It is well known that over the last 60 years the trend of long-lived greenhouse gas emissions have shown a strong acceleration. There is an increasing concern and a mounting opposition by public opinion to continue with the use of fossil energy. Western countries are presently involved in a so-called energy transition with the objective of abandoning fossil energy for renewable sources. In this connection, hydrogen can play a central role. One of the sustainable ways to produce hydrogen is the use of microalgae which possess two important natural catalysts: photosystem II and hydrogenase, used to split water and to combine protons and electrons to generate gaseous hydrogen, respectively. For about 20 years of study on photobiological hydrogen production, our scientific hopes were based on the application of the sulfur protocol, which indisputably represented a very important advancement in the field of hydrogen production biotechnology. However, as reported in this review, there is inc... [more]

Modern computing resources, including machine learning-based techniques, are used to maintain stability between the demand and supply of electricity. Machine learning is widely used for the prediction of energy consumption. The researchers present several artificial intelligence and machine learning-based methods to improve the prediction accuracy of energy consumption. However, the discrepancy between actual energy consumption and predicted energy consumption is still challenging. Various factors, including changes in weather, holidays, and weekends, affect prediction accuracy. This article analyses the overall prediction using error curve learning and a hybrid model. Actual energy consumption data of Jeju island, South Korea, has been used for experimental purposes. We have used a hybrid ML model consisting of Catboost, Xgboost, and Multi-layer perceptron for the prediction. Then we analyze the factors that affect the week-ahead (WA) and 48 h prediction results. Mean error on weekday... [more]

Nowadays, environmental and energy issues attract a lot of attention in the civil buildings sector, leading to the emergence of new technologies and new targets, which include Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs). However, despite the great response in scientific research, the spread of NZEBs in Europe is quite limited. This is due not only to the lack of transposition of the related European Directives into the various national legislations, but also to the high initial cost of such high-performance buildings. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how different energy retrofit strategies on existing buildings can lead to the achievement of the NZEB target if encouraged by tax incentives, at zero or almost zero cost. The introduction of tax incentives by individual EU member states would allow the spread of NZEBs that are still underdeveloped, especially in highly urbanized contexts. A suitable building energy dynamic simulation software has been used. The case study refers to a villa l... [more]

The presented review gives reliable information about the currently used measurement instrumentation in parabolic trough fields and recent monitoring approaches. The usually built-in measurement equipment in the solar field, clamp-on systems for flexible measurements of temperature and flow, solar irradiance measurements, standard meteorological equipment, laboratory devices for heat transfer fluid analyses and instruments related to the tracking of solar collector assemblies are presented in detail. The measurement systems are reported with their measurement uncertainty, approximate costs and usual installation location for the built-in instrumentation. Specific findings related to the installation and operation of the measurement devices are presented. The usually installed instrumentation delivers a lot of measurements all over the field at the expense of measurement accuracy, compared to special test facility equipment. Recently introduced measurement approaches can improve the sta... [more]

A cantilever beam, manufactured from a steel-carrying substrate and two patches of Macro Fiber Composite of P2 type, was a subject of laboratory research. MFC patches were glued on both sides of the carrying substrate and were parallelly connected. An experimental determination of an optimal resistance for both energy harvesting and vibration passive damping of the cantilever beam was the purpose of the conducted laboratory research. The research contained 10 experiments in which courses of the energy-harvesting process and resistive passive damping of vibration were estimated. Energy harvesting was estimated by measurements of the generated current for the given load-resistance values. Resistive passive damping of vibration was assessed by using a vision method that enabled the displacements’ measurements of 10 selected points in the beam structure for the given shunt-resistance values. Values of both load resistance and shunt resistance were chosen on the basis of analytically calcul... [more]

This paper applies a voltage instability monitoring method based on voltage and current measurements from a transmission bus PMU on the Hellenic Interconnected System using both unstable and marginally stable scenarios, derived from the historical 12 July 2004 blackout of the Athens area. The effectiveness, selectivity and reliability of the proposed monitoring method is clearly demonstrated, allowing its integration into a System Protection Scheme with direct load shedding. It is shown that the proposed instability detection and control scheme could have prevented the voltage collapse if applied at the time of the event.

We aim to contribute to in-depth comprehension of the factors and preferences behind the reuses of large-scale underused or abandoned former collective farms from the 1950s−1980s for biogas plants and solar photovoltaic power plants. As a case study, three regions in the southern part of the Czech Republic have been selected. Our findings signal that the residents’ attitudes towards the mentioned energy sources are rather negative. Similarly, farmers’ interest in photovoltaic power plants is low. More interest has been detected in the case of biogas production; this is especially true for large agricultural companies and farmers, who own underused or abandoned premises. Biogas plants are frequently located in agricultural areas with warmer or just slightly colder climates as a consequence of the potential to process locally grown maize. On the other hand, photovoltaic power plants are found on more fertile plains with high levels of insolation, but, surprisingly, also in mountain regio... [more]

Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) are emerging as one of the prominent zero emission vehicle technologies. This study follows a deterministic modeling approach to project two scenarios of FCEV adoption and the resulting hydrogen demand (low and high) up to 2050 in California, using a transportation transition model. The study then estimates the number of hydrogen production and refueling facilities required to meet demand. The impact of system scale-up and learning rates on hydrogen price is evaluated using standalone supply chain models: H2A, HDSAM, HRSAM and HDRSAM. A sensitivity analysis explores key factors that affect hydrogen prices. In the high scenario, light and heavy-duty fuel cell vehicle stocks reach 12.5 million and 1 million by 2050, respectively. The resulting annual hydrogen demand is 3.9 billion kg, making hydrogen the dominant transportation fuel. Satisfying such high future demands will require rapid increases in infrastructure investments starting now, but especial... [more]

Different operations make the borehole temperature change and cause periodic stresses, which often cause variations in the stress state of the sheath or damage. In this paper, the effect of temperature on sheath integrity is investigated. First, the mechanical model of sheath is established and analyzed by shakedown theory. Then, compression experiments of well cement at different temperatures are carried out, and the law of mechanical properties with temperature is obtained. Finally, combining the theoretical analysis and mechanical experiments, the results show that (1) when only the temperature inside the sheath cyclically varies, the negative influence of temperature caused by the practical operations can be negligible. (2) When the internal pressure and temperature act together, the effect of temperature on the sheath is reflected in temperature stress and the change of the cement properties. (3) With the increase of temperature difference (∆T), the cohesion of cement decreases wh... [more]

The CSEM method, which is frequently used as a risk-reduction tool in hydrocarbon exploration, is finally moving to a new frontier: reservoir monitoring and surveillance. In the present work, we present a CSEM time-lapse interpretation workflow. One essential aspect of our workflow is the demonstration of the linear relationship between the anomalous transverse resistance, an attribute extracted from CSEM data inversion, and the SoPhiH attribute, which is estimated from fluid-flow simulators. Consequently, it is possible to reliably estimate SoPhiH maps from CSEM time-lapse surveys using such a relationship. We demonstrate our workflow’s effectiveness in the mature Marlim oilfield by simulating the CSEM time-lapse response after 30 and 40 years of seawater injection and detecting the remaining sweet spots in the reservoir. The Marlim reservoirs are analogous to several turbidite reservoirs worldwide, which can also be appraised with the proposed workflow. The prediction of SoPhiH maps... [more]

Nowadays, fuel cells are becoming a real alternative to power several applications, from portable electronic devices to cars, buses, or stationary facilities. Usually, a basic analysis of a fuel cell includes polarization curve test, as this method is excellent to characterize the behavior of a fuel cell as a whole, because it integrates all the different physical process that happens inside in current and voltage signals. On the other hand, it does not provide accurate information of these physical processes as individual. In this research, we relate the results of polarization curve test and EIS (Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy) test through two mathematical expressions. Then, using equivalent electrical circuit elements to model EIS curves, and applying the developed expressions, we correlate the EIS and polarization curve results, allowing us to interpret the physical meaning of these circuit elements and obtain a deeper vision of the internal processes that happen.

Transmission and distribution networks are capital intensive segments of the electricity sector and are generally considered natural monopolies. Due to their non-competitive nature, these are subject to independent regulation to prevent the abuse of monopolistic power and to induce competitive behaviour. Effective economic regulation of the electricity networks has become a key target in most developed economies after the 1980s. In Norway, incentive regulation and efficiency benchmarking were introduced in 1997. In Norway, the electricity grid is divided into three levels, namely, central, regional and distribution networks. In this paper, we study two overlooked aspects when analysing the performance of electricity networks: vertical integration and ownership structure. We use a stochastic frontier analysis approach to analyse the performance of Norwegian electricity distribution utilities for the period 2007−2014. We observe that vertical integration between distribution and regional... [more]

Marginal land is the area remaining in agricultural use, which is not suitable for food production because of its unfavorable ecological, anthropological, and economic conditions. A certain amount of such land exists in mountainous areas. An analysis was undertaken on the example of the Polish Sudeten mountain range of energy use. The study aimed to estimate the biomass potential for the efficient use of agricultural land in mountain areas. The characteristics of the Polish Sudeten Mountains mountain range were characterized using Geographic Information System (GIS) methods. The Polish Sudeten Mountains covers an area of 370,392 ha, 95,341 ha of which is arable land, 35,726 ha of which is class 5 bonitation land with a northern exposure of 19,030 ha and southern exposure of 16,696 ha. Depending on the sowing structure, we can obtain 331,639 tons/year of dry biomass (Miscanthus sacchariflorus on the southern and Helianthus tuberoses on northern exposure). Fertilization levels will signi... [more]

Transient building energy simulations are powerful design tools that are used for the estimation of HVAC demands and internal hygrothermal conditions of buildings. These calculations are commonly performed using a (often dated) typical meteorological year, generated from past weather measurements excluding extreme weather conditions. In this paper the results of multiyear building simulations performed considering coupled Heat and Moisture Transfer (HMT) in building materials are presented. A simple building is simulated in the city of Udine (Italy) using a weather record of 25 years. Performing a multiyear simulation allows to obtain a distribution of results instead of a single number for each variable. The small therm climate change is shown to influence thermal demands and internal conditions with multiyear effects. From this results it is possible to conclude that weather records used as weather files have to be periodically updated and that moisture transfer is relevant in energy... [more]

The major intent of this article was to determine the amount of energy received by two active systems used to convert solar radiation and to estimate their impact on reducing the emission of pollutants. Thermal solar collectors with an area of 51.36 m2 and photovoltaic panels with an area of 50.4 m2 were subject to comparative analysis. It was assumed that either of the two systems could be installed on the roof of an old tenement house located in Poznan (Poland), which is planned for renovation. Computer simulations made with DesignBuilder software were used as a research tool. Two main conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of the year-long operation of both systems in the conditions of a typical meteorological year. Thermal solar collectors can produce 469 kWh of heat from 1 m2 of the device annually, while PV panels can generate 136 kWh of electricity per year from 1 m2 of active area. However, it turned out that the use of photovoltaic systems can contribute to a higher reduct... [more]

Onboard satellite clocks are the basis of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) operation, and their revolution periods are at the level of 2 per day (about 12 h) in the case of the Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites. In this work, the authors analysed the entire BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) space segment (BDS-2 and BDS-3) in terms of the occurrence of periodic, repetitive signals in the clock products, and checked if they coincide with the orbital periods or their multiples. The Lomb-Scargle (L-S) power spectrum was used as a tool to determine the periods present in the BDS clock products, allowing for analyses based on incomplete input data; in this case, the incomplete data were the phase data with jumps and outliers removed. In addition, continuous wavelet transform (CWT) was used to produce a time−frequency representation showing the more complex behaviour of the satellite clock products. As shown in the case of geostationary and geosynchronous inclined orbit sat... [more]

This paper identifies socioeconomic factors that are supposed to impact the investment decision of private households in Germany regarding small-scale solar PV (photovoltaic) systems. In 2022, the last nuclear power plant will phase out and the end of coal-fired power plants is fixed for 2038. Thus, the legislator is mandated to foster the addition of renewable energy capacities to close the gap fossil fuels and nuclear power leaves. Some share of the renewable energies could be from private households that mainly invest in small-scale solar PV systems. To stimulate investments, it is necessary to identify factors that are important for the investment decisions of private households. Within this paper, secondary socioeconomic data for the period from 2009−2018 was compiled. In order to identify the latent variables, a factor analysis was conducted. The results state five factors that are supposed to impact the investment decisions of the prosumer in Germany.

The main objective of this work was to model ground collectors with different parameters and geometries in ANSYS R19.2 and to simulate their operation during the heating season in Slovakia in order to determine their impact on the soil. At the same time, four new geometries in the shape of vertical spirals with diameters of 6, 8 and 10 m were designed and simulated to occupy a smaller area while maintaining performance similar to classical geometries. Due to climate change, heat pumps are becoming an important proxy in the heating of buildings and are an important part of decarbonisation plans; thus, it is essential to adapt them to urban and metropolitan conditions. Ground source heat pumps possess high efficiency but require a lot of space for their collectors. The collector geometries proposed in this work are a combination of horizontal and vertical technologies and are feasible. Only one geometry achieved performance similar to classical geometries: spiral with 10 m diameter. Fact... [more]

With the current concerns about sustainable development and energy consumption in buildings, water pumping systems have become essential for reducing energy consumption. This research aims to develop guidelines for the energy assessment of water pumping systems in multifamily buildings. The methodological procedures are: (i) definition of the efficiencies of electric motors; (ii) definition of pump efficiency levels; (iii) determination of energy consumption; and (iv) construction of the efficiency scale and guidelines for projects and assessments. The results obtained were that centrifugal pumps with 40% efficiency have higher energy consumption, regardless of the efficiency class of the electric motors, showing a 20% increase in electrical energy consumption. Lower efficiencies directly impact the energy efficiency rating of the water pumping system. Thus the 40% efficiency obtained energy efficiency rating “Very Low—VL” for all motor efficiency classes (between IE1 and IE5). At 60%... [more]

The use of phase change materials (PCM) for thermal energy storage (TES) is of great relevance, especially for the exploitation, in various ways, of the major ecological resource offered by solar energy. Unfortunately, the transition to the liquid state of PCM requires complex systems and limits their application. The goal of producing shape-stabilized phase change materials (SSPCM) is mainly pursued with the use of media capable of containing PCM during solid/liquid cycles. In this work, four cheap shape stabilizers were considered: sepiolite, diatomite, palygorskite and zeolite and two molten salts as PCM, for medium (MT) and high temperature (HT). The SSPCM, produced with an energy saving method, showed good stability and thermal storage performances. Diatomite reaches up to 400% wt. of encapsulated PCM, with a shape stabilization coefficient (SSc) of 97.7%. Zeolite exhibits a SSc of 87.3% with 348% wt. of HT-PCM. Sepiolite contains 330% wt. of MT-PCM with an SSc of 82.7. Therefore,... [more]

In recent years, as photovoltaic (PV) power generation has rapidly increased on a global scale, there is a growing need for a highly accurate power generation forecasting model that is easy to implement for a wide range of electric utilities. Against this background, this study proposes a PV power forecasting model based on the generalized additive model (GAM) and compares its forecasting accuracy with four popular machine learning methods: k-nearest neighbor, artificial neural networks, support vector regression, and random forest. The empirical analysis provides an intuitive interpretation of the multidimensional smooth trends estimated by the GAM as tensor product splines and confirms the validity of the proposed modeling structure. The effectiveness of GAM is particularly evident in trend completion for missing data, where it is able to flexibly express the tangled trend structure inherent in time series data, and thus has an advantage not only in interpretability but also in impro... [more]

Biomass is widely used for the production of renewable energy, which calls for an economic evaluation of its generation. The aim of the present work was to review the literature concerning the economic evaluation of the production of perennial crop biomass for energy use. Statistical analysis of the bibliographic data was carried out, as well as an assessment of methods and values of economic indicators of the production of perennial crops for bioenergy. Most of the papers selected for the review were published in the years 2015−2019, which was probably stimulated by the growing interest in sustainable development, particularly after 2015, when the United Nations declared 17 sustainable development goals. The earliest articles concerned the economic analysis of plantations of short rotation coppice; the subsequent ones included the analysis of feedstock production in terms of the net present value and policy. The latest references also investigated transport and sustainability issues.... [more]

This work presents an active thermal management system (TMS) for building a safer module of lithium-ion capacitor (LiC) technology, in which 10 LiCs are connected in series. The proposed TMS is a forced air-cooled TMS (ACTMS) that uses four axial DC 12 V fans: two fans are responsible for blowing the air from the environment into the container while two other fans suck the air from the container to the environment. An experimental investigation is conducted to study the thermal behavior of the module, and numerical simulations are carried out to be validated against the experiments. The main aim of the model development is the optimization of the proposed design. Therefore, the ACTMS has been optimized by investigating the impact of inlet air velocity, inlet and outlet positions, module rotation by 90° towards the airflow direction, gap spacing between neighboring cells, and uneven gap spacing between neighboring cells. The 3D thermal model is accurate, so the validation error between... [more]

DC distribution network faults seriously affect the reliability of system power supply. Therefore, this paper proposes a fault recovery reconfiguration strategy for DC distribution networks, based on hybrid particle swarm optimization. The original particle swarm algorithm is improved by simplifying the distribution network structure, introducing Lévy Flight, and designing an adaptive coding strategy. First, the distribution network structure is equivalently simplified to reduce the problem dimensionality. Further, the generated branch groups are ensured to satisfy the radial constraints based on the adaptive solution strategy. Subsequently, Lévy flight is introduced to achieve intra-group optimality search for each branch group. The method is simulated in several distribution systems and analyzed in comparison with the particle swarm algorithm, genetic algorithm, and cuckoo algorithm. Finally, the results validate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method.

With the rapid progress of socio-economic development and urbanization in China, a wide variety of literature has focused on the phenomenon of energy-consumption disparity, which in turn could be related to numerous fundamental energy dilemmas that China must deal with now or soon, including energy use inefficiency, regional energy shortage, insufficient use of green energy, etc. However, in most cases, only a tendency scenario is discussed, while identifying which factors are more likely to affect the improvement of energy supply/use has not yet been fully explored. Therefore, this paper attempts to explore differences in energy consumption in specific, household-level aspects. Based on the information provided by Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS2015), the Gini coefficient and the Lorentz asymmetry coefficient are used to measure the difference among various categories of energy type and end use within and between different geographical sub-groups. The findings show that: (1) house... [more]