Search results for "Solar energy."
showing 10 items of 148 documents
Renewable energies driven electrochemical wastewater/soil decontamination technologies: A critical review of fundamental concepts and applications
2020
Abstract Electrochemical wastewater and soil treatments are exciting set of technologies that has been well-studied over the recent years as one of the most-effective remediation techniques for the removal of hazardous pollutants from liquids effluents and soil. The main requirement of these technologies is electricity and their sustainability can be largely improved if they are powered by renewable energy sources. Likewise, this green energy powering can help to apply these technologies in remote areas, such as rural communities in developing countries, where no electricity grid is available. This review presents a comprehensive discussion on fundamental concepts and applications of renewa…
Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of a dish-Stirling Concentrating Solar Power Plant in the Mediterranean area
2021
Abstract Among the different renewable energy sources, solar energy shows the highest exploitation potential to satisfy a substantial portion of the worlds’ future energy demand, guaranteeing at the same time lower emissions than conventional energy providers. Much of this potential is usable thanks to Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies, of which the dish-Stirling concentrator is the most efficient. Nevertheless, the production and installation phases of the dish-Stirling technology can have an environmental impact which motivated the assessment of the plant in the three dimensions of sustainability (environmental, economic and social). The present publication evaluated an existin…
Coupling electrodialysis desalination with photovoltaic and wind energy systems for energy storage: Dynamic simulations and control strategy
2020
Abstract The presence of desalination systems in polygeneration facilities is usually limited by important difficulties in operating under non-stationary regimes typical of renewable energy sources. Reverse osmosis, namely the most common desalination technology, is characterised by slow dynamics that rarely adapts to the power fluctuations of renewables. Therefore, the possibility of using electrodialysis coupled with a hybrid photovoltaic/wind energy source was investigated in this work. In particular, the combination of photovoltaic and wind energy is very attractive in order to achieve a more stable energy production, while electrodialysis is claimed to be a more flexible process compar…
The adoption of photovoltaic micro production systems in Finland
2016
A sustainable supply of energy is one of the most important requirements in order to achieve sustainable development. By using renewable resources society is not dependent on depleting reserves, but instead can have an inexhaustible source of clean energy. The rapid development of photovoltaics has led to lowered prices and increased efficiency making them more attractive alternative as a source of household electricity. Although governments play a key role in setting the constraints of how renewable energy is adopted, the wide-spread adoption of distributed electricity production ultimately depends on consumer decisions to buy them. This study examined the adoption process of photovoltaic …
Stability of the performance of thin film modules during one year of operation
2012
At the University of Agder in Grimstad, Southern Norway, a test bench for photovoltaic modules is in operation since December 2010. Currently, various c-Si as well as aSi, CIS and HIT modules are under investigation. This project is part of the Norwegian contribution to IEA PVPS Task13. The paper focuses on the stability of the modules' MPP-performance in the course of one year. For this purpose, data on the DC response are logged together with irradiance and module temperature at one-minute intervals. Data analysis is performed in monthly blocks. The modeling involves two steps. First, the short-circuit current is expressed as function of irradiance and module temperature. Then, the MPP po…
Effect of the thermal storage dimensions on the performances of solar photovoltaic-thermal systems
2020
Abstract PV/T panels are innovative systems increasingly used in the building sector. As a matter of fact, in that context they allow a set of common problems to be addressed and often solved: lack of physical space and economic issues, always existing when PV and thermal panels are to be installed separately. Obviously, the main objective of PV/T panels is to enhance the electrical efficiency by cooling the PV cells, but the side positive effect is also the production of thermal energy, which can be suitably exploited with a proper configuration of the whole system and an appropriate design of its components. Their energy production and overall efficiency depend on several factors and ther…
An improved five-parameter model for photovoltaic modules
2010
This paper presents a new five-parameter model capable of analytically describing the I–V characteristic of a photovoltaic module for each generic condition of operative temperature and solar irradiance. The parameters of the equivalent electrical circuit are extracted by solving a system of equations based on data commonly issued by manufacturers in standard rating conditions with a trial and error process. The procedure, which does not require any special equations solver, can be easily coded into a short software routine using simple languages and finds the solution of the system of equations with the desired accuracy without needing to be guided towards solutions starting from fitted in…
Introduction of Offshore Wave, Wind and Solar Energies in Vietnam
2020
In Vietnam, the energy demand shows an ever-increasing trend. To limit the utilization of fossil fuels and the following consequences for the environment, renewable energy sources must be adopted. In this context, the paper assesses the utilization of offshore wind and sea wave, by considering a commercial wind turbine and a prototypical wave energy converter. Solar energy can be optionally also collected by this device. An algorithm is introduced to find the best composition of the three sources able to cover a desired share of energy demand. The approach is applied to Ca Mau, a province in the southern part of Vietnam. Finally, the results encourage the adoption of these energy sources th…
A model for predicting the potential diffusion of solar energy systems in complex urban environments
2011
Abstract The necessity to reduce greenhouse gases emission produced by energy building consumptions and to cut the energy bill (mainly due to the use of fossil sources) leads to the employment of renewable energy sources in new planned scenarios. In particular, more and more often municipal energy and environmental plans pay great attention to the possibilities of employment of the solar technologies at urban scale. Solar thermal and photovoltaic (PV) systems are, by far, the most suitable tools to be utilized in urban areas. Obviously, the proper adoption of such systems in buildings does call for the availability of calculation methods suitable to provide the actual level of exploitation …
Towards Positive Energy Districts: Energy Renovation of a Mediterranean District and Activation of Energy Flexibility
2023
The paper presents the analysis of energy retrofitting, integration of renewable energy and activation of energy flexibility in a cluster of buildings in the surroundings of a port on the Mediterranean Sea in Southern Italy, with the aim of checking the potential for it to achieve the status of positive energy district (PED). The objective of this study is to improve the contemporaneity between local energy generation and energy demand and reduce CO2eq emissions by considering signals that reflect the environmental variability of the electricity grid, through flexibility solutions applied to the HVAC system. The proposed scenarios are based on the dynamic simulation of the district and anal…