Search Results (5,810)

This study addresses the role of solar energy technologies in supporting sustainable and low-carbon residential energy systems through a comparative assessment of selected system configurations for a single-family house located in Lublin, Poland: photovoltaic–thermal (PVT) collectors, a hybrid system combining photovoltaic (PV) panels and solar thermal (ST) collectors, and a standalone PV installation. The analysis was carried out under the primary assumption of limited rooftop area available for renewable energy systems. The operational performance of each configuration was simulated using POLYSUN v. 2025.1 software, while the environmental impacts over a 25-year lifetime were evaluated using life cycle assessment (LCA) in SimaPro v. 10.3.0.1, including IPCC 2021 Global Warming Potential (GWP100) and ReCiPe 2016 Endpoint indicators. The results indicate that the PV + ST configuration achieved the best energy and environmental performance, providing the highest solar contribution (57.8%), the lowest total energy consumption (5136 kWh/year), and the lowest environmental impacts in both impact assessment methods (64.3 tCO₂ eq. and 3487 Pt). Under the adopted design assumptions, the PVT system exhibited intermediate overall performance between the PV + ST and standalone PV systems. The study demonstrates that combining energy performance analysis with LCA provides a more comprehensive basis for selecting sustainable solar technologies for low-carbon residential buildings than energy indicators alone. Full article

The cold chain sector is responsible for approximately 4% of global GHG–greenhouse gas emissions. Its passive thermal packaging, which has historically been dominated by expanded polystyrene (EPS), is both a crucial functional component and a significant environmental liability. Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste (PPWR), along with the Single-Use Plastics Directive, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, and the Digital Product Passport, creates cumulative regulatory pressure on EPS and opens the market to alternative passive solutions. This systematic literature review, conducted according to the PRISMA 2020 protocol, addresses three research questions regarding the maturity of EPS alternatives such as phase change materials, vacuum insulated panels, mycelium composites, moulded pulp, dry-moulded fibre, and reusable pooled systems. It examines the cumulative effects of the EU regulatory framework and the systemic interventions needed for a circular transition, interpreted through the ten-R hierarchy. The review introduces the Cold Chain Packaging Circular Transition Framework (CCP-CTF), which is articulated across four dimensions and implemented as a composite indicator across five transition regimes, in addition to a residual EPS scenario. This framework is visualised as a Cold Chain Sustainability Thermometer—a calibrated assessment tool for researchers, policymakers, and industry operators navigating the 2026–2040 PPWR implementation timeline. The review identifies key knowledge gaps, including limited integration of decarbonisation accounting at the packaging-logistics interface, fragmentation of Extended Producer Responsibility schemes in the pharmaceutical sector, and the lack of harmonised eco-modulation criteria for cold chain packaging at the European Union level. Full article

Urban CO₂ marginal abatement costs (MACs) provide important information for designing sustainable low-carbon transition strategies, but their interpretation may be affected by reference technology choices and identification uncertainty. Using 5004 city-year observations from 278 Chinese prefecture-level cities over 2006–2023, this study applies a Global non-radial directional distance function to compare National and four-region Group reference technologies under identical baseline settings. At each fixed frontier projection, we characterize the complete admissible range of supporting shadow prices rather than select a single dual solution and assess sensitivity across seven prespecified modeling dimensions. Under the National benchmark, 87.31% of observations are bounded-set identified. National and Group identified sets overlap in 74.34% of city-years, indicating that strict benchmark ordering is uncommon. Across baseline–alternative comparisons, identification status changes in 9.87% of cases, whereas National–Group direction reversals occur in 0.84%; temporal technology generates the largest identification response (25.92%). Baseline numerical diagnostics show successful primal–dual solutions, unique projections, and no nesting violations. The results support more transparent sustainability-oriented assessments of urban decarbonization by reporting MACs together with identification status, benchmark choice, and specification sensitivity rather than as unconditional scalar values. Full article

Improving energy efficiency and renewable-energy hosting capacity in distribution networks is essential for sustainable power-system development. Conventional networks face power losses, voltage deviations, thermal stress, and limited flexibility to accommodate increasing renewable penetration. Accordingly, optimal placement and sizing of photovoltaic-based distributed generation (PV-DG) has become an effective approach for enhancing network performance. This study applies the Grey Wolf Optimiser (GWO) to PV-DG allocation considering three objectives: minimisation of active power loss and total voltage deviation, and maximisation of the voltage stability index. To mitigate the premature convergence of standard GWO, Opposition-Based Learning (OBL) is integrated to enhance exploration through opposite candidate solutions. The proposed OBL-GWO framework is evaluated on the IEEE 33-bus system under three PV-DG penetration scenarios using five-year irradiance and load data from Riyadh, including seasonal uncertainty and long-term load growth. Compared with standard GWO, it achieves average additional gains of 11.24, 10.0, 6.79, and 2.74 percentage points in power-loss reduction, TVD reduction, VSI improvement, and minimum-bus-voltage improvement, respectively. Sensitivity analysis confirms limited dependence on moderate changes in objective weights. A persistent cloudy-week case demonstrates robust performance against GWO, PSO, and GA under adverse irradiance. Scalability tests on IEEE 69- and 118-bus systems confirm that OBL-GWO retains its solution-quality and convergence advantages on larger networks. Full article

Biogas-to-hydrogen pathways can support sustainable hydrogen refueling stations through on-site hydrogen production from renewable biogas. This study presents a techno-economic assessment of two on-grid biogas-to-hydrogen configurations based on steam and autothermal reforming, considering three station capacities of 200, 500, and 1000 kg H₂/day. Technical models were integrated with an economic model to assess the effects of plant scale and economic conditions on overall performance. The technical results show that the overall specific energy consumption is approximately 63.7 kWh/kg H₂ for autothermal reforming, compared with 80.0 kWh/kg H₂ for steam reforming. The dispensed levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) decreases with increasing station capacity, from 10.61 to 8.06 €/kg H₂ for steam reforming and from 11.28 to 8.08 €/kg H₂ for autothermal reforming. At the assumed hydrogen selling price of 10.66 €/kg H₂, economic performance improves with increasing station capacity. Under baseline conditions, steam reforming is more competitive at 200 and 500 kg H₂/day, whereas the two configurations become nearly equivalent at 1000 kg H₂/day. Sensitivity analyses show that BtH_SR is more competitive below biogas prices of approximately 0.058 and 0.042 €/kWh for the 500 and 1000 kg H₂/day stations, respectively, while BtH_ATR is favored above these thresholds. Higher electricity prices favor BtH_SR, with the 1000 kg H₂/day configurations becoming nearly equivalent at approximately 0.138 €/kWh. The nominal interest rate has the strongest effect on economic feasibility, with all investigated configurations becoming unfeasible above a value of 13.3%. Full article

Wind farm layout optimization (WFLO) requires balancing energy production against infrastructure requirements while providing decision-makers with a defensible method for selecting Pareto-optimal alternatives. This study proposes a preference-guided NSGA-III framework integrated with the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) for the multiobjective optimization of annual energy production (AEP) and internal road length. Wake interactions are modeled using the Jensen wake model with sum-of-squares superposition, while the internal road network is approximated using a Euclidean minimum spanning tree. Decision-maker preferences are represented through triangular fuzzy pairwise judgments between AEP and road length. The fuzzy priorities are defuzzified and normalized to obtain objective weights, which are used conditionally during partial-front environmental selection and subsequently to rank the final nondominated solutions. The framework was evaluated on a 20-turbine, 2000 m × 2000 m test case using a population of 50, 300 generations, and 30 independent runs per algorithm. Compared with conventional NSGA-III, the proposed NSGA-III FAHP method increased mean hypervolume from 16.5012 to 28.1578. The improvement remained statistically significant after Holm correction ($p=4.617\times {10}^{-7}$) and showed a large effect size (Cliff’s ($\delta =0.809$)). Differences in the ratio of nondominated individuals, uniformity degree, execution time, best AEP, and best road length were not statistically significant. Sensitivity analysis across seven AEP-road preference scenarios showed that balanced and moderately biased weights produced the highest hypervolume, while AEP remained stable between 84.904 and 84.948 GWh. These results indicate that the proposed framework primarily improves objective-space coverage and provides an explicit mechanism for incorporating uncertain preference information into WFLO. Full article

In photovoltaic-based hybrid energy storage systems (PV–HESS), rapid power transients accelerate battery degradation, directly reducing the operating lifetime and sustainability of renewable power resources. To address this issue, the current study proposes an optimal coordinated framework for the simultaneous and coordinated tuning of battery and supercapacitor current-loop proportional–integral (PI) controllers. The proposed framework treats the four PI gains of the battery and supercapacitor controllers as a unified optimization problem, applying five metaheuristic algorithms: Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Gazelle Optimization Algorithm (GOA), Artificial Protozoa Optimizer (APO), and White Shark Optimization (WSO). The optimization problem is directly coupled with a full nonlinear MATLAB 2022b/Simulink PV–HESS model, capturing the dynamic interactions among the PV array, bidirectional converters, DC-link capacitor, storage units, and load. A combined Integral of Time-weighted Absolute Error (ITAE) objective function is used to minimize current tracking errors, ensuring the supercapacitor absorbs fast power fluctuations while shielding the battery from high-frequency thermal and electrical stress. The controllers are evaluated across four operating scenarios involving steady irradiance shifts, rapid irradiance fluctuations, load disturbances, and a simultaneous irradiance drop from 1000 W/m² to 400 W/m² with a 33% load increase. The results confirm stable DC-link regulation and effective power sharing. Specifically, APO delivers superior performance in the high-stress scenario, GOA minimizes transient-error indices, and GA achieves the lowest DC-link voltage RMSE. These findings demonstrate that coordinated tuning effectively balances high-frequency dynamics, extending battery service life and enhancing the long-term operational sustainability of solar microgrid storage. Full article

Energy efficiency (EE) has emerged as the paramount and cost-effective key strategy for achieving climate and energy objectives. Nonetheless, energy efficiency measures (EEMs) are frequently hindered by various barriers. Barriers, and to a lesser extent drivers, have been thoroughly examined across several contexts and sectors; nevertheless, research on barriers and drivers in Tunisia is still lacking. Thus, in the present paper, we explore the key barriers and drivers affecting industrial energy efficiency in Tunisia using qualitative analysis. Semi-structured interviews were performed with a set of industrial firms. The study included the major external key stakeholders. The findings show that economic barriers resulting from high investment costs, limited access to capital, and a lack of incentives are major impediments to the adoption of energy efficiency measures in Tunisia and that technical, institutional, regulatory, informational, awareness, and behavioral barriers may further stymie investment in these measures. This study’s main drivers are cost reductions, subsidies, management commitment, and awareness campaigns. The results offer Tunisian policymakers a useful resource for understanding the barriers to energy efficiency that exist today and creating new policies to get over them. The findings are also a useful resource for other countries. Full article

Achieving sustainable industrial transformation under carbon neutrality constraints requires breaking the high-carbon lock-in of the chemical sector through renewable-based production pathways. Green methanol, produced via CO₂ hydrogenation using green hydrogen and captured industrial CO₂, represents a critical technological option for decarbonizing methanol production while enabling circular utilization of industrial carbon emissions. Existing research on green methanol cost generally treats the CO₂ feedstock cost as a uniform national constant, thereby obscuring the economic heterogeneity of different industrial CO₂ sources and their spatial coupling with provincial renewable resource endowments, which limits the granularity of decision support for regionally differentiated green methanol deployment. This study constructs an integrated sustainability assessment framework for green methanol in China, systematically differentiating four typical post-combustion industrial CO₂ source scenarios—steel, cement, coal-fired power and coal–chemical industries. By integrating the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) model, green hydrogen production cost accounting, and provincial-level CO₂ capture cost trajectories, the framework forecasts the provincial green methanol production cost across 29 Chinese provinces from 2030 to 2060. The results show that (1) under the four industrial CO₂ source scenarios, China’s provincial green methanol cost declines persistently between 2030 and 2060, with the coal–chemical source achieving the lowest cost (2032–3434 CNY/t) and the coal-fired power source the highest (2168–3565 CNY/t) in 2060. (2) The spatial pattern shows a stable “low costs in the Three-North region and high costs in southeastern and central China” differentiation, with Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang positioned below 2500 CNY/t in 2060, reflecting the resource–environment coupling mechanism governing sustainable deployment of renewable-based chemical production. (3) Green hydrogen accounts for 76.4–80.9% of total cost while CO₂ capture accounts for 4.1–10.1%, so that inter-provincial cost spread within any scenario is governed almost entirely by green hydrogen cost, whereas the choice of industrial CO₂ source shifts the cost level of a given province. (4) Traditional industrial provinces such as Hebei and Jilin attain near-term cost competitiveness comparable to northwestern resource-rich provinces by combining locally available low-cost CO₂ sources with a favorable renewable generation mix, though this advantage narrows towards 2060. These findings provide scientifically grounded pathways for China’s sustainable chemical industry transition, supporting the coordinated achievement of industrial decarbonization (SDG 9), climate action (SDG 13), and responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), while offering actionable guidance for spatially differentiated sustainable development policies that maximize economic and environmental co-benefits. Full article

Whether energy-supply crises accelerate decarbonisation or reinforce fossil-fuel dependence remains an open empirical question, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This study examines the 2011 collapse of Egyptian natural gas exports to Jordan, caused by repeated attacks on the Arab Gas Pipeline, as a sudden and largely exogenous energy-security shock. Using harmonised annual electricity-generation data from Ember for six MENA and Mediterranean countries from 2000 to 2022, a panel difference-in-differences framework estimated by two-way fixed effects assesses how Jordan’s renewable electricity share evolved relative to a comparison group. The evidence indicates a delayed rather than immediate response. Event-study estimates show little change between 2012 and 2016, followed by a marked divergence reaching approximately 16 percentage points by 2022. The full-period average difference is 4.22 percentage points (95% CI −2.93 to 11.37), while the later divergence persists across leave-one-country-out specifications and when renewable generation is normalised by pre-crisis system size. Fuel concentration changed little, because Jordan replaced a gas-and-oil generation mix with a gas-and-renewables mix, a shift consistent with a compositional improvement in energy security through reduced fossil-fuel import exposure rather than greater diversification. Energy crises may, therefore, open opportunities for renewable transitions, but their realisation appears contingent on institutional capacity. Full article

In this study, an efficient and eco-friendly chitosan/Fe₃O₄/bentonite (Ch-Fe₃O₄-Bent) ternary hybrid adsorbent scaffold is developed for the efficient removal and recovery of Th(IV) from contaminated water, facilitating sustainable environmental remediation. The developed scaffold promotes circular economy principles through the recovery of valuable actinide resources while reducing secondary waste generation and mitigating the environmental impacts associated with radioactive wastewater. The crucial radioactive thorium has drawn a lot of attention, and many substances used in numerous industrial operations are thorium isotopes. This paper describes the synthesis of a chitosan hybrid scaffold for thorium adsorption purposes. Many characterization methods were performed on the fabricated scaffold. Removal of thorium (IV) from aqueous media using a Ch-Fe₃O₄-Bent ternary scaffold was comprehensively investigated through batch experiments under different operational parameters. Thorium adsorption was evaluated as a function of contact time, solution pH, initial thorium concentration, and temperature. The adsorption data were fitted to nonlinear Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin isotherm models to evaluate the material’s thorium removal capacity. Among the isotherm models tested, the Langmuir model provided the best fit for thorium adsorption (R² = 0.88039), while the kinetic data followed the pseudo-second-order model (R² = 0.99322, q_e = 199.61407 mg/g). Based on the nonlinear Langmuir isotherm, the chitosan scaffold composite exhibited a maximum removal capacity (q_max) of 204.80984 mg/g. The thermodynamic feasibility of the adsorption process was evaluated, and the results confirm that the chitosan scaffold serves as a highly effective sorbent for the recovery and adsorption of Th(IV) ions from aquatic environments. Furthermore, this chitosan scaffold can be used to remove radioactive Th(IV) from surface water, seawater, and wastewater generated by nuclear fuel production technologies, mining operations, and laboratories handling radioactive materials. Temperature-dependent studies showed that Th(IV) adsorption occurs spontaneously at room temperature and becomes more favorable at elevated temperatures, indicating an endothermic process. Additionally, the fast adsorption kinetics of Th(IV) onto the chitosan scaffold render it highly attractive for the scale-up of thorium extraction. Overall, the findings highlight the potential of the developed chitosan scaffold as an environmentally sustainable and cost-efficient adsorbent for radioactive wastewater treatment, contributing to cleaner production, efficient resource utilization, environmental conservation, and the advancement of sustainable nuclear technologies. Full article

Hosting capacity (HC) has become a key concept in planning and operating modern distribution networks to sustainably integrate distributed energy resources (DERs), including photovoltaic systems, wind generation, battery energy storage, and electric vehicles. However, the literature shows variation in HC definitions, assessment assumptions, limiting criteria, and reporting practices, complicating cross-study comparison and utility implementation. This paper examines HC from four interconnected perspectives: limiting factors and performance indices, assessment methods, enhancement strategies, and standardization efforts. The review examines the influence of voltage constraints, thermal loading, power quality, protection coordination, network topology, system inertia, regulatory requirements, and load diversity on HC. It compares major assessment approaches, including deterministic, stochastic, time-series, optimization-based, iterative, hybrid, data-driven, and artificial intelligence-based methods, highlighting their strengths, limitations, and suitable applications. The paper also reviews HC enhancement techniques for sustainable network capacity utilization, including network reinforcement, smart inverter control, demand-side flexibility, energy storage, and coordinated multi-layer control. Particular attention is given to emerging HC standardization and the gaps between formal standards and the research frontier, especially in probabilistic, dynamic, and real-time assessment. Overall, HC depends on binding network constraints, operating conditions, assumptions, and controls, while methodological and reporting gaps limit comparability and sustainable DER integration. Full article

With the rapid development of sustainable photovoltaic power generation, energy-storage-coordinated grid-connected photovoltaic systems have been widely adopted to stabilize power output and enhance grid adaptability. Aiming at the low fault tolerance of conventional photovoltaic grid-connected systems under grid voltage swell disturbances, this paper designs a single-stage power management system for grid-connected photovoltaic generation and studies its energy-storage-coordinated high-voltage ride-through (HVRT) technology. The single-stage topology boasts simple structure, low cost and high conversion efficiency, yet faces prominent stability risks under voltage swell faults. The system integrates photovoltaic units, energy storage modules and grid-connected interfaces to implement flexible bidirectional power dispatching. A three-phase AC/DC converter realizes photovoltaic maximum power point tracking (MPPT), and the energy storage module connects to the DC bus via a dual half-bridge (DHB) converter to restrain power fluctuations. Under HVRT faults, the energy storage coordination strategy elevates DC bus voltage to maintain stable grid-tied operation without disconnection. Different from schemes requiring extra hardware or complicated control optimization, the proposed method realizes stable bus voltage regulation and flexible energy scheduling with zero additional hardware cost. Simulations and experiments validate the rationality, feasibility and outstanding fault-ride-through performance of the designed system. Full article

Reliable rooftop photovoltaic planning requires design-stage energy predictions to be verified against actual system performance. The novelty of this study is the integration of a multi-year assessment of agreement with PV*SOL design estimates with an independent assessment of normalized productivity, interannual variability, seasonality, and meteorological effects for several rooftop systems operating under the same regional conditions. PV*SOL, a commercial photovoltaic simulation software used to estimate system energy production during the design stage, was evaluated using three years (2023–2025) of monitored data from three rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems (17.60–75.40 kWp) in Rzeszów, south-eastern Poland. The analysis comprised 108 installation-month observations and included final yield, capacity factor, annual prediction errors, seasonal variability, Pearson correlations, and hierarchical regression. Mean annual final yield ranged from 907.4 to 966.2 kWh/kWp, while annual deviations from PV*SOL design estimates ranged from −0.80% to +7.41%. Monthly final yield was strongly associated with solar irradiation, and the final hierarchical regression model explained 96.4% of its variability. The results indicate that PV*SOL provides a useful annual design reference, but operational monitoring and local benchmark data remain essential for reliable performance assessment. The study supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) by improving the evidence base for rooftop photovoltaic planning and monitoring. Full article

As renewable energy penetration increases, renewable energy curtailment has become a critical challenge in power systems with high shares of solar and wind generation. This study develops a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model for the day-ahead scheduling of battery energy storage systems (ESS) to minimize renewable energy curtailment on Jeju Island, South Korea. Simulation results based on 2024 operational data show that ESS effectively reduces curtailment by shifting surplus renewable energy over time; however, its benefits diminish as storage capacity increases because additional charging is no longer possible once the ESS reaches its capacity limit. Under a scenario in which renewable energy capacity doubles relative to 2024 levels, large-scale ESS deployment alone could not eliminate seasonal curtailment. In contrast, integrating ESS with a 15% increase in electricity demand substantially reduced curtailment, highlighting the critical role of demand growth in absorbing surplus renewable generation. These findings demonstrate that battery storage alone is insufficient for high-renewable island power systems. Instead, an integrated flexibility strategy combining ESS with demand-side management, sector coupling (e.g., Power-to-Gas), and enhanced transmission interconnections is required to maximize renewable energy utilization while maintaining system reliability. Full article