This research presents Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping and development of biomass for combined heat and power (CHP) generation in Nigeria. It includes crop and forest classification, thermodynamic, and exergo-economic analyses using ArcGIS, Engineering Equation Solver, and Microsoft Excel. Syngas generated from biomass residues powered an integrated CHP system combining a gas turbine (GT), dual steam turbine (DST), and a cascade organic Rankine cycle (CORC) plant. The net power output of the integrated system stood at 2911 MW, with a major contribution from the gas turbine cycle (GTC) unit. The system had a total exergy destruction of 6480 MW, mainly in the combustion chamber (2143 MW) and HP-HRSG (1660 MW), and produced 3370.41 MW of heat, with a flue gas exit temperature of 74 °C. The plant’s energy and exergy efficiencies were 87.16% and 50.30%, respectively. The BCHP system showed good economic and environmental performance, with an annualized life cycle cost of USD 93.4 million, unit cost of energy of 0.0076 USD/kWh, and a 7.5-year break-even. The emissions and impact factors align with those of similar existing plants. It demonstrates that biomass residue can significantly support Nigeria’s energy needs and contribute to clean energy goals under the Paris Agreement and UN-SDGs. This work suggests a pathway to tackle energy insecurity, inform policymakers on biomass-to-energy, and serve as a foundation for future techno-economic–environmental assessment of biomass residues across suitable locations in Nigeria.

Performance of a hybrid thermosyphon cooling system using airside economizers for data center free cooling under different climate conditions

This paper investigates the potential for a value chain framework to deliver impact through innovation across the timber manufacturing process. A new and efficient combustion technology that converts timber waste to energy is considered for this study. The framework to estimate the new energy costs and savings derived from the new technology, compared with current supply and demand scenarios, as well as the value generated by waste streams. The opportunity of selling excess energy to the grid or local area has been investigated. Two alternatives of time-varying tariffs and time-varying tariffs with biomass, are used for assessing the costs. According to the numerical results, tariff 3, with 25,000 tonnes of biomass feedstock per year, is the best option for the mill. The price efficiency index is reduced by approximately 40% compared to this option’s usual business. In addition, the investor can save the whole energy bill compared to the current business as usual. The investor could make a profit of $460,401 per year by selling energy to the grid. The annual saving is around six times higher than the savings gained using a time-varying tariff alone. However, this option requires $1,811,635 as annual life cycle cost, with a payback period of ten years. The lowest levelised cost of energy of 0.14 c/kWh is also obtained for this option.

ABSTRACT Dairy farming plays an indispensable role in the socio-economic growth of rural India. But, the modernization and sustainable growth of dairy farming relies critically upon the availability of reliable and affordable renewable electric energy. However, lack of access to electricity is a major challenge that needs to be addressed to encourage sustainable dairy farming. In this direction, the deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in dairy farms has enormous potential to combat the existing critical challenges of fossil fuels and rural energy crises. This investigation assesses the techno-economic viability of PV systems through detailed mathematical modeling and electrical load estimation using the MATLAB simulation environment. The study determines the availability of maximum of solar radiations at each instant, and optimizes the inclined surface to extract maximum solar power. The outcomes of the study reveal that deploying an off-grid PV system consisting of 20 PV modules of 335 Wp, 24 batteries of each 150 Ah, and a 10 kVA inverter meets the average electric load of 9.5 MWh/year for twenty-five years with one-day autonomy. The economic analysis comprised the life-cycle cost (LCC), annualized life-cycle cost (ALCC), and costs of electricity (COE) of the study under reference as US$13050, US$323.1, and US$ 0.02596/kWh, respectively. The study results in saving of 0.285 MT CO2 emissions for the total life span. The resulted stand-alone PV system is both economically and technically viable. The present results reinforce the dispersal of green energy measures for their implementation in rural dairy farms having similar climate conditions in the Indian context.

Enhanced resilience in urban stormwater management through model predictive control and optimal layout schemes under extreme rainfall events

Configuration method for medium-deep ground source heat pump system considering renewable energy consumption and smart grid interaction

Currently, the majority of the Somali population does not have access to a regular source of power. The country does not have a national grid, relying on outdated, costly and inefficient diesel generators. The energy consumption in Somalia is dependent on firewood and charcoal, dependencies that rely on deforestation and desertification, which negatively influence the agricultural sector and also the environment. In this work, the potential of solar power in Somalia is assessed while estimating the cost of solar panels per household. This study aims to assess the cost, ecological and economic efficiency of the off-grid PV home system in residential buildings in Baidoa, Somalia. A stand-alone solar home system of 1.98kW PV capacity with battery backup is designed by using HOMER software. The daily primary load considered is 7.530 kWh, with a peak of the nominal power of 1.60 kW. The results show that renewable energy sources can replace conventional energy sources and that they would be a viable solution for generating electrical energy in residential houses in Baidoa with a reasonable investment. It was also found that the amount of power produced by solar panels is 7,400kWh/year. With an initial investment of $5580, the annualized life cycle cost of the system is $0.483, the payback period of initial investment is 2 years and 7 months period, and the net present cost (NPC) of the project is $18,684.

Economic optimization of exterior wall insulation in Chinese office buildings by coupling artificial neural network and genetic algorithm

Optimization of solar-air source heat pump heating system with phase change heat storage

The optimization and energy efficiency analysis of a multi-tank solar-assisted air source heat pump water heating system

In the present scenario viability of an irrigation pump is of extreme significance to set up it and get the sought after output in a more economic and better way. In this study investigation has been done about the economic viability of solar irrigation pump against the diesel and electric irrigation pump through the life cycle cost analysis. In LCC analysis, capital cost, future maintenance cost and replacement cost are converted to present worth value considering inflation rate and discount rate during its total life cycle. Annualized life cycle cost (ALCC) of solar irrigation pump has been further compared with grid connected electric and diesel irrigation pump. The results revealed that the annualized life cycle cost (ALCC) of solar irrigation pump is lower than grid connected electric and diesel irrigation pump. E.g., The ALCC of solar irrigation pump was estimated at 12383/year and 15435/year for 3 HP and 5 HP pump respectively, which is significantly leave behind electric pumps, which boast ALCC figures of 61641/year and 82371/year for 3 HP and 5 HP pumps. In the same way, when related to diesel irrigation pumps with ALCC values of 85891/year and 136088/year for 3 HP and 5 HP pumps respectively, the economic superiority of solar irrigation pumps becomes abundantly clear. . It has also been observed that the capital cost for solar irrigation pump is higher than grid connected electric and diesel irrigation pump. However, the maintenance cost and replacement cost are lower in case of solar. The comparison shows that the solar irrigation pump was more viable than the connected electric and diesel irrigation pump.

Optimal design of energy-flexible distributed energy systems and the impacts of energy storage specifications under evolving time-of-use tariff in cooling-dominated regions

The main aim of the present study is to investigate the solar energy potential and evaluate the economic viability of a 5kW grid-connected rooftop photovoltaic (PV) system as an electricity generation source in three selected regions (Gaborone, Maun, and Tshabong) in Botswana for the first time. In this study, NASA POWER data were used for evaluating the solar potential in the selected regions. The results showed that the selected locations are suitable for the installation of various scales of PV systems due to the high global horizontal solar radiation. RETScreen Expert software was used to assess the techno-economic feasibility of the proposed systems. The performance of the proposed systems with various PV technologies (mono-crystalline silicon and poly-crystalline silicon) is analyzed. Furthermore, economic and financial indicators such as net present value, annual life cycle savings, payback, benefit-cost ratio, and cost of energy production were calculated. The results indicate that the proposed system is very promising for all the selected locations. Additionally, it was found that the PV projects with poly-Si technology produced a large amount of energy and have a low electricity cost compared to mono-Si technology. The results suggest that grid-connected rooftop PV systems have a significant role in covering the electricity demand and in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, especially in high population density and rural regions. This study provides some useful recommendations for decision-makers regarding the development and deployment of PV energy technology in Botswana.

Performance analysis of solar-assisted-geothermal combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) systems incorporated with a hydrogen generation subsystem

LCC and EL models have been widely used in recent years to determine the decommissioning life of equipment in energy companies, with LCC (life-cycle cost) being the total “lifetime” cost of the equipment from the time it is put into operation until the end of its decommissioning and disposal; the average annual cost of the equipment can be calculated based on the LCC. The overall LCC can be calculated as the average annual LCC, while the EL is the age of the equipment at which its average annual LCC is the lowest. It is believed that the decommissioning of the equipment in the EL year will result in the lowest annual average equipment turnover, thus maximizing the economic benefits of the equipment. Recently, LCC and EL research has been gradually introduced to the energy field, but there remains a lack of research depth. In current practice, energy equipment LCCs are mainly determined by selecting a portion of inventoried equipment to serve as a sample record for all costs incurred. The intent is to derive the economic life of the equipment-year by directly seeking its average annual cost, but this method tends to downplay maintenance, overhaul, and other cost events as “random small probability events”. This method is also incomplete for evaluating the decommissioning life of equipment whose average annual cost strictly decreases year-by-year. In this study, we analyzed the use of 75,220 KV transformers that were put into service by an energy company in 1986 as a case study (costs for this type of equipment were first recorded strictly in terms of LCC in 1986), used Isolated Forest (IF) to screen the outliers of various types of data costs, and then probability-corrected the corrected dataset with a Welbull distribution (Welbull). Then, we employed a stochastic simulation (MC) to calculate the LCC of the equipment and determined its economic lifetime (EL) and compared the results of the stochastic simulation method with those of the traditional method to provide a more reasonable explanation for the “small probability” of cost occurrences. Next, we predicted the average cost of the equipment given a use-period of 38-41-years using AHA, Bi-LSTM, and other comparative algorithms, compared the MAE, MAPE, and RMES indexes, selected the most suitable prediction model, and produced a predicted cost under the chosen method to obtain the economic life of the equipment. Finally, we compared our results with the design life of the equipment (design life being the technical life expectancy of a product based on the expectations of the manufacturer), and determined its best retirement age by comprehensively studying and judging the economic and technical benefits. The retirement age analysis was guided by by a comprehensive study of economic and technical benefits. We refer to our decommissioning life determination model as Monte Carlo -artificial hummingbird algorithm–BiLSTM–lifecycle cost model (MC-AHABi-LCC). We found that the decommissioning life obtained by MC-AHABi-LCC is closer to the actual equipment decommissioning life than that given by standard LCC and EL analysis and that our model is more accurate and scientific.

With the ever-increasing load demand throughout the globe, natural renewable resources integrated into the existing network architecture for sustainable energy production are gaining considerable significance. Photovoltaic (PV) generation systems is one such technique to deal with the worldwide challenge for achieving green energy and low carbon footprint while simultaneously providing emission free electrical power from solar radiations. In this paper, we consider smart grid architecture connecting the end-users and the utility power plant with solar energy sources through an effective power optimization system. Multiple performance criteria associated with solar cell operation are evaluated and analyzed using the simulated annealing algorithm. These objectives considered for optimization include the cell saturation current, photo-generated current, material band gap, cell temperature, annualized life cycle cost, fill factor and cell efficiency. The formulated optimization conditions are specified in terms of two independent variables of cell ambient temperature and cell illumination. Moreover, the adaption of distinct values of short circuit current coefficients on the light originated current is measured. Through extensive simulation experiments, two disparate annealing procedures of fast annealing and Boltzmann annealing are applied coupled with three categories of temperature update schemes, viz. exponential, logarithmic and linear.

Power control strategy and economic analysis using physics-based battery models in standalone wind–battery systems

Integrated operation of PV assisted ground source heat pump and air source heat pump system: Performance analysis and economic optimization

Solar assisted air source heat pump systems for campus water heating in China: Economic optimization of solar fraction design

The development of energy recovery device (ERD) is a decisive factor for the recent prevalence of reverse osmosis (RO) technology in the seawater desalination field. Unlike broadly studied large scale ERDs, the investigations of small scale ERDs are scarcely reported, especially on the performance fluctuations under variable operating conditions. Based on an authors’ exploratory research on a piston type integrated high pressure pump-energy recovery device (HPP-ERD), further performance exploitation of the HPP-ERD is conducted. With a constructed experiment platform, the influences of inlet seawater temperature, inlet seawater salinity, as well as the operating frequency on the performance of the HPP-ERD coupled with seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination system are investigated. The temperature and salinity of the inlet seawater are numerically correlated with the specific energy consumption (SEC) of the HPP-ERD. With the correlated equation, the marine hydrological data of two observatories acquired from a national authoritative database, and the annualized life cycle cost approach incorporated, annual performance assessment is proposed for an SWRO desalination system equipped with the HPP-ERD in the light of energy and economic indices. The study results indicate that the proposed HPP-ERD is competent under various operating conditions for SWRO desalination systems.