What are the physical mechanisms that underlie the efficient generation and transfer of energy at the nanoscale? Nature seems to know the answer to this question, having optimised the process of photosynthesis in plants over millions of years of evolution. It is conceivable that humans could mimic this process using synthetic materials, and organic semiconductors have attracted a lot of attention in this respect. Once an organic semiconductor absorbs light, bound pairs of electrons with positively charged holes, termed `excitons', are formed. Excitons behave as fundamental energy carriers, hence understanding the physics behind their efficient generation and transfer is critical to realising the potential of organic semiconductors for light-harvesting and other applications, such as LEDs and transistors. However, this problem is extremely challenging since excitons can interact very strongly with photons. Moreover, simultaneously with the exciton motion, organic molecules can vibrate in hundreds of possible ways, having a very strong effect on energy transfer. The description of these complex phenomena is often beyond the reach of standard quantum mechanical methods which rely on the assumption of weak interactions between excitons, photons and vibrations. In this thesis, Antonios Alvertis addresses this problem through the development and application of a variety of different theoretical methods to the description of these strong interactions, providing pedagogical explanations of the underlying physics. A comprehensive introduction to organic semiconductors is followed by a review of the background theory that is employed to approach the relevant research questions, and the theoretical results are presented in close connection with experiment, yielding valuable insights for experimentalists and theoreticians alike.

This book introduces the electromagnetic compatibility(EMC) of electric vehicle(EV), including EMC of the whole vehicle, electromagnetic interference(EMI) prediction and suppression of motor drive system, EMI prediction and suppression of DC-DC converter, electromagnetic field safety and EMC of wireless charging system, signal integrity and EMC of the vehicle controller unit(VCU), EMC of battery management system(BMS), electromagnetic radiated emission diagnosis and suppression of the whole vehicle, etc. The analysis method, modeling and simulation method, test method and rectification method of EMC are demonstrated. The simulation and experimental results are presented as tables and figures. This book is useful as reference for graduate students, senior undergraduates and engineering technicians of vehicle engineering related majors. For EMI prediction, suppression and EMC optimization design for EVs, this book provides reference for engineers to solve EMC problems. This book is intended for senior undergraduates, postgraduates, lecturers and laboratory researchers engaged in electric vehicle and electromagnetic compatibility research.

This revised and updated 3rd edition of the book allows readers to develop a practical understanding of the major aspects of energy. It also includes two new chapters addressing renewable energy, and energy management and economics. The book begins by introducing basic definitions, and then moves on to discuss the primary and secondary energy types, internal energy and enthalpy, and energy balance, heat of reaction and heat transfer. Each chapter features fully solved example problems and practice problems to support learning and the application of the topics discussed, including: energy production and conversion; energy conservation; energy storage; energy coupling; sustainability in energy systems; renewable energy; and energy management and economics. Written for students across a range of engineering and science disciplines, the book provides a comprehensive study guide. It is particularly suitable for courses in energy technology, sustainable energy technologies and energy conversion & management, and offers an ideal reference text for students, engineers, energy researchers and industry professionals. A updated solutions manual to this textbook's problems ais available to course instructors on request from the author and online on www.springer.com.

This book presents advanced studies on the conversion efficiency, mechanical reliability, and the quality of power related to wind energy systems. The main concern regarding such systems is reconciling the highly intermittent nature of the primary source (wind speed) with the demand for high-quality electrical energy and system stability. This means that wind energy conversion within the standard parameters imposed by the energy market and power industry is unachievable without optimization and control. The book discusses the rapid growth of control and optimization paradigms and applies them to wind energy systems: new controllers, new computational approaches, new applications, new algorithms, and new obstacles.

Environmental and energy dependency problems derived from high fossil fuels consumption have made necessary the development of new energy models to be renewable and sustainable, efficient, practical and economical, and cost effective, to meet the demand for a sustainable energy supply.Among renewable resources, biomass is destined to play an important role in these new energy models since agricultural and forestry residues are an energy resource that is produced in relatively large amounts throughout the world and regarded as a renewable and environmentally safe way of providing energy.Compiling information on the conversion of energy from biomass, the book focuses on the use of pellets as homogeneous solid biofuels. It describes all the changes that forestry and agricultural biomass undergo to be converted into thermal energy and analyses the inputs and outputs of the process.It has to be noted that the standards used as guidelines and references in all the chapters of the book are there in order to not to forget the thresholds and guidelines established and thus to ensure a proper use.This book guides the reader through the entire biomass-to-energy process, emphasising important aspects and how the quality of the biofuel can be identified. It acts as a starting point for professionals and researchers interested in working with biomass and a guide for those people interested in the implementation of the technologies described.

This book evaluates a number of serious technical challenges related to the integration of renewable energy sources into the power grid using the DIgSILENT PowerFactory power system simulation software package. It provides a fresh perspective on analyzing power systems according to renewable energy sources and how they affect power system performance in various situations. The book examines load flow, short-circuit, RMS simulation, power quality, and system reliability in the presence of renewable energy sources, and presents readers with the tools needed for modeling, simulation, and analysis for network planning. The book is a valuable resource for researchers, engineers, and students working to solve power system problems in the presence of renewable energy sources in power system operations and utilities.

This book presents peer-reviewed papers based on the oral and poster presentations during the 5th International Conference on Renewable Energy Sources, which was held from June 20 to 22, 2018 in Krynica, Poland. The scope of the conference included a wide range of topics in renewable energy technology, with a major focus on biomass, solar energy and geothermal energy, but also extending to heat pumps, fuel cells, wind energy, energy storage, and the modelling and optimization of renewable energy systems. This edition of the conference had a special focus on the role of renewable energy in the reduction of air pollution in the Eastern European region. Traditionally this conference is a unique occasion for gathering Polish and international researchers' perspectives on renewable energy sources, and furthermore of balancing them against governmental policy considerations. Accordingly, the conference offered also panels to discuss best practices and solutions with local entrepreneurs and federal government bodies. The meeting attracts not only scientist but also industry representatives as well as local and federal government personnel. In 2018, the conference was organized by the University of Agriculture in Krakow in cooperation with AGH University of Science and Technology (Krakow), University of Zilina, Silesian University of Technology, International Commission of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (CIGR) and Polish Society of Agricultural Engineering. Honorary auspices were given by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education Republic of Poland, Rector of the University of Agriculture in Krakow and Rector of the AGH University of Science and Technology.

This book provides an overview of the multi-dimensional approach for the production of ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass. The sustainability of this biofuel, the current and future status of the technology and its role in waste valorization are also addressed. Bioethanol from lignocellulosic material has emerged as an alternative to the traditional first-generation bioethanol. The book also discusses various pretreatment methods for effective separation of the various components of lignocellulosic feedstock as well as their advantages, and limitations. It describes the valorization of lignocellulosic waste through the production of bioethanol and emphasizes the significance of waste utilization in managing the production cost of the fuel. Finally, the utilization of genetically engineered plants and microorganisms to increase the conversion efficiency is reviewed.

This book gathers contributions from a multidisciplinary research team comprised of control engineering and economics researchers and formed to address a central interdisciplinary social issue, namely economically enabled energy management. The book's primary focus is on achieving optimal energy management that is viable from both an engineering and economic standpoint. In addition to the theoretical results and techniques presented, several chapters highlight experimental case studies, which will benefit academic researchers and practitioners alike. The first three chapters present comprehensive overviews of respective social contexts, underscore the pressing need for economically efficient energy management systems and academic work on this emerging research topic, and identify fundamental differences between approaches in control engineering and economics. In turn, the next three chapters (Chapters 4-6) provide economics-oriented approaches to the subject. The following five chapters (Chapters 7-11) address optimal energy market design, integrating both physical and economic models. The book's last three chapters (Chapters 12-14) mainly focus on the engineering aspects of next-generation energy management, though economic factors are also shown to play important roles.

This book focuses on the development of novel combustion approaches and burner designs for clean power generation in gas turbines. It shows the reader how to control the release of pollutants to the environment in an effort to reduce global warming. After an introduction to global warming issues and clean power production for gas turbine applications, subsequent chapters address premixed combustion, burner designs for clean power generation, gas turbine performance, and insights on gas turbine operability. Given its scope, the book can be used as a textbook for graduate-level courses on clean combustion, or as a reference book to accompany compact courses for mechanical engineers and young researchers around the world.

Advances in Bioenergy, Volume Six in this ongoing series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters written by an international board of authors. New sections in this release include Microalgae wastewater treatment and biomass utilization, Lipid Metabolism and Metabolic Engineering of Eukaryotic Microalgae, Aquaculture, Microalgae Cultivation, Life Cycle Assessment, Integration of algae cultivation with anaerobic digestion, Bioenergy and Bioproducts from Industry Hemp, Integration of algae to anaerobic digestion for biofuel and bioenergy production, and more.

This book describes an original improvement in power quality of photovoltaic generation systems obtained by the use of a multilevel inverter implemented with level doubling network (LDN). Modulation principles and harmonic analysis of output voltages are proposed and introduced in detail for both single and three-phase LDN configurations. The analysis is then extended to dc-link current and voltage, with emphasis to low-frequency harmonics and switching frequency ripple. This work represents the first comprehensive implementation of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) schemes using the ripple correlation control (RCC) algorithm in the presence of multiple ripple harmonics, such as in the case of multi level inverters. Numerical simulations and experimental tests are carefully reported here, together with practical insights into the design of dc-link capacitors.

Renewable energy is a critical topic of discussion in contemporary society. With increased attention on alternative methods, solar tracking has emerged as an effective strategy for sustainable energy management. Economical and Technical Considerations for Solar Tracking: Methodologies and Opportunities for Energy Management is an essential reference source for the latest scholarly research on economic and technical considerations of long-term and short-term solar tracking. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as sun position, solar radiation, and geographic orientation, this publication is ideally designed for students, professionals, and engineers seeking current research on efficient use of solar energy.

Surface passivation of silicon solar cells describes a technology for preventing electrons and holes to recombine prematurely with one another on the wafer surface. It increases the cell's energy conversion efficiencies and thus reduces the cost per kWh generated by a PV system. In the past few years, new tools have been developed to ensure low cost of ownership for high volume production of passivated silicon solar cells. Different deposition techniques (ALD, PECVD, APCVD) and different materials (SiO2, Al2O3, Si3N4) have been tested during the development process of more than 10 years. Now, the silicon solar cell manufacturing industry is picking up the concept of rear side passivation. The next generation silicon solar cells in production will be the PERC (Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell) type using all the reported achievements including novel tool concepts and process technologies. This timely overview of silicon solar cell surface passivation, written by the leading experts in the field, is a key read for students and researchers working with silicon solar cells, as well as solar cell manufacturers.

Negative Emissions Technologies for Climate Change Mitigation provides a comprehensive introduction to the full range of technologies that are being researched, developed and deployed in order to transition from our current energy system, dominated by fossil fuels, to a negative-carbon emissions system. After an introduction to the challenge of climate change, the technical fundamentals of natural and engineered carbon dioxide removal and storage processes and technologies are described. Each NET is then discussed in detail, including the key elements of the technology, enablers and constraints, governance issues, and global potential and cost estimates. This book offers a complete overview of the field, thus enabling the community to gain a full appreciation of NETs without the need to seek out and refer to a multitude of sources.

Waste to Energy deals with the very topical subject of converting the calorific content of waste material into useful forms of energy. It complements and, to a certain degree, overlaps with its companion volume, "Biomass to Biofuels", since a significant proportion of biomass converted to energy nowadays originates from various types of waste. The material in the first, more substantial part of the volume has been arranged according to the type of process for energy conversion. Biochemical processes are described in six articles. These relate to the production of methane by anaerobic digestion; reactor conversion efficiencies; investigations on ethanol production from biodegradable municipal solid waste through hydrolysis and fermentation; hydrogen production from glucose through a hybrid anaerobic and photosynthetic process; biodiesel production from used cooking oil through base-catalyzed transesterification. Conversions by thermochemical processes are discussed in the subsequent eleven articles of the volume.These cover combustion, the direct use of heat energy; using the heat produced in thermal power stations for steam and, ultimately, electricity generation; municipal solid waste and refuse-derived fuel. In another article, computational fluid dynamics modelling is applied to assess the influence of process parameters and to perform optimization studies. A group of articles deal with more complex thermochemical processes involving combustion combined with pyrolysis and gasification. Two articles focus on biofuels as feed for fuel cells. In the last six articles, the emphasis is on management and policy rather than technical issues.

Renewable Energy Production and Distribution: Solutions and Opportunities, Volume Four, the latest release in the Advances in Renewable Energy Technologies series, looks at the production performance of renewable energy sources and emerging production processes. Containing all major renewable energy technologies in individual chapters, this reference includes some of the most dynamic developments, good practices and future concepts in solar energy systems, energy storage, geothermal energy, bioenergy and hydrogen production. By reviewing these advances, considering them in real world applications and analyzing key challenges, this book provides readers with an up-to-date resource on renewable energy grid integration and its importance. This newest volume will be of interest to sustainability, energy and engineering graduates, researchers, professors as well as industry professionals involved in the renewable energy sector.

Introduction to Transfer Phenomena in PEM Fuel Cells presents the fruit of several years of research in the area of fuel cells. The book illustrates the transfer phenomena occurring inside a single cell and describes the technology field of hydrogen, explicitly the production, storage and risk management of hydrogen as an energy carrier. Several applications of hydrogen are also cited, and special interest is dedicated to the PEM Fuel Cell. Mass, charge and heat transfer phenomena are also discussed in this great resource that includes explanations, illustrations and governing equations for each section.

This book presents original, peer-reviewed research papers from the 4th Purple Mountain Forum -International Forum on Smart Grid Protection and Control (PMF2019-SGPC), held in Nanjing, China on August 17-18, 2019. Addressing the latest research hotspots in the power industry, such as renewable energy integration, flexible interconnection of large scale power grids, integrated energy system, and cyber physical power systems, the papers share the latest research findings and practical application examples of the new theories, methodologies and algorithms in these areas. As such book a valuable reference for researchers, engineers, and university students.

This book presents research dedicated to solving scientific and technological problems in many areas of electronics, photonics and renewable energy. Energy and information are interconnected and are essential elements for the development of human society. Transmission, processing and storage of information requires energy consumption, while the efficient use and access to new energy sources requires new information (ideas and expertise) and the design of novel systems such as photovoltaic devices, fuel cells and batteries. Semiconductor physics creates the knowledge base for the development of information (computers, cell phones, etc.) and energy (photovoltaic) technologies. The exchange of ideas and expertise between these two technologies is critical and expands beyond semiconductors. Continued progress in information and renewable energy technologies requires miniaturization of devices and reduction of costs, energy and material consumption. The latest generation of electronic devices is now approaching nanometer scale dimensions, new materials are being introduced into electronics manufacturing at an unprecedented rate, and alternative technologies to mainstream CMOS are evolving. Nanotechnology is widely accepted as a source of potential solutions in securing future progress for information and energy technologies. Semiconductor Nanotechnology features chapters that cover the following areas: atomic scale materials design, bio- and molecular electronics, high frequency electronics, fabrication of nanodevices, magnetic materials and spintronics, materials and processes for integrated and subwave optoelectronics, nanoCMOS, new materials for FETs and other devices, nanoelectronics system architecture, nano optics and lasers, non-silicon materials and devices, chemical and biosensors, quantum effects in devices, nano science and technology applications in the development of novel solar energy devices, and fuel cells and batteries.

This book examines the potential applications of nanoscience and nanotechnology to promote eco-friendly processes and techniques for energy and environment sustainability. Covering various aspects of both the synthesis and applications of nanoparticles and nanofluids for energy and environmental engineering, its goal is to promote eco-friendly processes and techniques. Accordingly, the book elaborates on the development of reliable, economical, eco-friendly processes through advanced nanoscience and technological research and innovations. Gathering contributions by researchers actively engaged in various domains of nanoscience and technology, it addresses topics such as nanoparticle synthesis (both top-down and bottom-up approaches); applications of nanomaterials, nanosensors and plasma discharge in pollution control; environmental monitoring; agriculture; energy recovery; production enhancement; energy conservation and storage; surface modification of materials for energy storage; fuel cells; pollution mitigation; and CO2 capture and sequestration. Given its scope, the book will be of interest to academics and researchers whose work involves nanotechnology or nanomaterials, especially as applied to energy and/or environmental sustainability engineering. Graduate students in the same areas will also find it a valuable resource.

This book, based on the research experience and outcomes of a group of international contributors, addresses a range of advanced energy efficiency technologies and their applications in solar heating, cooling and power generation, while also providing solutions for tackling recurring low efficiency problems in today's systems. It highlights the latest technologies and methods, which can significantly improve the performance of solar systems, enabling readers to design, construct and apply high-performance solar systems in or for their own projects. The contributors provide a systematic introduction to state-of-the-art energy efficiency technologies that demonstrates how to implement innovative solar systems. These technologies include: * heat pipes and loop heat pipes; * phase change materials (PCMs) and PCM slurries; * micro-channel panels; * desiccant/adsorption cycling; * ejector cooling and heat pumps; and * solar concentration and thermoelectric units. The book shows how innovative solar systems applicable to rural and urban buildings can be analysed and demonstrates the successful implementation of these advanced technologies. It delivers the design principles and associated energy performance assessment methods for a range of selected solar heating, cooling and power generation projects. This book offers a valuable source of information for final-year undergraduate students, as well as graduate students and academic lecturers, as it promotes the widespread deployment of advanced solar heating, cooling and power generation technologies applicable for buildings across the globe. The book is also a good point of reference for design engineers and energy consultants who wish to extend their knowledge of advanced technologies used to achieve energy efficiency.