Multi-time scale prediction and bilinear benders decomposition-based optimal dispatch for PIEHS with virtual energy storage

Recycling waste materials as eco-friendly cement substitutes to reduce CO2 emissions and energy use, lower costs, and protect natural resources used in cement production is crucial. This study evaluates the effects of shea nutshell ash (SNA) and ground Oyster seashell (GOS) on the compressive strength and sustainability of ternary blended concrete (TBC). Shea nutshells and Oyster seashells were repurposed at controlled conditions, generating SNA and GOS. A 5-15% of both SNA and GOS was used as partial weight replacement for cement. The concrete mixes were designed with grades 25 and 30MPa, and the compressive strength of the concrete samples was tested after 28days of curing. The embodied energy (EE), global warming potential (GWP), sustainability score, and eco-strength efficiency of TBC samples were evaluated under cradle-to-gate constraints. The results indicated that the compressive strength met the design strengths at 5-10 wt% SNA and GOS replacement levels after 28 curing ages. Compared to the control samples, EE and GWP decreased by 8-30% and 10-29%, respectively, with increasing SNA and GOS dosages at 5-15 wt% substitutions. At 5-10 wt% replacement levels, the sustainability score, and eco-strength efficiency of TBC samples increased by 3-12% and 3-5%, respectively, compared to conventional samples. Ultimately, incorporating 10 wt% SNA and 10 wt% GOS in TBC production meets the required compressive strength, and is environmentally sustainable, facilitating sustainable concrete production and the circular economy.

Valorization of coal gasification slag via Fischer-Tropsch tail gas driven calcination: hydration mechanisms, life cycle sustainability and heavy metal leaching assessment of composite cement.

The growing demand for sustainable construction materials has led to increased research on alternative binders that reduce environmental impact. This study investigates the development and performance of one-part alkali-activated concrete (OPAA) incorporating pulverized rice husk ash (PRHA), ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS), and high-chloride contaminated recycled coarse and fine aggregates (RCA, RFA). Using anhydrous sodium metasilicate (ASMS) as the activator, the research focuses on optimizing mechanical and durability properties through statistical analysis of variance (ANOVA). Experimental results demonstrate compressive strengths ranging from 52 to 67 MPa, flexural strengths between 4.13 and 5.25 MPa, and split tensile strengths of 3.19 MPa. The modulus of elasticity (MOE) achieved values between 30.91 and 31.83 GPa, with water absorption rates varying from 0.57% to 2.97%. Durability assessments, including sorptivity, high-temperature resistance, and microstructural analysis using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), confirmed the formation of dense C─ A─ S─ H and N─ A─ S─ H gels, contributing to enhanced mechanical strength and durability. Additionally, thermal stability tests demonstrated that OPAA concrete retains significant compressive strength even after exposure to 600°C, making it suitable for fire-resistant applications. Overall, this study provides a scalable and sustainable solution for reducing the carbon footprint of the construction industry while enhancing material performance. The findings support the adoption of alkali-activated concrete as a viable alternative to ordinary portland cement (OPC)-based concrete, contributing to the advancement of green building practices and sustainable infrastructure development. From a sustainability perspective, the study highlights the significant reduction in embodied energy (EE) and embodied carbon dioxide emissions (ECO2e) compared to OPC.

Building energy consumption constitutes a significant portion of global final energy use, with elevator systems representing a major and growing load in high-rise buildings. Traditional methods for handling elevator regenerative braking energy, such as resistor-based dissipation, are inefficient. Meanwhile, the air conditioning system in the elevator car, a movable flexible load, has not been fully utilized for energy regulation. This study proposes an innovative Digital Twin (DT)-driven Virtual Energy Storage (VES) architecture specifically for the mobile elevator car air conditioning (AC) system. A high-fidelity DT simulation model is developed, integrating real-time elevator dynamics and car thermodynamics to model the thermal inertia of the car as a VES unit. A Model Predictive Control (MPC) coordination strategy, incorporating feedforward prediction of braking energy and feedback regulation, is designed to proactively schedule air conditioning power. Simulation results based on a 30-story high-rise building demonstrate that the proposed system effectively limits DC bus voltage fluctuations to within ±3.4%, reduces grid-side power consumption of the car AC by 17.2%, and lowers the required supercapacitor (SC) capacity by 25% compared to a conventional recovery approach. Over a 24-h operational period, the system achieves an overall electricity savings rate of 69.23% while maintaining the car temperature within the comfort range of 23–27°C with a 96.7% compliance rate. This research provides a novel paradigm for the collaborative optimization of heterogeneous energy units in dynamic built environments, showcasing the significant potential of DT-VES integration for enhancing energy efficiency and system stability.

ABSTRACT Increased construction activity has resulted in depletion of natural resources, generation of construction and demolition waste (CDW) and surge in energy consumption and carbon emissions. Conventional building materials such as masonry units are brittle and energy intensive, necessitating sustainable alternatives. Stabilized adobe block (SAB), compressed earth blocks, and rammed earth are a few such alternatives to conventional masonry unit. However, challenges such as brittle behavior and production uniformity due to manual mixing and kneading persist. To address these issues, this study aims to develop CDW based controlled flow stabilized adobe (FSAB) incorporating coir (CF) and polypropylene (PF) fibers. Results reveal physical, absorption, and mechanical properties of fiber reinforced FSAB were more than the limiting values recommended by Indian standard code of practice. An optimum fiber dosage of 0.33% significantly enhanced the secant modulus by 1.26 to 2.76 times that of unreinforced FSAB. Sustainability analysis indicates embodied energy (EE) and embodied carbon (EC) of fiber reinforced FSAB are in the range of 4.75 to 7.76 MJ/block and 0.992 to 1.074 kgCO2e/block respectively. This research promotes sustainable construction practices by providing an innovative, and resource-conserving masonry unit that addresses environmental and mechanical limitations of conventional masonry units.

The construction sector generates substantial environmental impacts and contributes significantly to plastic waste accumulation.This study quantifies the mechanical and environmental effects of partially replacing fine aggregate in mortar with granulated polyethylene terephthalate (PET) at 0%, 5%, 10%, and 15% by weight of fine aggregate.Mortar performance was evaluated for compressive strength at 7 and 28 days, while environmental impacts were assessed via life-cycle indicators: embodied carbon (EC), embodied energy (EE), abiotic depletion potential (ADP), and ecostrength efficiency (ESE).At 5% PET substitution, 28-day compressive strength increased by 9.73% relative to plain mortar.Density decreased by 2.55%, and ADP decreased by 2.15%, indicating a measurable reduction in mineral resource depletion.Increasing PET substitution to 10% and 15% reduced compressive strength by 2.89-16.59%and eco-strength efficiency by 39.10-54.91%,while embodied carbon increased by 59.47-84.98%,and embodied energy increased by 55.40-79.16%demonstrating that higher PET content elevates energy and carbon burdens.Workability changes were minor 4.55-11.11%and did not significantly affect environmental outcomes.These results provide quantified evidence of the trade-off between mechanical performance and environmental impacts in PET-modified mortar.The optimal substitution level for balancing compressive strength enhancement with reduced resource depletion is 5%, as higher levels lead to increased embodied impacts despite lower mineral extraction.

Risk-aware modeling of active distribution grids for sustainable solar hosting and congestion relief with virtual multi energy assets and demand flexibility

ABSTRACT Harnessing parity–time symmetry with balanced gain and loss profiles has created a variety of opportunities in an electronic system from wireless energy transfer to telemetry sensing and topological defect engineering. However, it is difficult to capture the ‐symmetry phase transition in an electronic system due to the limitation of probing the virtual energy spectrum. Here, we proposed a scheme to probe the ‐symmetry phase transition in an Non‐Hermitian (NH) Su–Schrieffer–Heeger (SSH) electronic chain coupled to a cavity. We show that, when ‐symmetry is broken, the cavity ground state is a Squeezed Displaced Schrödinger cat (SDSc) state, which immediately disappears when the symmetry recovers. Thus, our proposal provides a platform for capturing ‐symmetry phase transition based on cavity ground state. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the generation of the SDSc state in our scheme is related to spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism. Besides, we exploit the cavity ground state to estimate the phase in the optical interferometer, and show that the quantum Fisher information and nonclassicality will sharply decline when symmetry recovers. This suggests that the phase estimation is preferably performed in the broken PT‐symmetry phase near the exceptional‐points. Our proposal offers a scheme not only to manipulate but also to probe the properties of electronic materials based on quantum Floquet engineering, and improve the utilization of cavity ground states in quantum metrology.

The increasing penetration of intermittent renewable energy demands innovative solutions to maintain grid stability, resilience, and security in the body of smart cities. This paper presents a novel framework that redefines Bitcoin mining as a form of virtual energy storage, a flexible and controllable load capable of delivering large-scale demand response services, positioning it as a competitive alternative to traditional energy storage systems, including electrical, mechanical, thermal, chemical, and electrochemical storage solutions. By strategically aligning mining activities with grid conditions, Bitcoin mining can absorb excess electricity during periods of oversupply, converting it into digital assets, and reduce operations during times of scarcity, effectively emulating the behavior of conventional energy storage systems without the associated capital expenditures and material requirements. Beyond its operational flexibility, this paper explores the cyber–physical benefits of integrating Bitcoin mining into the power transmission systems as a defensive mechanism against false data injection (FDI) cyberattacks in smart city infrastructure. To achieve this goal, a decentralized and adaptive control strategy is proposed, in which mining loads dynamically adjust based on authenticated grid-state information, thereby improving system observability and hindering adversarial efforts to disrupt state estimation. In addition, to handle the proposed approach, this paper introduces a high-performance algorithm, a combination of quantum-augmented particle swarm optimization and wavelet-oriented whale optimization (QAPSO-WOWO). Simulation results confirm that strategic deployment of mining loads improves grid sustainability by utilizing curtailed renewables, enhances resilience by mitigating load-generation imbalances, and bolsters cybersecurity by reducing the impacts of FDI attacks. This work lays the foundation for a transdisciplinary paradigm shift, positioning Bitcoin mining not as a passive energy consumer but as an active participant in securing and stabilizing the future power grid in smart cities.

Abstract—The rapid integration of renewable energy sources into residential power systems has increased the need for efficient, decentralized energy management solutions. Peer-to-peer energy trading has emerged as a promising approach to enable house- holds to exchange surplus renewable energy directly, reducing de- pendency on centralized grids and improving energy utilization. This literature survey reviews existing research on peer-to-peer energy markets, blockchain-based energy trading frameworks, smart contracts, and decentralized grid architectures. It also examines the role of artificial intelligence in forecasting energy generation and consumption to enhance trading efficiency and grid stability. Additionally, the survey analyzes simulation-based approaches used to model virtual energy communities for evalu- ating system performance and scalability. The review highlights key challenges such as interoperability, real-time coordination, pricing mechanisms, and security, while identifying research gaps that motivate the development of an integrated virtual peer-to- peer renewable energy trading and simulation system. Index Terms—Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading, Blockchain, Re- newable Energy, AI Forecasting, Smart Grid Simulation, Smart Meter, Decentralized Energy Systems

Artificial neural network control of virtual inertia-based energy storage for frequency regulation in multi-microgrid considering communication delay

Considering the Nash bargaining operation optimization strategy for demand-side global contribution of virtual energy storage in the commercial park

Optimization scheduling of electric vehicles virtual energy storage participating in grid peak shaving based on spatiotemporal feature fusions

Interactive scheduling for climate-neutral sustainable cities via carbon capture-enabled virtual energy communities considering digital-social welfare and joint certificate trading

<p>The principle of the embodied energy (EE) has drawn more recognition from various professionals within the construction industry. This is in line with the sustainable development goal (SDG), towards minimisation of environmental impacts and global warming effect caused by construction activities. However, in support of sustainable construction objectives and the reduction of embodied energy (EE) impacts, this study examines EE minimisation techniques in the Nigerian construction industry. This paradigm is important in light of the continuous efforts towards a drastic shift by professionals for less embodied energy structures. This prompts the identification of numerous EE minimisation techniques from literature from four categories consisting of design, material management, manufacturing and policy makers considerations. Subsequently, a mixed method approach consisting of 105 questionnaire survey and three (3) expert opinion survey was conducted to gather insight from the Nigerian construction processionals. A multi criteria decision technique using the provided initial weights, the VIKOR method was implemented to determine the priority ranking of the alternatives. The findings indicate that design for deconstruction and selecting low embodied energy material are the most significant design factors towards achieving building with low embodied energy. The material management factors are: using energy efficient material, substitution for bio-based material and distance in transporting material. The study contributes to sustainable construction by providing a structured framework for prioritizing EE reduction strategies in developing country contexts.</p>

Abstract The building sector is responsible for 39% of GHG emissions resulting from the world energy consumption and for 25% of the residues worldwide, thus, any effort in tackling its environmental impact is important for climate change adaptation. Wood offers more sustainable building materials, and unlike reinforced concrete (RC) or steel, wood production and use require less energy and release less CO 2 . This research analyzes the environmental benefits of Glulam (Glue-laminated timber) and wooden materials for residential construction in Indonesia, studying three building scenarios: a conventional study case (RC), a “hybrid” scenario, and a “wooden” scenario. Building Information Modeling (BIM) was used to calculate the bill of quantities (BoQ), then, embodied energy (EE) and embodied CO 2 (ECO 2 ) emissions among the three scenarios were compared, using a hybrid-based input-output (I-O) analysis utilizing the latest available national level Indonesian I-O 2024, and data from an Indonesian Glulam manufacturer. This study found an EE & ECO 2 decrease of around 16% in the hybrid scenario, and 31% in the wooden scenario, when compared with conventional construction. Using Glulam and wooden materials contributed to foundation material optimization and the best alternative for biogenic carbon storage was domestic species, which stored more carbon than imported alternatives.

Agricultural irrigation sustains food production and climate adaptation but intensifies energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Incorporating irrigation into the power grid's demand-side response presents a promising yet underexplored opportunity for achieving energy and carbon co-benefits during the global energy transition. We develop the Irrigation Scheduling Optimization Model within the grain-water-energy-carbon nexus to align irrigation schedules with renewable-energy intermittency. Using China as a case study, we demonstrate that fine-tuning irrigation schedules reduces emissions by 11.1%-25.8% under current low-renewable penetrated grids and by 16.5%-56.9% as renewables penetration increases, by using up to 92.3% of otherwise curtailed renewable power. A combined strategy of energy transition, irrigation optimization and diesel-to-electricity electrification could achieve ~42.1 MtCO2e (92.2%) of greenhouse gas savings by the 2050s, approaching net zero emissions. Efficacy peaks when local renewable shares reach 65%-70%, highlighting crucial spatiotemporal windows. Our study positions agricultural irrigation as a nature-integrated form of virtual energy storage, offering a pathway to enhance grid resilience and support low-carbon climate adaptation.

The intermittent nature of renewable energy resources (RES) poses significant challenges in distributed energy networks. Hence, this study presents a dynamic load scheduling strategy primarily for smart buildings to deplete peak demand and enhance renewable energy utilization. The thermostatically controllable loads, such as refrigerators, are modelled analogously to electro-chemical batteries by exploiting their thermal storage capacity, thereby enabling flexible demand response in a virtual energy storage system (VESS) framework. The LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) model predicts solar power outputs, addressing the variability and uncertainty inherent in renewable energy sources. These predictions are integrated with real-time thermal storage states to schedule controllable loads dynamically within a demand response framework. Thus, prediction capability is crucial, as both the thermal energy storage capacity of controllable loads and the availability of solar power are variable and can significantly impact energy management. The results demonstrate significant reductions up to 57.14% in grid energy consumption, 42.86% cost savings, and mitigation of generation-load imbalances, underlining the efficacy of integrating advanced predictive analytics and smart storage solutions in smart grid applications.

A life cycle carbon assessment of reinforced concrete buildings involves evaluating the carbon emissions related with the entire life cycle of the building. The assessment aims to create model of two-storey residential buildings with optimized structural design alternatives using Esteem software. It also seeks to compute the embodied energy (EE) and embodied carbon (EC) emissions for the building and reduce them by using optimized structural solutions in a real building scenario. Esteem software is used to create a life cycle carbon assessment of reinforced concrete buildings. The assessment aims to create a 2-D model of two-storey residential buildings with optimized structural design alternatives, calculating embodied energy (EE) and embodied carbon (EC) emissions. Esteem Software's material take-off features were used to calculate EC emissions and EE of building parts. Two models were developed by using concrete grade 35, aluminium for formwork, steel, and clay for the roof, and the other using steel, concrete grade 30, plywood, and metal for the roof. The bill of quantity generated by Esteem software and manual estimation of clay and metal roofs were used in the study. The results showed that building 1 had more EE and EC emissions, while building 2 had less. Building 2 had 73% less total EE and produced 64% less EC than building 1, suggesting that replacing grade concrete, formwork, and roof type can reduce EE and EC emissions.