Search

Energy is essential for economic development and growth. With the rapid growth of development and the drive to expand the economy, society demands more electricity. Coupled with the realisation that unsustainable energy production can have a detrimental effect on our environment. Solar energy is the most prolific method of energy capture in nature. The economic drive to make solar cells more cost effective and efficient has driven developments in many different deposition technologies, including dipping, plating, thick film deposition and thin film deposition. Typically, in order for solar energy to work efficiently and supply energy to a building, a very large amount of space is required, in the form of rooftops or land, in order to install solar panels; these solar panel space requirements are a large impediment to practical usage. This drawback drove researchers to come up with transparent solar cells (TSCs), which solves the problem by turning any sheet of glass into a photovoltaic solar cell. These cells provide power by absorbing and utilising unwanted light energy through windows in buildings and automobiles, which leads to an efficient use of architectural space. There are approximately nine transparent photovoltaic (TPV) technologies under development, and studies regarding these technologies aim to achieve high transparency along with electrical performance that is compatible with solar panels that are sold in the market. The main objective of this review paper is to state all the latest reported technologies from the year 2007 onwards on transparent photovoltaic technologies with at least 20% average transmission. This includes demonstrating the process used in each technology (including the materials and the methods) and explaining its advantages and disadvantages from a performance, aesthetic and financial perspective. Therefore, this study provides a crucial review on the latest developments in the field of TSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we study a community or firm considering to diversify its investment in two distinct renewable energy technologies, namely wind and solar PV electricity. We assume technological learning curves as a function of cumulative capital investment. A real options approach is applied as it takes into account uncertainty about prices and learning, as well as irreversibility associated with investment decisions. We investigate three different cases, dealing with uncertainty about future electricity prices, and uncertainty about the speed with which learning drives the costs of wind and solar electricity down. We assess the minimum threshold for the stochastic price and the maximum electricity production cost that makes it optimal for the firm to invest in the two technologies. The results show that the learning rate affects the option to invest in but reducing critical threshold for exercising it. The greater the amount of capital invested, the more learning stimulates earlier exercising of the option to invest. The firm will then anticipate the option to invest and exercise it for lower critical threshold values if all capital is invested in one technology. If capital investment is diversified, the option should be exercised at a higher critical threshold. More uncertainty in energy prices or technology costs postpones the option to invest. Although investing in both solar and wind may be profitable under particular conditions of price and cost uncertainty, the theoretically optimal strategy is generally investing in only one technology, that is, solar or wind, depending on their relative initial costs and learning rates. This suggests that the practice in most countries of diversifying renewable energy may reflect a mistaken strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deployments of renewable energy technologies in the current century represent a critical approach to sustainable development. Renewable energy can be generated from sources with the backdrop to restock themselves based on timescale. The most important sources of renewable energy include solar photovoltaic conversion technologies, biomass and biofuel energy systems, wind energy turbines, geothermal energy technologies and hydroelectric power systems. Considerable investment in renewable energy in a country can lower the nation's dependency on imported fuels and purchase of energy from foreign market. It also drives technological innovation and generate employment scheme while enhancing clean development mechanism. Consequently, this paper presents the existing renewable energy technologies in the Nigeria and as well makes some critical recommendations to further induce development of renewable and sustainable energy systems based on autonomous energy systems and microgrid (µgrid) technologies. The recommendations are made based on varieties of energy technologies for solar power generation, biomass and bioenergy, wind energy, hydropower generation and the combined generation systems using hybrid energy mechanism. The structure of the study is concluded based on suggestions on how to pursue some impending socio-political, technological, investment policy and legislative issues for effective renewable energy development in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Batteries are the power tank of solar power systems. They play the role of power supply when the sun does not shine. This paper provides a review of battery charging control techniques for photovoltaic systems. In addition, it presents a new battery charge controller that keeps on the good features and resolves the drawbacks and limitations of the traditional controllers. The new controller is based on a newly developed maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique enabling very fast maximum power point (MPP) capture. Moreover, it utilizes the constant current, constant voltage (CCCV) charging scheme to reduce the battery charging time. In addition, it enables accessing all system parameters remotely for monitoring and administration purposes. In order to determine the performance parameters of the proposed controller, a prototype was implemented together with microcontroller based DC–DC converter. The experimental results show that, the new controller tracks the MPP faster than the conventional controllers do. Moreover, the charging period is significantly reduced. Moreover, the proposed controller has high accuracy and minimizes the steady state oscillation errors around the target MPP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy production in a safe and hazard free manner is one of the world׳s greatest concern. Since the inception of Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted in 1997 and entered into force in February 2005, countries have started to adopt different measures for emission reduction such as electricity generation from renewable energy sources; as the source is free from green house gas (GHG) or CO 2 emission. Legislations and financial incentives have been provided by some governments for encouragement and ensuring good returns to the investors in renewable energy sector. This paper analyzes how a 500 kWp solar photovoltaic (PV) system for electricity generation contributes significantly in the GHG emission reduction and also the potential impact of introducing CO 2 emission reduction cost in the solar PV electricity generation. The result shows that the emission reduction is of the order of hundreds of tons of CO 2 and CO 2 emission reduction cost has a positive impact on the cumulative cash flow of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exponential growth of photovoltaic installations in several countries represents a strong motivation for investment in renewable energies. This paper provides an overview of current methodologies for assessing photovoltaic potential, with the aim of supporting the selection of optimal sites in a given region of interest. With a special focus on the Italian context, an additional goal of this work is to show that fast and accurate estimates of the power of new photovoltaic installations can be obtained by detecting available surface areas (e.g. by cadastral maps or image analysis). The basic average solar radiation and temperature for some specific areas can indeed be obtained from the available solar maps reported in the geodatabases of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC). On the basis of such data, as an alternative to a query in the on-line Photovoltaic Geographical Information System – PVGIS – (the web-based reference tool for the performance assessment of photovoltaic plants in Europe and Africa), the use of simple and appropriate polynomials is proven to be suitable for a quick analysis of solar energy potential applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Membrane desalination does help at procuring an increasing freshwater (FW) global demand. Energy requirements of desalination technologies compromise the environmental sustainability of desalination. The integration of renewable energies with desalination technologies might improve the sustainability of desalinated water over other alternative FW sources. This paper discusses the sustainability of Electrodialysis (ED) powered by photovoltaic solar (PV) energy as one of the most promising configurations for the desalination of brackish water. Environmental, with special focus on energy consumption as a function of salinity, economic, and social issues have been considered and main figures for an ED–PV case study in the Canary Islands focused in FW production are given. Energetic considerations have also been deeply discussed in the section of environmental issues. Reverse Osmosis has been taken as the reference technology. The reference energy consumption for ED of brackish water (2500–5000 mg L −1 ) includes a range of 0.49–0.91 kW h m −3 . Due to this range and regarding to the environment, the use of ED–PV is in the range of 0.02–0.03 kgCO 2 m −3 (only due to energy supply), which is a decrease of one order of magnitude compared to grid mix supply. A medium-term forecast for ED–PV is presented in which might be economical over conventional grid mix supplied ED before 2020 under the most optimistic scenario, leading to a production costs around 0.15–0.4 € m −3 . With respect to social issues, renewable desalination contributes to a significant increase of local direct and indirect employment but under a wide range of 0.1–4 permanent positions per 1000 m 3 day −1 . Finally, the main identified barriers for ED–PV preventing a larger market penetration are the matching of the intermittent output of renewable energies with water demand, lifetime of membranes, efficiency of solar panels and the high production cost of freshwater compared to its low market price as commodity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the increasing rate of using renewable energies, following the finite amount of fossil fuel resources, and the associated pollution of these non-renewable energies, photovoltaic systems have recently achieved widespread acceptance to harness solar energy in the last decades. Since photovoltaic systems have a limited lifespan and cannot be used after a while, it seems imperative to pay attention to recycling and sustainability in the supply chain network design of these systems. In this respect, this paper first reviews the photovoltaic systems literature systematically. Thereinafter, a multi-objective, mixed-integer non-linear optimization model is deployed to design a photovoltaic supply chain network addressing the system's associated costs, environmental impacts, and social values. The concerned model also considers a reverse flow in addition to the typical forward flow in the proposed supply chain for special environmental and social issues. Likewise, to optimize the presented multi-objective model, the augmented ε-constraint method is employed, being capable of warranting the Pareto optimal solutions. Eventually, the model's efficiency is illustrated by discussing a real-world case in Iran, through which prominent managerial results are acquired. • The photovoltaic systems literature is systematically reviewed. • A multi-objective, mixed-integer non-linear programming model is proposed to design a sustainable photovoltaic supply chain network. • The concerned model is able to consider a reverse flow in addition to the typical forward flow in the proposed supply chain. • To solve the proposed multi-objective model, the augmented ε-constraint method is deployed. • The efficiency of the model is illustrated by discussing a real-world case in Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]