Search Results (587)

In recent years, solar energy has emerged as one of the most advanced renewable energy sources, with its production capacity steadily growing. To maximize output and efficiency, choosing the right configuration for a specific location for these installations is crucial. This study uniquely integrates detailed multi-variant fixed-tilt PV system simulations with comprehensive economic evaluation under temperate climate conditions, addressing site-specific spatial constraints and grid integration considerations that have rarely been combined in previous works. In this paper, an energy and economic efficiency analysis for a photovoltaic power plant, located in central Poland, designed in eight variants (10°, 15°, 20°, 25°, 30° PV module inclination angle for a south orientation and 10°, 20°, 30° for an east–west orientation) for a limited building area of approximately 300,000 m² was conducted. In PVSyst computer simulations, PVGIS-SARAH2 solar radiation data were used together with the most common data for describing the Polish local solar climate, called Typical Meteorological Year data (TMY). The most energy-efficient variants were found to be 20° S and 30° S, configurations with the highest surface production coefficient (249.49 and 272.68 kWh/m²) and unit production efficiency values (1123 and 1132 kWh/kW, respectively). These findings highlight potential efficiency gains of up to approximately 9% in surface production coefficient and financial returns exceeding 450% ROI, demonstrating significant economic benefits. In economic terms, the 15° S variant achieved the highest values of financial parameters, such as the return on investment (ROI) (453.2%), the value of the average annual share of profits in total revenues (56.93%), the shortest expected payback period (8.7 years), the value of the levelized cost of energy production (LCOE) (0.1 EUR/kWh), and one of the lowest costs of building 1 MWp of a photovoltaic farm (664,272.7 EUR/MWp). Among the tested variants of photovoltaic farms with an east–west geographical orientation, the most advantageous choice is the 10° EW arrangement. The results provide valuable insights for policymakers and investors aiming to optimize photovoltaic deployment in temperate climates, supporting the broader transition to renewable energy and alignment with national energy policy goals. Full article

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are considered a good energy source to maintain supply and demand, mitigate intermittency, and ensure grid stability. The primary contribution of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of global energy markets and a critical analysis of BESS’ participation in frequency control ancillary service (FCAS) markets. This review synthesises the current state of knowledge on the evolution of the energy market and the role of battery energy storage systems in providing grid stability, particularly frequency control services, with a focus on their integration into evolving high-renewable-energy-source (RES) market structures. Specifically, solar PV and wind energy are emerging as the main drivers of RES expansion, accounting for approximately 61% of the global market share. A BESS offers greater flexibility in storage capacity, scalability and rapid response capabilities, making it an effective solution to address emerging security risks of the system. Moreover, a BESS is able to provide active power support through power smoothing when coupled with solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind generation. In this paper, we provide an overview of the current status of energy markets, the contribution of battery storage systems to grid stability and flexibility, as well as the challenges that BESS face in evolving electricity markets. Full article

Free-space optical (FSO) communications have emerged as a promising complement to conventional radio-frequency (RF) systems due to their high bandwidth, low interference, and license-free spectrum. Visible-light FSO communication, using laser diodes or LEDs, offers potential for short-range data links, but performance is highly wavelength-dependent under varying atmospheric conditions. This study presents an experimental evaluation of three visible laser diodes at 650 nm (red), 532 nm (green), and 405 nm (violet), focusing on their optical output power, quantum efficiency, and modulation behavior across a range of driving currents and frequencies. A custom laboratory testbed was developed using an Atmega328p microcontroller and a Visual Basic control interface, allowing precise control of current and modulation frequency. A silicon photovoltaic cell was employed as the optical receiver and energy harvester. The results demonstrate that the 650 nm red laser consistently delivers the highest quantum efficiency and optical output, with stable performance across electrical and modulation parameters. These findings support the selection of 650 nm as the most energy-efficient and versatile wavelength for short-range, cost-effective visible-light FSO communication. This work provides experimentally grounded insights to guide wavelength selection in the development of energy-efficient optical wireless systems. Full article

As the global energy transition accelerates, the integration of solar power and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies offers new pathways for sustainable local development. This study examines four Serbian municipalities—Šabac, Sombor, Pirot, and Čačak—to assess how AI-enabled solar power systems can enhance energy resilience, reduce emissions, and support community-level sustainability goals. Using a mixed-method approach combining spatial analysis, predictive modeling, and stakeholder interviews, this research study evaluates the performance and institutional readiness of local governments in terms of implementing intelligent solar infrastructure. Key AI applications included solar potential mapping, demand-side management, and predictive maintenance of photovoltaic (PV) systems. Quantitative results show an improvement >60% in forecasting accuracy, a 64% reduction in system downtime, and a 9.7% increase in energy cost savings. These technical gains were accompanied by positive trends in SDG-aligned indicators, such as improved electricity access and local job creation in the green economy. Despite challenges related to data infrastructure, regulatory gaps, and limited AI literacy, this study finds that institutional coordination and leadership commitment are decisive for successful implementation. The proposed AI–Solar Integration for Local Sustainability (AISILS) framework offers a replicable model for emerging economies. Policy recommendations include investing in foundational digital infrastructure, promoting low-code AI platforms, and aligning AI–solar projects with SDG targets to attract EU and national funding. This study contributes new empirical evidence on the digital–renewable energy nexus in Southeast Europe and underscores the strategic role of AI in accelerating inclusive, data-driven energy transitions at the municipal level. Full article

The global climate crisis has driven unprecedented agreements among nations on carbon mitigation. With China’s commitment to carbon peaking and carbon neutrality targets, the building sector has emerged as a critical focus for emission reduction, particularly because office buildings account for over 30% of building energy consumption. However, a systematic and regionally adaptive low-carbon technology evaluation framework is lacking. To address this gap, this study develops a multidimensional decision-making system to quantify and rank low-carbon technologies for office buildings in Beijing. The method includes four core components: (1) establishing three archetypal models—low-rise (H ≤ 24 m), mid-rise (24 m < H ≤ 50 m), and high-rise (50 m < H ≤ 100 m) office buildings—based on 99 office buildings in Beijing; (2) classifying 19 key technologies into three clusters—Envelope Structure Optimization, Equipment Efficiency Enhancement, and Renewable Energy Utilization—using bibliometric analysis and policy norm screening; (3) developing a four-dimensional evaluation framework encompassing Carbon Reduction Degree (CRD), Economic Viability Degree (EVD), Technical Applicability Degree (TAD), and Carbon Intensity Degree (CID); and (4) conducting a comprehensive quantitative evaluation using the AHP-entropy-TOPSIS algorithm. The results indicate distinct priority patterns across the building types: low-rise buildings prioritize roof-mounted photovoltaic (PV) systems, LED lighting, and thermal-break aluminum frames with low-E double-glazed laminated glass. Mid- and high-rise buildings emphasize integrated PV-LED-T8 lighting solutions and optimized building envelope structures. Ranking analysis further highlights LED lighting, T8 high-efficiency fluorescent lamps, and rooftop PV systems as the top-recommended technologies for Beijing. Additionally, four policy recommendations are proposed to facilitate the large-scale implementation of the program. This study presents a holistic technical integration strategy that simultaneously enhances the technological performance, economic viability, and carbon reduction outcomes of architectural design and renovation. It also establishes a replicable decision-support framework for decarbonizing office and public buildings in cities, thereby supporting China’s “dual carbon” goals and contributing to global carbon mitigation efforts in the building sector. Full article

Urban agriculture (UA) is emerging as a promising strategy for sustainable food production in response to growing environmental pressures. Indoor vertical farming (IVF), combining Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) with Building-Integrated Agriculture (BIA), enables efficient resource use and year-round crop cultivation in urban settings. This study assesses the environmental performance of a prospective IVF system located on a university campus in Portugal, focusing on the integration of photovoltaic (PV) energy as an alternative to the conventional electricity grid (GM). A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was conducted using the Environmental Footprint (EF) method and the LANCA model to account for land use and soil-related impacts. The PV-powered system demonstrated lower overall environmental impacts, with notable reductions across most impact categories, but important trade-offs with decreased soil quality. The LANCA results highlighted cultivation and packaging as key contributors to land occupation and transformation, while also revealing trade-offs associated with upstream material demands. By combining EF and LANCA, the study shows that IVF systems that are not soil-based can still impact soil quality indirectly. These findings contribute to a broader understanding of sustainability in urban farming and underscore the importance of multi-dimensional assessment approaches when evaluating emerging agricultural technologies. Full article

This study presents a comprehensive case of green remodeling applied to a local fire station in Seoul, South Korea. The project aimed to improve energy performance through an integrated upgrade of passive systems (exterior insulation, high-performance windows, and airtightness) and active systems (electric heat pumps, energy recovery ventilation, and rooftop photovoltaic systems), while maintaining uninterrupted emergency operations. A detailed analysis of annual energy use before and after the remodeling shows a 44% reduction in total energy consumption, significantly exceeding the initial reduction target of 20%. While electricity use increased modestly during winter due to the electrification of heating systems, gas consumption dropped sharply by 63%, indicating a shift in energy source and improved efficiency. The building’s airtightness also improved significantly, with a reduction in the air change rate. The project further addressed unique challenges associated with continuously operated public facilities, such as insulating the fire apparatus garage and executing phased construction to avoid operational disruption. This study contributes valuable insights into green remodeling strategies for mission-critical public buildings, emphasizing the importance of integrating technical upgrades with operational constraints to achieve verified energy performance improvements. Full article

The global transition to clean energy necessitates integrated solutions that ensure both environmental sustainability and energy security. This paper proposes a scenario-based modeling framework for urban hybrid energy systems combining small modular reactors (SMRs), photovoltaic (PV) generation, and battery storage within a smart grid architecture. SMRs offer compact, low-carbon, and reliable baseload power suitable for urban environments, while PV and storage enhance system flexibility and renewable integration. Six energy mix scenarios are evaluated using a lifecycle-based cost model that incorporates both capital expenditures (CAPEX) and cumulative carbon costs over a 25-year horizon. The modeling results demonstrate that hybrid SMR–renewable systems—particularly those with high nuclear shares—can reduce lifecycle CO₂ emissions by over 90%, while maintaining long-term economic viability under carbon pricing assumptions. Scenario C, which combines 50% SMR, 40% PV, and 10% battery, emerges as a balanced configuration offering deep decarbonization with moderate investment levels. The proposed framework highlights key trade-offs between emissions and capital cost and seeking resilient and scalable pathways to support the global clean energy transition and net-zero commitments. Full article

Excessive reliance on traditional energy sources such as coal, petroleum, and gas leads to a decrease in natural resources and contributes to global warming. Consequently, the adoption of renewable energy sources in power systems is experiencing swift expansion worldwide, especially in offshore areas. Floating solar photovoltaic (FPV) technology is gaining recognition as an innovative renewable energy option, presenting benefits like minimized land requirements, improved cooling effects, and possible collaborations with hydropower. This study aims to assess the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) associated with floating solar initiatives in offshore and onshore environments. Furthermore, the LCOE is assessed for initiatives that utilize floating solar PV modules within aquaculture farms, as well as for the integration of various renewable energy sources, including wind, wave, and hydropower. The LCOE for FPV technology exhibits considerable variation, ranging from 28.47 EUR/MWh to 1737 EUR/MWh, depending on the technologies utilized within the farm as well as its geographical setting. The implementation of FPV technology in aquaculture farms revealed a notable increase in the LCOE, ranging from 138.74 EUR/MWh to 2306 EUR/MWh. Implementation involving additional renewable energy sources results in a reduction in the LCOE, ranging from 3.6 EUR/MWh to 315.33 EUR/MWh. The integration of floating photovoltaic (FPV) systems into green hydrogen production represents an emerging direction that is relatively little explored but has high potential in reducing costs. The conversion of this energy into hydrogen involves high final costs, with the LCOH ranging from 1.06 EUR/kg to over 26.79 EUR/kg depending on the complexity of the system. Full article

As the global energy system accelerates its transition toward a low-carbon economy, renewable energy sources (RESs), such as wind and photovoltaic power, are rapidly replacing traditional fossil fuels. These RESs are becoming a critical element of deeply decarbonized power systems (DDPSs). However, the inherent non-stationarity, multi-scale volatility, and uncontrollability of RES output significantly increase the risk of source–load imbalance, posing serious challenges to the reliability and economic efficiency of power systems. Scenario generation technology has emerged as a critical tool to quantify uncertainty and support dispatch optimization. Nevertheless, conventional scenario generation methods often fail to produce highly credible wind and solar output scenarios. To address this gap, this paper proposes a novel renewable energy scenario generation method based on a multi-resolution diffusion model. To accurately capture fluctuation characteristics across multiple time scales, we introduce a diffusion model in conjunction with a multi-scale time series decomposition approach, forming a multi-stage diffusion modeling framework capable of representing both long-term trends and short-term fluctuations in RES output. A cascaded conditional diffusion modeling framework is designed, leveraging historical trend information as a conditioning input to enhance the physical consistency of generated scenarios. Furthermore, a forecast-guided fusion strategy is proposed to jointly model long-term and short-term dynamics, thereby improving the generalization capability of long-term scenario generation. Simulation results demonstrate that MDDPM achieves a Wasserstein Distance (WD) of 0.0156 in the wind power scenario, outperforming DDPM (WD = 0.0185) and MC (WD = 0.0305). Additionally, MDDPM improves the Global Coverage Rate (GCR) by 15% compared to MC and other baselines. Full article

Ningxia has emerged as a strategic hub for China’s photovoltaic (PV) industry by leveraging abundant solar energy resources and geoclimatic advantages. This study analyzed the spatiotemporal expansion trends and microclimatic impacts of PV installations (2015–2024) using Gaofen-1 (GF-1) and Landsat8 satellite imagery with deep learning algorithms and multidimensional environmental metrics. Among semantic segmentation models, DeepLabV3+ had the best performance in PV extraction, and the Mean Intersection over Union, precision, and F1-score were 91.97%, 89.02%, 89.2%, and 89.11%, respectively, with accuracies close to 100% after manual correction. Subsequent land surface temperature inversion and spatial buffer analysis quantified the thermal environmental effects of PV installation. Localized cooling patterns may be influenced by albedo and vegetation dynamics, though further validation is needed. The total PV site area in Ningxia expanded from 59.62 km² to 410.06 km² between 2015 and 2024. Yinchuan and Wuzhong cities were primary growth hubs; Yinchuan alone added 99.98 km² (2022–2023) through localized policy incentives. PV installations induced significant daytime cooling effects within 0–100 m buffers, reducing ambient temperatures by 0.19–1.35 °C on average. The most pronounced cooling occurred in western desert regions during winter (maximum temperature differential = 1.97 °C). Agricultural zones in central Ningxia exhibited weaker thermal modulation due to coupled vegetation–PV interactions. Policy-driven land use optimization was the dominant catalyst for PV proliferation. This study validates “remote sensing + deep learning” framework efficacy in renewable energy monitoring and provides empirical insights into eco-environmental impacts under “PV + ecological restoration” paradigms, offering critical data support for energy–ecology synergy planning in arid regions. Full article

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have emerged as a promising technology for converting sunlight into electricity at a low cost; however, it is still necessary to find a photostable, low-cost, and efficient photosensitizer. In this sense, the natural product bixin (Dye 1) has previously been reported as a potential photosensitizer. Thus, the present work reports the full synthesis of diester and diacid hybrids (Dyes 2 and 3, respectively, with corresponding yields of 93% and 52%) using the natural product bixin as a starting material and 1,3,4-oxadiazole ring as a connected point. The hydrolysis step of Dye 2 aims to obtain Dye 3 with a structural capacity to anchor the titanium dioxide (TiO₂) nanofilms via the carboxylic acid group. Both compounds (Dyes 1 and 3) can be adsorbed via pseudo-first order on the surface of TiO₂ nanofilms, reaching saturation after 10 and 6 min of exposure in an organic solution (1 × 10⁻⁵ M), respectively, with adsorption kinetics of the semisynthetic compound almost twofold higher than the natural product. Contrary to expectations, Dye 3 had spectral behavior similar to Dye 1, but with better frontier molecular orbital (FMO) parameters, indicating that Dye 3 will probably behave very similarly or have slightly better photovoltaic performance than Dye 1 in future DSSC measurements. Full article

ZnO/SiC nanocomposite materials possess significant potential for various technological fields due to their extraordinary optical, electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. The synthesis methods, material properties, and diverse applications of ZnO/SiC composites have been systematically explored in this study. The potential application areas of this nanocomposite include their roles in photocatalysis, optoelectronic devices, gas sensors, and photovoltaic systems. The synergetic effects of ZnO and SiC are analyzed to highlight their advantages over their individual components. Future research directions must focus on the remaining challenges to optimize these nanoscale composite materials for industrial and emerging applications. Full article

For power electronic interfaces, Direct Power Control (DPC) has emerged as a leading control technique, especially in applications such as synchronous motors, induction motors, and other electric drives; renewable energy sources (such as photovoltaic inverters and wind turbines); and converters that are grid-connected, such as Virtual Synchronous Generator (VSG) and Static Compensator (STATCOM) configurations. DPC accomplishes several significant goals by avoiding the inner current control loops and doing away with coordinating transformations. The application of STATCOM based on three- and five-level diode-clamped inverters is covered in this work. The study checks the abilities of DPC during power control adjustments during diverse grid operation scenarios while detailing how multilevel inverters affect system stability and power reliability. Proportional Integral (PI) controllers are used to control active and reactive power levels as part of the control approach. This study shows that combining DPC with Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM) increases the system’s overall electromagnetic performance and control accuracy. The performance of STATCOM systems in power distribution and transient response under realistic operating conditions is assessed using simulation tools applied to three-level and five-level inverter topologies. In addition to providing improved voltage quality and accurate reactive power control, the five-level inverter structure surpasses other topologies by maintaining a total harmonic distortion (THD) below 5%, according to the main findings. The three-level inverter operates efficiently under typical grid conditions because of its straightforward design, which uses less processing power and computational complexity. Full article

In recent years, Europe has faced several major blackouts, exposing weaknesses in its energy infrastructure and raising serious concerns about the continent’s ability to manage such crises. As the shift toward sustainable energy accelerates, solar power has emerged as a critical component of this transition, not only for its environmental benefits but also because it is currently the most cost-effective method of electricity generation. Over the past two decades, the photovoltaic (PV) sector has experienced continuous growth to meet rising energy demands. Published scientific studies on the technology and implementation of photovoltaic panels mainly focus on the benefits and present case studies of success. The article aims to outline the current state of research on the danger of spontaneous ignition of photovoltaic panels. The analysis revealed the most common causes of PV self-ignition. Moreover, following consultations with experts in the field of photovoltaic panel installations, a scientific gap in this area was identified—to the authors’ knowledge, no one has written on this topic so far—the use of flammable materials in the form of hermetically sealed quick connectors. The research is based on a literature review, employing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method to perform a bibliometric analysis of papers published between 2013 and 2024. The Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) and the ScienceDirect database are used for this purpose. A total of 62 papers are selected for analysis and categorized based on five fields: keywords in a title and abstract, total number of citations per paper, total number of publications per journal, total number of publications per affiliation, and funding name. Full article