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The paper deals with the energy transition, focusing on the decisions to be taken about the change in the energy conversion capacity of specified portion of the universe, such as industrial or domestic districts, regions, countries, etc. Conversion capacity is intended here as the set of all energy conversion and storage units characterized by type, size and number, and interacting with the natural gas and electricity grids. The goal is to find guidelines for new installations, obtained by simulations of a model able to describe properly the behavior of each energy conversion technology and the interaction with grids. The model is based on a traditional MILNP approach, but contains unique features in the literature, which allow to obtain results of general validity for applications to very different geographical areas, or to countries including very different regions that transmit energy with each other or export/import it from abroad. The main novelty of this work is to identify the best planning for the decarbonisation of energy demand sectors, according to the criterion of minimum cost, both at global and at regional level. The results applied to the case of Italy allow identifying clearly the energy demand sectors to which new installations should be applied first to minimize the cost for the total energy system, and the units that must be foreseen to satisfy these energy demands, i.e. a precise strategy for the energy transition towards a 100% renewable system. • A multi-regional model is built to find the most convenient energy transition path. • General guidelines for Western countries are derived from the Italian case study. • Replacement of boilers with heat pumps allows increasing RES share from 20 to 30%. • For RES share >60%, PtG is the low-carbon strategy for high temperature heat demand. • Transportation is the last energy sector that should be decarbonized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the influence of temperature and of rainfall intensity and the effect of such variations on the treatment efficiencies and on the electrical consumptions in seven medium-large size Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) in Apulia in South Italy (Bari, Barletta, Brindisi, Lecce, Foggia, Andria and Taranto). It has been observed, in the considered WWTPs, a slight but clear increase of the incoming flow due to the increase in rainfall intensity, which results to an increase of the energy consumption per incoming volume. The impact of the climate change to the incoming flow, during the last five years (2016–2020), has been assessed indicating that an increase in rainfall intensity results to an increase of the WWTPs energy consumptions per wastewater treated volume. More specifically, for a specific WWTP (Lecce) it was found that the electrical consumption increases from 0.36 kw/m3 to 0.51 kw/m3 when the rainfall intensity was increased from 0.8 mm/min to 2.9 mm/min. Some adaption measures have been considered to upgrade the existing WWTP so to mitigate the energy increase and to limit the global effects of climate change. [Display omitted] • As Rain intensity rises, wastewater influx into WWTPs increases. • Rainfall intensity influences negatively electrical consumptions. • BOD removal is lower with increasing annual precipitations. • Temperature influences BOD, COD and SST removal efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]