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This 38th volume of the International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management presents some of the newest work within the energy planning, energy systems analyses and district heating area. Articles focus on multi objective optimisation for a community in the Alps, carbon neutrality in Estonia, the prospects of heat pumps combined with thermal energy storage in maximising self-consumption from a photovoltaic field and methods for assessing district heating options. Other works focus on gamification tools for assessing energy efficiency measures, country analyses of economic and environmental indicators, the adaption of alternative fuel vehicles, and the use of waste heat sources for district heating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review article addresses the status of research within the application of renewable energy sources. It focuses on the status of renewable technologies, the role of renewable energy sources in meeting sustainable development goals, the status of the research into the sustainability of the renewable energy systems, and finally on the integration of renewable energy technologies in low carbon energy systems. Regarding renewable resources and technologies, wind and wave power resource assessment, heating and cooling, solar energy, renewable energy fuels, and integrated energy systems are reviewed and summarized. The article takes a starting point in work presented at the conference series on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environmental Systems (SDEWES), published in the Renewable Energy journal and puts this work into a broader context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This 34th volume of the International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management includes papers from the 2021 conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environmental Systems (SDEWES) held October 10-15, 2021, in Dubrovnik, Croatia as well as the 7th International Conference on Smart Energy Systems held September 21-22 in Copenhagen, Denmark and two normal papers. A focus area of this issue is district heating and district cooling systems, with articles addressing resources for district heating and cooling systems, impacts of having individual district heating metres for consumers and approaches to analysing district heating systems. Another focus area is stakeholder involvement where two groups of researchers focus on stakeholders from an energy island perspective as well as from a positive energy district perspective. Both groups note the importance of factoring in stakeholders when devising transition plans. Plans for increasing the penetration of renewable energy sources for the Estonian, Latvia and Lithuanian systems are analysed using the Backbone model, finding modest increases in system costs. Lastly, an article sets up an indicator system for assessing environmental performance of European Union member states ranking, e.g., Estonian, Latvia and Lithuanian as moderate (Estonia and Latvia) to weak (Lithuania) in terms of sustainable energy performance score, based on 2019 data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article present a review of the status of research within the exploitation of renewable energy sources with a focus on the status of technologies exploiting renewable energy sources, a status of the assessment of the availability of renewable energy sources and the status on the research into the types of systems, that can integrate renewable energy sources. In terms of technologies and resources, wind and wave power resources, wind technology, geothermal energy, solar heating, cooling and electricity and salinity gradient technologies are reviewed. Lastly, system integration, impacts and environmental performance of energy systems are assessed. The review takes a starting point in work presented at the conference series on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environmental Systems (SDEWES), published in Special Issues in various journals and puts this work into a wider context. • Review of recent developments in renewable energy technology. • Unexploited potentials for renewable energy exploitation identified. • Systems analyses indicate good prospects for transforming energy systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines some of the latest findings in the exploitation of renewable energy sources (RES) for sustainable development. It outlines some of the latest findings at the system level – e.g., local systems, community systems, and assemblies of buildings – as well as some of the main components in future renewable energy systems. This includes solar technologies, where particular attention is given to the cooling of photovoltaic panels to improve conversion efficiency. Hydrogen – in one way or the other – will play a role as a storage medium or as a means of electrifying otherwise hard-to-electrify sectors. Bioenergy is a valuable but restricted source in the energy system, hence different processes are investigated to optimize the use of different biomass waste streams. Lastly, wind power is addressed as one of the key constituents of future renewable energy-based energy systems. In this special issue, the focus, however, is on the end-of-life handling of turbine blades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the 2015 Paris Agreement and other agreements which have been signed after, sustainable energy development is becoming the major goal in many countries. EU have set the targets to reduce the annual greenhouse gas emission by 40% in 2030 and 80% for 2050 compared with 1990 levels. For achieving this ambitious energy policy, three major technological changes are available: energy savings on the demand side, efficiency improvements in the energy production, and replacement of fossil fuels by various sources of renewable energy. Also, for realization cited three major technological changes the support of the multi-disciplinary scientific knowledge is needed. Therefore, from the beginning of the 21st century, since 2002, a series of Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) Conferences were founded. This paper presents an overview of published researches in special issues of leading journals dedicated to the series SDEWES Conferences, including also the papers in current special issue. The focus is on five main fields: (1) energy policy and analysis of smart energy systems; (2) energy savings in the building sector; (3) co/polygeneration - integrated heating, cooling and electricity systems and district heating; (4) biomass for energy; and (5) measurement of energo-environmental sustainability of processes and systems. Researchers are focused on the development of methods, policies and technologies for both efficient production of energy, mainly from renewable sources, and consumption in industry, buildings and transport. Undoubtedly, the researches presented in the papers in this special issue as well as in previous ones, dedicated to SDEWES conferences, will contribute to the promotion of sustainable development and thus to the achievement of the goals of the Paris Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Island communities require in-detail mapping of resources available for exploitation for energy purposes, since infrastructure and connections to the mainland present, in most cases, a weak point of the island energy supply. As the present energy supply on Croatian islands relies mostly on fossil fuels and electricity from the mainland, it becomes obvious that exploitation of renewable energy sources is the only solution that leads towards self-sufficiency and sustainable development. In order to design a self-sufficient and sustainable island, three major technological changes are needed: integration of renewable energy sources alongside with energy savings and improvements in energy efficiency in the energy production. Analyses for several other Croatian islands have been performed using Renewislands/ADEG methodology in order to assess all possible outcomes. The scenarios in these cases have shown that islands can become self-sufficient through combining renewable technologies and energy storage systems. Energy storage systems will be crucial for achieving desired objectives in terms of energy independence from the mainland and in general import of fossil fuels. The analysis conducted for the island of Hvar will result in creation of several scenarios which will clearly point out the favorable solutions for improvement of both security of energy supply and covering the majority of energy demand with renewable energy sources and storage technologies. Also, when talking about implementation of renewable technologies on island of Hvar, an optimal mix of technologies must be applied in order to avoid excess costs and to achieve minimal impact on environment in terms of visual pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]