Renewable Schemes Research Articles

Microwave plasma discharges for biomass pretreatment: Degradation of a sodium carboxymethyl cellulose model

Biogas production is an important component of an environmentally benign renewable energy strategy. However, the cost-effectiveness of biogas production from biomass is limited by the presence of polymeric structures, which are recalcitrant to digestion by bacteria. Therefore, pretreatments must often be applied prior to anaerobic fermentation to increase yields of biogas. Many physico-chemical pretreatments have a high energy demand and are generally costly. An alternative could be the ignition of a plasma directly in the biomass substrate. The reactive species that are generated by plasma–liquid interactions, such as hydroxyl radicals and hydrogen peroxides, could contribute significantly to the disintegration of cell walls and the breakage of poorly digestible polymers. With respect to economic, processing, and other potential benefits, a microwave instigated and sustained plasma was investigated. A microwave circuit transmitted 2-kW pulses into a recirculated sodium carboxymethyl cellulose solution, which mimicked the rheological properties of biomass. Each microwave pulse had a duration of 12.5 ms and caused the ignition of a discharge after a vapor bubble had formed. Microwaves were absorbed in the process with an efficiency of ∼97%. Slow-motion imaging showed the development of the discharge. The plasma discharges provoked a decrease in the viscosity, probably caused by the shortening of polymer chains of the cellulose derivative. The decrease in viscosity by itself could reduce processing costs and promotes bacterial activity in actual biomass. The results demonstrate the potential of microwave in-liquid plasma discharges for the pretreatment of biomass.

The Sausapor Declaration: Challenges in promoting good governance to protect customary communities and natural resources in Tambrauw district, West Papua

The Sausapor Declaration has served as a stepping stone towards convening and balancing the dynamics of governmental politics, conservation efforts, the protection of customary communities’ rights, and the sustainable management of natural resources in Tambrauw District. The Declaration supported the establishment of Tambrauw as a Conservation District, while also acknowledging the rights of customary communities in shaping political priorities of the local government, which include: a) stewardship of extensive remaining tropical forests (91.9% forest cover); b) management of protected areas, which represent 77-80% of the total area of the District; c) acknowledging the cultural traditions of five major indigenous groups; and, d) securing the active support of formal institutions for these goals. Two stages have shaped the effort to establish the Conservation District. The first stage involved the period prior to the formal declaration, while the second ecompasses development and implementation of related policies. Establishing local regulations and protecting local communities required extensive lobbying with the provincial and national government, as well as advocacy in various seminars, including both national and international conferences that provided strategic opportunities for securing support for the Conservation District. These steps have been instrumental in gaining legitimacy and public support for relevant conservation policies and for protecting the rights of customary communities. As one example, the review of Tambrauw spatial planning documents (RTRW) led to prioritizing eco-tourism as a leading sector for economic development, along with the creation of an overall agropolitan and renewable energy strategy.

Privatizing the production of settler colonial landscapes: ‘Authenticity’ and imaginative geography in Wadi Al-Salib, Haifa

This article explores how urban settler-colonial landscapes are produced in the neoliberal era. Adopting an anti-colonial approach, the article addresses practices of landscape production through the history of Wadi Al-Salib in Haifa after the driving out of its inhabitants in 1948. A micro geographical study of three Palestinian refugees’ houses, sold by the state to private real estate companies during the last two decades, constitutes the empirical mainstay of the article. Located in Wadi Al-Salib where rapid neoliberal urban renewal schemes hope to raise property values and enact demographic change, these houses are often marketed to upper-class Israeli Jews as “authentic”. Such branding indicates that the privatization of the Palestinian refugees' houses may also signify privatization of the colonial imagination, and a broader shift of the landscape into a collage of marketable images, echoing an ‘aesthetic violence’ that evokes past colonial landscapes. Such references create several hyper-realities in the same place, thus canonizing colonial landscapes’ imaginaries.

Development of balanced indicators system for the strategy of using energy from renewable sources in industrial enterprise

Introduction. Implementation of renewable energy resources on manufacturing enterprises is a big challenge in Ukraine. The Energy Strategy of Ukraine has an ambitious goal to reach 25% of renewable energy in national energy balance. Manufacturing enterprises play important role in realization of this strategy as far as they are the biggest consumers of energy. Obviously they need corresponding tools to implement renewable energy in the production activity. Energy controlling is a theoretical concept and practical instrument for management control in energy sector. Balanced scorecards (BSC) are controlling’s tool and can be used not only for analytical activities, but also for implementation of renewable energy strategy on manufacturing enterprise. The purpose of the paper is formation of balanced scorecard for implementation of renewable energy strategy on manufacturing enterprise. The methodology of research covers theoretical basis of energy efficient production and D. Norton & R. Kaplan’s approach to development of BSC; survey of top managers in energy sectors of industrial enterprises. Results. Energy controlling is a new direction in development of controlling concept that is often called “management control” in the English speaking research area. The paper analyzed its theoretical basis and practical experience with the focus on renewable energy. The BSC is a successful tool for effective implementation of different strategies on enterprise as well as it is often used for analytical work. The paper proposes to use BSC’s for implementation of renewable energy strategy developed both the scheme of strategic initiatives and the template of BSC to achieve the goal of improving the renewable energy efficiency in the production activities of industrial enterprises. Conclusion. Energy controlling has the potential to contribute to improving the economic efficiency of renewable energy systems. Besides, it can make them transparent, profitable and manageable. The corresponding BCS can be developed for every company that is interested in implementation of renewable energy in production activity. The BSC sets strategic goals for promoting and enhancing the efficiency of the renewable energy system and controls the progress along the roadmap towards the strategic goals.

Improving high-pressure water scrubbing through process integration and solvent selection for biogas upgrading

Biogas plays a vital role in many renewable and sustainable energy strategies, where CO2 removal is required to produce biomethane (i.e., biogas upgrading). New ideas and technologies have been proposed to improve the process efficiency of biogas upgrading with liquid absorbents, and ionic liquids have been identified as promising candidates. Meanwhile, there is an urgent need to effectively utilize low-quality waste heat in industry. In this study, two strategies (i.e., waste heat integration and desorption unit modification) were proposed and compared with the original high-pressure water scrubbing; in addition, the effects of the temperatures of the heat source and solvents on the energy usage and cost were further investigated. The results showed that the total cost of the process integrated with waste heat recovery decreased by 6.2% compared with the original high-pressure water scrubbing, and the higher temperature of the waste heat source corresponded to a lower cost. The comparison of different solvents further confirmed that ionic liquid-based solvents were promising, with a potential cost reduction of 24.7%; the properties of the solvent, such as the CO2 absorption capacity, selectivity, and viscosity had significant influences on the total cost, and a new and single index “comparative absorption factor” was proposed to reflect the overall impact of these properties on the cost.

Biomimetic biodegradable Ag@Au nanoparticle-embedded ureteral stent with a constantly renewable contact-killing antimicrobial surface and antibiofilm and extraction-free properties

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) caused by the contamination of the ureteral stent and the pain associated with secondary stent extractions are worldwide problems in the treatment of urinary tract disorders. Here, we reported a biodegradable, long-term antibacterial, and extraction-free ureteral stent with a constantly renewable contact-killing surface and an antibiofilm function achieved by constructing a hyperbranched poly(amide-amine)-capped Ag shell and Au core nanoparticle (Ag@Au NP)-embedded fiber membrane-structured poly(glycolic acid)/poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PGA/PGLA) ureteral stent. The ureteral stent showed fast contact-killing properties, i.e., 5 min for Escherichia coli and 10 min for Staphylococcus aureus, with an inhibition rate higher than 99%. In addition, gradient degradation of PGA/PGLA endowed the stent with a self-cleaning property and long-term antibacterial function by continuous exfoliation of the stent surface, thereby exposing the inner Ag@Au NPs and eliminating adherent bacteria and proteins. Subsequently, in the 16-day in vitro degradation test, the stent showed durable bactericidal activity, less total release of Ag and Au elements (6.7%, ~8 μg), and low cytotoxicity (with a relative growth rate of >80% of L929 cells). In vivo experiments on a farm pig model showed that the stent exhibited a remarkable antibiofilm property and reduced the level of inflammatory and necrotic cells. After seven days of implantation, the stent showed a gradient degradation behavior and maintained structural integrity without the presence of any large fragments in the urinary system according to the B-ultrasonic examination. The as-developed biodegradable and renewable contact-killing antibacterial strategy was efficient in preparing the ureteral stent with antibiofilm and extraction-free properties to treat stent-induced UTI.Statement of significanceThis study presents a customized antibiofilm solution for biodegradable implants. Two particularly important aspects of this work are as follows:(1)The ureteral stent showed functions of bacterial inactivation and removal of dead bacterial debris. It can continuously exfoliate the stent surface, expose internal antibacterial agents, and remove adherent bacteria and proteins. The stent exhibited a remarkable antibiofilm property and reduced the level of inflammatory and necrotic cells after three weeks of implantation.(2)The antibacterial agents were firmly attached to the degrading matrix by hydrogen bonding, thereby resulting in long-term bactericidal activity, low total release of the antibacterial agent (6.7%, ~8 μg), and low cytotoxicity (with a relative growth rate of >80% of L929 cells).

Assessment of renewable energy-based strategies for net-zero energy communities: A planning model using multi-objective goal programming

Planning decentralised community-level hybrid energy systems has emerged as a solution to the various environmental and economic issues associated with conventional centralised energy supply systems. However, the optimal planning of community energy systems is a challenging issue due to the complexities, uncertainties, conflicting objectives, and high computational times in analysis. This study introduces a new multi-objective model based on weighted goal programming and grey pairwise comparison to assess renewable energy-based strategies in the case of net-zero energy communities. The problem was formulated to determine the optimal energy mix based on minimization of life cycle impacts and costs and maximization of renewable contributions and operational energy savings. To this end, binary integer and continues variables were applied on the code developed in a CPLEX environment. A pairwise comparison based on grey numbers was used to find the impacts of the goals in the objective function of the model under uncertainty. In addition to the grey-based weighting scenario, different weighting scenarios were employed to consider the importance of all goals on the system. These weighting scenarios were used to investigate the effects of changing decision priorities on the outcomes and on stakeholder interests at different levels. The developed goal-programming model was applied to the data of a case example and solved based on the weighting scenarios. Results indicated that the model is capable of finding the best possible strategies with the lowest total undesirable deviations from the desired levels of the goals compared to the literature of the decision-making techniques. The integration of maximum renewable energy (RE) supply in the energy mix with the locally available energy resources can deliver considerable benefits in terms of energy supply cost reduction as well as in mitigating life cycle environmental impacts. When environmental goals are prioritized, integrating low emissions RE as much as possible and excluding waste-to-energy technologies makes best sense, while under a pro-economic perspective, solar integration is comparatively discouraged. The findings of the study are expected to assist community developers and other decision makers involved in regional energy planning. The developed method will also be of use for those who are interested in the use of goal programming to solve complex planning issues involving numerous uncertain parameters.

Integrating the Delphi survey into scenario planning for China's renewable energy development strategy towards 2030

Although scenario planning and the Delphi survey are widely used in long-term strategy planning, their combinations have not received enough attention, especially in the improvement of efficacy in scenario planning. The crucial step of scenario planning is the effective identification of the uncertain and most influential drivers and key factors. This paper integrates the Delphi survey into scenario planning. It proposes a four-step analytical procedure of Delphi survey-based scenario planning: identifying the key ingredients from Delphi results, establishing the causal relationships among key ingredients, scenario development, and scenario description. The integrated method has been adopted in the planning practice for the renewable energy development strategy towards 2030 in China. Based on the three uncertain and most influential drivers, “technology development,” “ecological awareness,” and “national energy pricing,” most possibly influencing the renewable energy development towards 2030 in China, a novel three-dimensional scenario analytical framework composed of eight future scenarios is constructed. Considering the possibility in China's practice, five scenarios are selected as possible development scenarios of China's renewable energy towards 2030. This paper develops possible policy choices for each selected scenario.

Urban layers of political rupture: the ‘new’ politics of Addis Ababa’s megaprojects

ABSTRACT From the Derg’s restoration of Meskel Square for its military parades and Meles Zenawi’s Light-Rail Transit (LRT) and condominium social housing projects to Abiy Ahmed’s high-end luxury real estate and urban tourism schemes, megaprojects have collapsed Ethiopia’s political history into an urban bricolage of shifting ideologies and new priorities. At this critical juncture, where questions of political rupture and continuity become salient, this paper examines what we can learn about Ethiopia’s political dynamics through its latest urban megaprojects. Drawing on ‘LaGare’ and ‘Beautifying Sheger’ as case studies, this article argues that there is a new urban aesthetic emerging in Addis Ababa targeting domestic elites, the Ethiopian diaspora and tourists. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Gulf-emulated luxury real estate projects and major riverside renewal schemes are intended to generate revenue through increased land values and urban tourism. At the same time, issues around inclusive consultation with local stakeholders, the lack of coordination with the relevant bureaucracies and the highly centralized decision-making process are reminiscent of the modus operandi of previous Ethiopian regimes. These urban megaprojects are useful analytical lenses to disentangle political rupture from operational continuity.

Free-standing 3D network-like cathode based on biomass-derived N-doped carbon/graphene/g-C3N4 hybrid ultrathin sheets as sulfur host for high-rate Li-S battery

Abstract Derived from low-cost biomass chitin with hierarchical N-involving molecular structures, a novel renewable N-doping carbonaceous host material (denoted as C-NC) for S cathode in Li-S batteries with 3D network-like structures was fabricated via a facile dissolution and carbonization approach. When incorporated with a small amount of graphene (GN) and g-C3N4, the final products of C-NC/GN/g-C3N4 hybrids maintain the 3D interconnected network-like morphology assembled by 2D ultrathin graphene-like sheets. Meanwhile, the hybrids synergize the advantages of the graphene with high conductivity to facilitate fast electron transfer, the g-C3N4 with efficient chemical absorptivity for intermediate polysulfides to inhibit the unfavorable dissolution, as well as the 3D network frameworks of C-NC with high surface area and macro/mesoporous features to offer rapid ion diffusion channels and adequate electrolyte infiltration and mitigate the structural changes of S cathode during cycling. When loading with elemental S, the fabricated S@C-NC/GN/g-C3N4 cathode shows superior high-rate capability and remarkable cycling performance, which maintains a high reversible capacity of ∼1130 mA h g−1 after 500 consecutive electrochemical cycles. This renewable biomass-based cathode construction strategy offers a low-cost promising approach to design high-rate and ultralong-lifespan Li-S batteries.

Research on China’s renewable energy strategic development strategy from the perspective of sustainable development

Under the dual pressure of international energy crisis, global warming and environmental deterioration, the construction and development of sustainable energy system has become the focus of social concern. The alternative use of renewable energy will effectively prevent energy depletion, ecological deterioration and control the pace of global warming. The development of renewable energy strategy will effectively resolve the energy resource tension and meet the energy demand of national economic development. On the basis of discussing the serious problems facing the development of China’s renewable energy strategy, this paper expounds the significance of the promotion of renewable energy strategy to the sustainable development of China, and puts forward some suggestions for the development of renewable energy in China.

Value Proposition of Untapped Wet Wastes: Carboxylic Acid Production through Anaerobic Digestion.

Although traditional anaerobic digestion (AD) process to produce methane-rich biogas from wet waste is deep-rooted, high carbon footprint and its low value as compared with other renewable sources demand advanced strategies to avoid its production. An emerging conversion pathway to arrest methanogenesis for producing value-added fuels and chemicals instead of biogas is sought as a sustainable alternative. This research provides a comprehensive analysis on current technology development, process challenges, applications, and economics for producing high-value short-chain carboxylic acids from AD of wet wastes. We show that (1) the theoretical energy yields of acids equal or exceed biogas, and (2) the cost of these acids is competitive with those produced from chemical markets, making this economically viable for mass production. With global abundance of wet waste feedstocks, this process of short-chain acid production provides a promising alternative to conventional biogas production technology, while achieving waste management and carbon mitigation goals.

Smart energy cities in a 100% renewable energy context

The transition towards renewable energy will operate on different geographical scales. Many of the concrete steps will address the local level; however, these have to align with the broader energy perspective. It is therefore necessary to develop methods that enable cities to assess the compatibility of the local renewable energy strategy to the surrounding national and global energy systems. This paper presents a methodology to design Smart Energy Cities within the context of 100% renewable energy at a national level. Cities and municipalities should act locally with regard to local demands but acknowledge the national and global context when addressing resources, industry and transport. The method is applied to the case of transitioning the municipality of Aalborg to a 100% renewable smart energy system within the context of a Danish and European energy system. The case demonstrates how it is possible to transition to a Smart Energy City that fits within a 100% renewable energy context of Denmark and Europe. The suggested methodology is framed in a way that makes it applicable to other cases globally.

Ta’akhi: Renewable preventive strategies facing maladaptive conditions for basic education

One of the crucial processes during the formation of human character for early childhood is the experience of the first adaptation when the child enters the basic education level. The failure of the adaptive process known as maladaptive in the early moments of exploring a new environment of primary education will have a domino effect on the development of student character. Among the most common predictive effects is the inheritance of bullying that occurs in students while in the educational environment, both at the elementary school level, or even carried up to the next level. Through literature studies and observations that have been made, the authors provide a new strategic perspective that is quite strategic as a preventive solution to this reality. Through the implementation of the Taakhi program which was initiated by SDIT LHI Yogyakarta, the authors sought to describe a solutive reference made from the process of implementing an adaptive succession program for new students at the basic education level. The biggest hope of efforts to develop a renewable perspective on this program is the breaking of the chain of bullying practices since the level of primary education which is the spearhead of the formation of early childhood character formation. SDIT LHI is a private school that declares itself to be a pilot of a prosperous school through various kinds of visionary anti-bullying programs for young children, one of which is known as the ta'akhi program. The results of the study are presented in the form of narrative descriptions based on the results of literature studies, observations, and in-depth interviews with the program developers at SDIT LHI Yogyakarta.

Sustainable and Renewable Energy Strategies in Residential Buildings in Akure, Nigeria

Given the rising demand in building services and high level of energy consumption in buildings, sustainable issues have remained top agenda in developmental discuss. This study examines the level of adoption, barriers and willingness to adopt renewable energy and sustainable building strategies in Nigeria. The mean score ranking technique was employed to rate the relative weight of level of adoption of sustainable strategies considered. Natural lightning, shading devices, locally sourced materials, energy efficient lighting LED and photovoltaic solar panel were the most adopted strategies by professionals. Adoption of renewable and sustainable building strategies was constrained by lack of training, lack of expertise and financial scheme. Willingness to adoption the renewable energy and sustainable building strategies, were most pronounced with respect to renewable energy practices. However, the paper suggests that transition to the use of energy efficient and sustainable building materials as evident in top ranked efficient strategies. Finding contributes to empirical benchmarking for sustainable environment while policy options towards adoption were proffered.

ELSA: efficient long-term secure storage of large datasets (full version) \u2217

An increasing amount of information today is generated, exchanged, and stored digitally. This also includes long-lived and highly sensitive information (e.g., electronic health records, governmental documents) whose integrity and confidentiality must be protected over decades or even centuries. While there is a vast amount of cryptography-based data protection schemes, only few are designed for long-term protection. Recently, Braun et al. (AsiaCCS’17) proposed the first long-term protection scheme that provides renewable integrity protection and information-theoretic confidentiality protection. However, computation and storage costs of their scheme increase significantly with the number of stored data items. As a result, their scheme appears suitable only for protecting databases with a small number of relatively large data items, but unsuitable for databases that hold a large number of relatively small data items (e.g., medical record databases).In this work, we present a solution for efficient long-term integrity and confidentiality protection of large datasets consisting of relatively small data items. First, we construct a renewable vector commitment scheme that is information-theoretically hiding under selective decommitment. We then combine this scheme with renewable timestamps and information-theoretically secure secret sharing. The resulting solution requires only a single timestamp for protecting a dataset while the state of the art requires a number of timestamps linear in the number of data items. Furthermore, we extend the scheme, that supports a single client, to a multi-client setting. Subsequently, we characterize the arising challenges with respect to integrity and confidentiality and discuss how our multi-client scheme tackles them. We implemented our solution and measured its performance in a scenario where 9600 data items are aggregated, stored, protected, and verified over a time span of 80 years. Our measurements show that our new solution completes this evaluation scenario an order of magnitude faster than the state of the art.

Functional Design of the Gradient Carbon Fiber Electrode for Flow Batteries

To promote the universal application of renewable energy has become an important strategy for the energy security and sustainable economic development around the world. The proportion of renewable energy in the overall energy structure is greatly increasing in recent years, however, it is intermittent and unstable for the renewable energy generation, and the direct grid connection of the renewable energy generation will affect the stable operation of the power grid system. Supporting high-efficiency energy storage batteries to ensure the continuity and stability of power generation and power supply is an important way to achieve renewable energy development strategies. Thereinto, flow batteries (FBs) have a broad application prospect and huge market potential due to their safety, easy scale, flexible structure design and environmental friendliness.As the platform of the electrochemical reaction for FBs, the electrode is one of the key materials to determine its performance and cycle life. Currently the widely used electrode material of vanadium flow battery (VFB) is the polyacrylonitrile-based carbon felt (CF), and its low price and high stability make it the first choice of the electrode materials of FBs. However, the relatively lower electrochemical activity and specific surface area, in addition to higher electron resistance and transmission resistance of CF greatly limit the improvement of the battery performance and the reduction of the energy storage cost. For example, the power density of VFB is only 0.6 W cm-2, and its operating cost is about 650 $ kWh-1. In general, the basic requirements for the electrode materials of VFB as follows: i) high fluid permeability; ii) high specific surface area; iii) high electron conductivity; iv) low cost; v) high chemical and electrochemical stability. In order to achieve high electrolyte permeability, the conventional CF often possesses an average fiber diameter of up to 10 μm, resulting in a low electrochemical surface area. Therefore, only thicker electrodes can be used in VFB to ensure the electrochemical reaction interface, but this will result in a substantial increase in the ohmic resistance. In addition, the electrochemical activity of the electrode often depends on the oxygen-containing group on the surface of CF. However, the introduction of the oxygen-containing group also destroys the conductive network of the original graphite fiber simultaneously, thereby causing the loss of electronic conductivity of the electrode. The above several factors are coupled to each other, resulting in a very low power density of VFB.Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of the gradient carbon fiber electrode for FBs.Generally, the electron conductivity of the electrode is much larger than the ion conductivity of the electrolyte, and the ion migration path on the membrane side is short for FBs, so the electrochemical reaction tends to occur at the membrane side, which is often called the reaction zone; meanwhile the ion migration path at the plate side is long, which is not conducive to the reaction, so it is often caller the current collecting area. Thereinto, the former should has higher electrochemical activity, while the latter should possess higher conductivity. Therefore, the carbon fiber electrode for FBs should be constructed according to its specific structure characteristics. Based on this, a gradient carbon fiber electrode is proposed to resolve the contradiction among the conductivity, activity and transmission. Firstly, the fiber density exhibits a gradient distribution in the thickness direction of the electrode, the plate side with higher fiber density is used to reduce the contact resistance, while the membrane side with lower fiber density is used to reduce the mass transfer polarization. In addition, electrolyte will tend to flow through the membrane side due to its lower transmission resistance, which could ensure the supply of the active reactant. Secondly, the nano fibers are also gradiently distributed in the thickness direction of the electrode. The plate side of the electrode is mainly composed of graphite fibers with good conductivity, while the membrane side mainly consists of the composites of graphite fibers/nano fibers with good activity. And such gradient structure could result in an excellent electrochemical activity, a favorable conductivity and a preferable transmission performance simultaneously, successfully resolving the efficient coordination problem of charger transfer, electron conductivity and ion transport in FBs. Acknowledgement: This study was funded by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. T23-601/17-R) and HKUST fund of Nanhai (Grant No.FSNH-18FYTRI01). Figure 1

Effect of Heat Demand on Integration of Urban Large-Scale Renewable Schemes—Case of Helsinki City (60 °N)

Heat demand dominates the final energy use in northern cities. This study examines how changes in heat demand may affect solutions for zero-emission energy systems, energy system flexibility with variable renewable electricity production, and the use of existing energy systems for deep decarbonization. Helsinki city (60 °N) in the year 2050 is used as a case for the analysis. The future district heating demand is estimated considering activity-driven factors such as population increase, raising the ambient temperature, and building energy efficiency improvements. The effect of the heat demand on energy system transition is investigated through two scenarios. The BIO-GAS scenario employs emission-free gas technologies, bio-boilers and heat pumps. The WIND scenario is based on large-scale wind power with power-to-heat conversion, heat pumps, and bio-boilers. The BIO-GAS scenario combined with a low heat demand profile (−12% from 2018 level) yields 16% lower yearly costs compared to a business-as-usual higher heat demand. In the WIND-scenario, improving the lower heat demand in 2050 could save the annual system 6–13% in terms of cost, depending on the scale of wind power.

Energy-efficient renewable scheme for rechargeable sensor networks

Wireless energy transfer (WET) is a promising technology to fundamentally settle energy and lifetime problems in a wireless sensor network (WSN). In this paper, we study the operation of WSN based on WET using a mobile charging vehicle (MCV) and construct a periodic strategy to make the network operational permanently. Our goal is to decrease energy consumption of the entire system while maintaining the network operational forever. Based on the analysis of total energy consumption, we propose an energy-efficient renewable scheme (ERSVC) to achieve energy saving. Compared to previous schemes where the MCV visits and charges all nodes in each cycle, the MCV only needs to visit a portion of nodes in ERSVC. Numerical results show that our scheme can significantly decrease the total energy consumption with no performance loss. It is also validated that ERSVC can maintain the network operational forever with lower complexity than other schemes, making it more practical for real networks.

Development of renewable energy in the GCC region: status and challenges

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to assess the potential of renewable energy as an essential future energy source in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. This paper summarizes the main projects and measures established to start the transition toward renewable energy. The opportunities and challenges for developing renewable energy projects have been discussed to reach a better understanding of the future of renewable energy in the region.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides a literature-based study on the status of the renewable energy sector in the GCC, including potentials, projects, targets and strategies. The opportunities and challenges of the development of renewable energy sources in the GCC region have been discussed based on the literature.FindingsThe paper shows that the GCC countries have begun to adopt a more proactive approach toward renewable energy, while the reorientation of strategies and plans for renewable energy is evolving in these countries. All of the GCC countries focus on solar and wind energies and plan to invest in waste-to-energy (WtE), while only Saudi Arabia is interested in going for geothermal.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the provision of an extensive literature review on the development of renewable energy in the GCC countries. It provides an updated and comprehensive overview of the region’s renewable energy potential and highlights the main renewable energy strategies and targets. This paper targets regional decision-makers as well as multilateral stakeholders to formulate a set of recommendations to promote renewable energy deployment and improve industrial capabilities.