Special Issue "Sustainability of Energy Transition Scenarios: Economic, Resource Availability, and Environmental Impacts"

Dear Colleagues,

A multi-disciplinary assessment of potential decarbonization scenarios with large penetration of variable renewable electricity (VRE) and energy storage systems (ESS) is essential due to the ongoing energy transition we have been experiencing worldwide.

In addition to the sustainability analysis of each electricity technology, it is also especially important to assess the impacts of the electricity grids intended as a whole, both from static and dynamic perspectives. It is crucial to take into account the material-, water-, and energy-constraints as well as the tecno-economic impacts to provide useful indications to the R&D community and policy makers.

From an environmental and energy perspective, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Net Energy Analysis (NEA) are useful scientific methodologies, which can provide holistic pictures of the total environmental footprint and their associated impacts to our society. In particular, LCA allows the quantification of the "cradle to grave" potential impacts in terms of carbon emissions, cumulative energy demand, resource availability and other environmental and toxicity impacts; while NEA offers the evaluation Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROI) of conventional and renewable technologies.

This Special Issue will cover sustainability assessments—including the energy, environmental, and economic dimensions—of potential scenarios with large deployment of renewables and energy storage systems, taking into account the resource availability, material flow analysis, recycling, evaluation of macro energy scenarios, energy return on energy investment (EROI), and techno-economic implications.

Dr. Enrica Leccisi
Prof. Dr. Vasilis Fthenakis
Dr. Marco Raugei
Guest Editors

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 papers will be 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 1900 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.

• Energy Transition
• Future scenarios
• Life Cycle Analysis
• Net Energy Analysis
• Carbon Emissions
• Cumulative Energy Demand
• Energy Return on Investment
• Energy Pay Back Time
• Net Energy Analysis
• Energy Environmental Impacts
• Resource Availability
• Resource Recovery
• Material Flow Analysis
• Macro Energy System
• Renewable Energy
• Energy Efficiency
• Energy Storage
• Lithium ion battery
• Electricity grid transmission and distribution
• Photovoltaics
• Natural gas as a transition fuel
• Solar Thermal Systems
• Wind Energy