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This paper is the editorial for the virtual special issue (VSI) of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (RSER) dedicated to three Sustainable Development of Energy Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) Conferences held in 2022, namely: (i) the 5th South East European Conference SEESDEWES 2022 held from May 22 to 26, 2022 in Vlore, Albania; (ii) the 3rd Latin American LASDEWES 2022 held from July 24 to 28, 2022 in Sao Paulo, Brazil and (iii) the 17th SDEWES 2022 held from November 6 to 10, 2022 in Paphos, Cyprus. The VSI collected both high quality review papers and original research articles presented at these conferences, aligning with the aims and scope of RSER. Following a rigorous peer review process, seventeen articles were accepted and published. These articles explore techniques and technologies essential for advancing feasible Renewable and Sustainable Energy Systems. Spanning multidisciplinary topics, many of them address almost all the Sustainable Development Goals, offering feasible solutions for much-needed decarbonization pathways. • The VSI SDEWES 2022 presents the ready solutions for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Systems. • Five clusters for presenting the Renewable and Sustainable energy cutting edge solutions. • The positioning in the scientific context of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Systems. • Feasible solutions for much-needed decarbonization pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid growth in population and economic development in Iran and its neighboring countries has resulted in a dramatic increase in electricity demand over the past few years. A substantial amount of electricity must be produced to meet this growing demand in this region. By installing conventional fossil power plants, using renewable energy, and interconnecting with neighboring countries, this growing demand can be accomplished. The main aim of this research is to identify prospects and challenges in the electrical sector around Iran. To this end, this paper evaluates the existing and future state of the electrical sector in Iran and its neighboring countries. Despite the fact that there is still a long way to go in terms of renewable energy in this region, there are some promising targets for the future that will allow fossil fuels to be replaced effectively. Notwithstanding this, we should point out that a number of cross-border interconnection projects are being pursued by Iran and its neighbors in order to integrate their networks and supply this growing demand. Finally, this study presents an overview of the future prospects and challenges of electricity capacity expansion, cross-border interconnections, and electricity transmission corridors in this region. The review results provide comprehensive background knowledge to all the researchers in order to investigate further into the field. This paper assists energy policy makers regarding the development of sustainable energy planning. • •In addition to providing a general overview of the geographical location, population growth, and economic indicators of Iran and its neighboring countries, this paper presents the current state of the Iranian electricity sector and its neighboring countries in light of the trends in electricity production, energy mix, price, and exports and imports. • •This paper explores the existing and future states of electricity capacity expansion in the region, specifically focusing on renewable energy sources. • •The existing and future states of cross-border electricity interconnections are examined to present a comprehensive overview of the cross-border interconnections in this region. • •This region's potential electricity transmission corridors are proposed to create the opportunity to transmit electricity across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional petrol vehicles emit a substantial quantity of greenhouse gases, leading to increasingly serious global warming problems. The expansion and development of renewable power generation technologies is conducive in promoting the use of electric vehicles, which are more environmentally friendly. This paper proposes a multi-objective power expansion model considering renewable energy policy objectives. The model regards the problem as a multi-period optimisation task, taking the newly installed capacity and the power generation capacity of each power generation technology as decision variables, and simulating the uncertain factors in the planning process using Geometric Brownian Motion and Monte Carlo approaches. The optimisation objective of the model is to minimise expected costs, reduce risk and environmental impacts, and incorporate changing policy objectives into the constraints to meet policy makers' expectations for renewable energy development. Then, a decentralised target search-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm is proposed to solve the model. Its effectiveness is verified by a numerical example using real data from the Chinese power system. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm exhibits improved performance compared with benchmark algorithms and provides high quality and diverse Pareto-optimal solutions to decision makers. Finally, the optimal plans for power expansion and generation mix under different preferences and policy objectives are discussed and corresponding recommendations are made. [Display omitted] • Planning for the expansion of power generation under uncertainties is determined. • Strategies for the expansion of power generation towards renewable energy are optimised. • A novel multi-objective evolutionary algorithm with a constraint handling method is developed. • The impact of multiple renewable energy policies on power generation expansion planning is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrified vehicles provide an effective solution to address the unfavorable impacts of fossil fuel use in the transportation sector. Energy management strategy (EMS) is the core technology supporting the outstanding performance of electrified vehicles. However, technical bottlenecks in conventional control methods, such as poor real-time performance and limited generalization capability, significantly hinder the development of energy management technology. The recent advances in deep reinforcement learning (DRL) hold enormous potential in addressing relevant problems. To this end, this paper systematically surveys DRL-based EMSs. First, DRL algorithms and useful DRL extensions are briefly reviewed. Next, a comprehensive literature survey of pioneering and representative working is presented. The effectiveness and configuration methods of DRL in energy management issues, as well as a guideline for DRL-based EMSs in different vehicular structures, are appropriately analyzed and summarized. Finally, the main challenges and potential solutions are extracted to enhance further real-world implementation. [Display omitted] • Theoretical overview of DRL algorithms that are valuable for energy management. • Summary of pioneering and representative studies on DRL-based EMSs. • Analysis of the effectiveness and configuration methods of DRL in energy management. • Guidelines for applying various DRL methods in different vehicular structures. • Discussion of challenges and potential solutions for real-world implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the state-of-the-art on Hardware-In-The-Loop simulation methodologies and technologies applied in the research field of wave energy converters. It reveals important issues, such as an unclear taxonomy and representations of these methodologies, which are critical for the success of the approach, mostly during the design of experiments and presentation of results. Moreover, a classification approach to these methodologies is not found in the literature. Thus, a generic taxonomical and classification framework is developed to support the review process. This framework is built based on three taxonomic subsystems that the review shows to be effective in organizing the reviewed methodologies: simulated, real and interface subsystems. In particular, the definition of the interface subsystem is key to overcoming the limitations found in the methodological representations. Furthermore, this review borrows the term actionability to this approach to better describe the nuances and gaps between the reviewed case studies. It is found that the different technical implementations are easily organized with the proposed framework, and the results cover a wide range of wave energy converter development phases. Likewise, this review shows opportunities for improvements in the methodology and application to a wider number of new case studies. [Display omitted] • Hardware in the loop approach is currently described with unclear methodology. • Few case studies of the approach on wave energy converters have been published. • Review reveals research opportunities for methodological improvements. • Taxonomic framework proposed for systematic and clear methodological descriptions. • Technical information is provided for a wide range of device development phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The African continent is endowed with massive energy resources such as hydropower, solar, wind, natural gas, wave energy, and many more, yet it is the continent with the least energy supply in the world thereby resulting in a lack of sufficient energy to meet its growing energy demand. Though the continent holds 100 GW of wind capabilities, the current installed capacity as at 2018 was 5.7 GW with countries in northern Africa as well as South Africa capturing over 90% of the wind energy share on the continent. Therefore, this paper reviews the wind energy industry in Africa by identifying the current installed and potential capacity of wind energy on the continent. The challenges faced by the wind energy industry such as policy, competition, technical and economic are also reviewed. Transitions, technological innovation systems, and strategic niche management theoretical sustainability transition framework as well as proposed pathways to overcome these prevailing challenges hindering the full exploration of the wind energy sector in Africa are also highlighted in order to uplift the continent's socio-economic status. Basically, this can be achieved through the adoption of strong 'political-will' by African national governments to drive wind energy development. There is also the need for institutional frameworks to ensure the practical adoption of new wind energy technologies. Furthermore, the major benefits Africa stands to gain from investment in wind energy are enumerated by comparing with the benefits realized by other countries' economies as a result of investing in the wind energy industry. For instance, cheap electricity, job creation, industrial growth, and eco-friendly energy source. • Reviewing wind energy industry in Africa and existing challenges. • The challenges faced by African's wind energy industry can be categorized under policy, competition, technical and economic. • Framework for transiting Africa's wind energy industry from small-scale production to large-scale commercial industry.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]