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Efficient Energy Conversion Systems and Renewable Energy Generating Units: Techno-Economic Empowered Sustainability

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2025 | Viewed by 834

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 15773 Athens, Greece
Interests: electric motion drives; renewable energy sources; internet of things; control; automation; management; economics; businesses; micromotors; electromagnetic transport; fast speed trains; engineering education; women in sciences
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

As Guest Editor, I invite you to submit papers to a Special Issue of the journal Sustainability on “Efficient Energy Conversion Systems and Renewable Energy Generating Units: Techno-Economic Empowered Sustainability”.

Energy conversion systems are favored in modern installations by energy industries for their efficiency as energy-saving motors in industrial applications due to their capacity to recover unused or dissipated electrical power and in renewable energy systems for their functionality as generators across a broad spectrum of wind speeds and solar luminosity, in both autonomous and interconnected power systems. Many specialized topics have appeared, such as control techniques, software and hardware, and a wide range of applications with increased technical and economic benefits. The Internet of Things-based control recently created new applications, such as remote monitoring and control in isolated areas and diagnosis and recovery in inaccessible or dangerous environments.

Other challenges include nuclear energy, balancing the system's power generation during variabilities of wind or solar energy, and replacing fossil fuels in thermal power generating units, which impacts energy economics, the costs of energy generated, and the reduction of CO2 emissions. According to sustainability goals, larger shares of renewable energy generation should be reached and integrated into the networks in the near-term years.

From another perspective, there are economic aspects related to technical infrastructures, retrofits of installations, control of energy conversion systems for efficient power supply to the end users, applicability of new specific technologies, and hybrid solutions. The role of sustainability is to ensure access to modern, affordable, reliable, and efficient energy conversion applications.

This Special Issue will focus on novel solutions and research trends dedicated to the sustainability of energy conversion systems, generation, motion, control, storage, recovery, economics, and management. The issue will include new technical developments, as well as economic evaluations.

You are invited to submit original contributions, including, but not limited to, the following keywords.

Prof. Dr. Maria Ioannides
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • energy efficiency for residential and industrial applications
  • energy recovery, harvesting systems
  • high-performance, high-efficiency electric drives
  • renewable energy sources: hydrogen, nuclear, solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, tidal, hybrid systems
  • modeling, simulation, control, multi-objective optimization
  • monitoring, maintenance, diagnostics, fault detection, reliability, safety issues Internet of Things-based control of energy conversion systems, sensors, artificial intelligence in energy conversion systems, smart grid technologies, energy management, energy economics, trading, economic growth economic analysis, policy instruments, economic incentives for energy sustainable transition
  • techno-economic assessment of efficient energy conversion technologies
  • socio-economic impacts, energy access, and poverty alleviation related to renewable energy
  • investments in clean energy infrastructure development
  • energy engineering education for sustainability

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

33 pages, 4373 KiB  
Article
Nuclear–Thermal Power Generation: Multicriteria Optimization of the Economic Sustainability
by Stylianos A. Papazis
Sustainability 2025, 17(11), 4781; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17114781 - 22 May 2025
Viewed by 500
Abstract
As is well known, due to carbon dioxide emissions, the combustion of lignite in power plants creates environmental pollution. In contrast, nuclear fuels do not produce carbon dioxide emissions. This paper investigates the effects of replacing lignite thermal power plants with small modular [...] Read more.
As is well known, due to carbon dioxide emissions, the combustion of lignite in power plants creates environmental pollution. In contrast, nuclear fuels do not produce carbon dioxide emissions. This paper investigates the effects of replacing lignite thermal power plants with small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) of equivalent rated power and related characteristics. In terms of the emissions criterion, nuclear fuels belong to the same category of clean sources as the sun and wind. A second criterion is the economic one and concerns the operating cost of the nuclear–thermal power plant. Based on the economic criterion, although nuclear reactors require a higher initial invested capital, they have lower fuel costs and lower operating costs than lignite plants, which is important due to their long service life. A third criterion is the effect of the operation mode of an SMR, constant or variable, on the cost of energy production. In terms of the operation mode criterion, two cycles were investigated: the production of a constant amount of energy and the production of a variable amount of energy related to fluctuations in the electric load demand or the operation load-following. Using multi-criteria managerial scenarios, the results of the research demonstrate that the final mean minimal cost of energy generated by hybrid thermal units with small nuclear reactors in constant power output operation is lower than the mean minimal cost of the energy generated in the load-following mode by 2.45%. At the same time, the carbon dioxide emissions in the constant power output operation are lower than those produced in the load-following mode by 2.14%. In conclusion, the constant power output operation of an SMR is more sustainable compared to the load-following operation and also is more sustainable compared to generation by lignite thermal power plants. Full article
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