observe the differences between the requirements established in the grid codes depending on the power system operating characteristics, development of technology, and renewable energy penetration level. Many of these factors determine the parameters used to establish requisites for different grid codes, making a global... [more]

From conventional turbines to cutting-edge bladeless turbines, energy harvesting from wind has been well explored by researchers for more than a century. The vortex bladeless wind turbine (VBT) is considered an advanced design that alternatively harvests energy from oscillation. This research investigates enhancing the output electrical power of VBT through simulation of the fluid−solid interactions (FSI), leading to a comprehensive dataset for predicting procedure and optimal design. Hence, the long short-term memory (LSTM) method, due to its time-series prediction accuracy, is proposed to model the power of VBT from the collected data. To find the relationship between the parameters and the variables used in this research, a correlation matrix is further presented. According to the value of 0.3 for the root mean square error (RMSE), a comparative analysis between the simulation results and their predictions indicates that the LSTM method is suitable for modeling. Furthermore, the LST... [more]

This paper proposes a novel dynamic pricing scheme for demand response with individualized tariffs by consumption profile, aiming to benefit both customers and utility. The proposed method is based on the genetic algorithm, and a novel operator called mutagenic agent is proposed to improve algorithm performance. The demand response model is set by using price elasticity theory, and simulations are conducted based on elasticity, demand, and photovoltaic generation data from Brazil. Results are evaluated considering the integration effects of renewable energy sources and compared with other two pricing strategies currently adopted by Brazilian utilities: flat tariff and time-of-use tariff. Simulation results show the proposed dynamic tariff brings benefits to both utilities and consumers. It reduces the peak load and average cost of electricity and increases utility profit and load factor without the undesirable rebound effect.

Circular economy and renewable energy infrastructure such as offshore wind farms are often assumed to be developed in synergy as part of sustainable transitions. Offshore wind is among the preferred technologies for low-carbon energy. Deployment is forecast to accelerate over ten times faster than onshore wind between 2021 and 2025, while the first generation of offshore wind turbines is about to be decommissioned. However, the growing scale of offshore wind brings new sustainability challenges. Many of the challenges are circular economy-related, such as increasing resource exploitation and competition and underdeveloped end-of-use solutions for decommissioned components and materials. However, circular economy is not yet commonly and systematically applied to offshore wind. Circular economy is a whole system approach aiming to make better use of products, components and materials throughout their consecutive lifecycles. The purpose of this study is to enable the integration of a sust... [more]

In light of the global effort to limit the temperature rise, many cities have undertaken initiatives to become climate-neutral, making decentralized urban energy production more relevant. This paper addresses the potential of urban wind energy production with small wind turbines, using Berlin as an example. A complete framework from data selection to economic feasibility is constructed to enable the empirical assessment of wind energy for individual buildings and Berlin as a whole. Based on a detailed dataset of all buildings and hourly wind speed on a 1 km2 grid, the results show that multiple turbines on suitable buildings can significantly contribute to households’ energy consumption but fall short of covering the full demand. For individual households, our economic evaluation strongly recommends the self-consumption of the produced electricity. The findings suggest that while the use of small wind turbines should be continuously encouraged, exploring other renewable resources or co... [more]

This essay considers the rural-to-urban transition and correlates it with urban energy demands. Three distinct themes are inspected and interrelated to develop awareness for an urbanizing world: internal urban design and innovation, technical transition, and geopolitical change. Data were collected on the use of energy in cities and, by extension, nation states over the last 30 years. The urban population boom continues to pressure the energy dimension with heavily weighted impacts on less developed regions. Sustainable urban energy will need to reduce resource inputs and environmental impacts and decouple economic growth from energy consumption. Fossil fuels continue to be the preferred method of energy for cities; however, an increased understanding is emerging that sustainable energy forms can be implemented as alternatives. Key to this transition will be the will to invest in renewables (i.e., solar, wind, hydro, tidal, geothermal, and biomass), efficient infrastructure, and smart... [more]

The process of wind farm operation requires proper logistics services, consisting of the supply of all resources necessary in this process. A critical moment in the operation of wind farms is the implementation of the repowering process, in the form of replacement of the basic elements of wind farms: blades, hub rotors, nacelles or even towers. The replacement of these basic elements of the wind farm relates to the necessity to provide logistics services for heavy and oversized deliveries. Therefore, this article presents a unique analysis of logistics processes related to wind farms. Therefore, the aim of the article is to identify the most energy-saving variant of logistics service of the wind farm repowering process. However, the criterion of selecting the optimal variant is based on the original methodology of energy consumed during logistics services, as opposed to the traditionally used cost-effectiveness criterion. The SolidWorks software with other methods and tools were used f... [more]

The objective of this study was to investigate the factors that influence the consumer adoption of renewable energy in Thailand. The study adopted an extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) by including three additional variables. The study applied a quantitative study methodology, with primary data collected using a survey of consumers in five major cities in Thailand. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings of the study indicated that perception of self-effectiveness, environmental concern, renewable energy awareness, and beliefs about renewable energy benefits have a significant and positive effect on consumers’ intention to adopt renewable energy. The cost of renewable was found to have a negative but non-significant influence on consumers’ adoption of renewable energy, while risk/trust perception was found to have a positive but non-significant influence on consumers’ adoption of renewable energy. The study concluded that stakeholders should... [more]

Prior to full electric conversion, internal combustion engines will still maintain a paramount position in heavy goods and earth-moving vehicles. The most promising, cleaner alternative to fossil fuels is biodiesel. While it does not require alterations in the engine design, hence no major overhaul of existing infrastructure, biodiesel is more sustainable and clean-burning than petro-diesel. Extensive research has been reported on the effect of biodiesel blends, on the operational characteristics of compression ignition (CI) engines as well as the emissions behaviour of such engines. The performance characteristics of CI engines under transient operational conditions with Biodiesel blends has had limited attention so far from researchers. In the present work, transient performance characteristics of a CI engine has been evaluated for various biodiesel blends and its effects on performance behaviour have been quantified. In addition, emission footprints of CI engines under various trans... [more]