The use of the wind as an energy source is increasing and growing worldwide. Wind energy is an important non-fossil option to supplement fossil (coal, natural gas and oil) and nuclear fuels for the generation of electricity.Many parts of the world, particularly the coastlines of Western Europe, North Africa, North and South America, India, Eastern Russia, China, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, experience a high annual incidence of wind energy. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, together with the Republic of Ireland form a particularly windy location, being favoured with strong westerly winds. The technology of the design and installation of wind turbines and wind farms are, in fact, well established. Operational practice, though, is still being developed as engineers learn by experience.This book is written for electrical engineers concerned with the use of wind power for generating electricity. It incorporates some meteorological features of international wind supply plus a survey of the past and present wind turbines with technical assessment of the choice of turbine sites. Detailed coverage is given to the different types of electrical generator machines used and the electronic control devices employed in modern turbine systems.Importantly, this book devotes full chapters to the integration of wind farms into established electrical grid supply systems, and the environmental and economic aspects of wind generation. Engineers will be drawn to the practical approach in this book, featuring worked numerical examples - complete with answers - at the end of some chapters.

By the end of the 21st century, our oil and natural gas supplies will be virtually nonexistent, and limited coal supplies will be restricted to only a handful of countries. The authors - an environmental scientist and veteran journalist - make abundantly clear that we must plan for a future without reliance on oil. They make a compelling case that the key determinant of our global economy is not so much the invisible hand of the marketplace but the inexorable laws of ecology. Although the coming decades will be a time of much disruption and change of lifestyle, in the end we may learn a wiser, more sustainable stewardship of our natural resources.
This timely, sobering, yet constructive discussion of energy and ecology offers a realistic vision of the near future and many important lessons about the limits of our resources.

Climate change, environmental impact and declining natural resources are driving scientific research and novel technical solutions. Green Energy and Technology serves as a publishing platform for scientific and technological approaches to "green" - i.e., environmentally friendly and sustainable - technologies. While the main focus lies on energy and power supply, the series also covers green solutions in industrial engineering and engineering design. Green Energy and Technology is a monograph series addressing researchers, advanced students and technical consultants, as well as decision makers in industry and politics. The level presentation ranges from instructional to highly technical. Fossil fuels are widely used for electricity generation and heating, creating greenhouse gas emissions and other toxic pollutants, which should be minimised according to the most recent environmental legislation. The utilisation of solid fuels with biogenic origin could contribute to the minimisation of these emissions. Solid Biofuels for Energy presents the current status of the engineering disciplines in this specific area, providing an improved background on the energy exploitation options of solid biomass. Within this framework, all thematic priorities related to the solid bioenergy potential and standardisation, commercialised and emerging energy technologies, and quality of solid residues are presented. Special attention has been given to biomass co-firing with coal, since it has the highest potential for commercial application, while combustion and gasification are more promising for units of medium to small scale. This strong practical focus is evident throughout the book, particularly in discussions of: international standards for solid biofuel specifications; supply, cost and sustainability of solid biofuels; technical issues and non-technical barriers in biomass/coal co-firing; and biomass combustion and gasification characteristics.

Past, Present, and Future Industrial Biotechnology in China, by Zhenjiang Li, Xiaojun Ji, Suli Kan, Hongqun Qiao, Min Jiang, Dingqiang Lu, Jun Wang, He Huang, Honghua Jia, Pingkai Ouyuang, and Hanjie Ying.- Organic Chemicals from Bioprocesses in China, by Jin Huang, Lei Huang, Jianping Lin, Zhinan Xu, and Peilin Cen.- Biofuels in China, by Tianwei Tan, Jianliang Yu, Jike Lu, and Tao Zhang.- Bioreactors and Bioseparation, by Siliang Zhang, Xuejun Cao, Ju Chu, Jiangchao Qian, and Yingping Zhuang.- Environmental Biotechnology in China, by Shuang Jiang Liu , Lei Liu , Muhammad Tausif Chaudhry , Lei Wang , Ying Guang Chen , Qi Zhou , He Liu , and Jian Chen.- Traditional Chinese Biotechnology, by Yan Xu , Dong Wang , Wen Lai Fan , Xiao Qing Mu, and Jian Chen.- Modern Biotechnology in China, by Qing-Zhao Wang and Xue-Ming Zhao.

This book addresses the uncertainties of wind power modeled as interval numbers and assesses the physical modeling and methods for interval power flow, interval economic dispatch and interval robust economic dispatch. In particular, the optimization models are set up to address these topics and the state-of-the-art methods are employed to efficiently solve the proposed models. Several standard IEEE test systems as well as real-world large-scale Polish power systems have been tested to verify the effectiveness of the proposed models and methods. These methods can be further applied to other research fields that are involved with uncertainty.

In Europe, the building sector accounts for 40% of energy consumption which has a strong influence on greenhouse gas emissions. The book deals with efficient methodologies aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector. This includes analyses of the building envelopes, the heating systems, the use of solar energy and the assessment of the environmental and energy sustainability of the proposed solutions. After a brief introduction to the physical fundamentals involved in the study, results are presented to support cost-effective technical strategies to promote actions for energy saving, in the most critical fields and with the most economic advantage.

This book addresses in detail multifaceted approaches to boosting nutrient use efficiency (NUE) that are modified by plant interactions with environmental variables and combine physiological, microbial, biotechnological and agronomic aspects. Conveying an in-depth understanding of the topic will spark the development of new cultivars and strains to induce NUE, coupled with best management practices that will immensely benefit agricultural systems, safeguarding their soil, water, and air quality. Written by recognized experts in the field, the book is intended to provide students, scientists and policymakers with essential insights into holistic approaches to NUE, as well as an overview of some successful case studies. In the present understanding of agriculture, NUE represents a question of process optimization in response to the increasing fragility of our natural resources base and threats to food grain security across the globe. Further improving nutrient use efficiency is a prerequisite to reducing production costs, expanding crop acreage into non-competitive marginal lands with low nutrient resources, and preventing environmental contamination. The nutrients most commonly limiting plant growth are N, P, K, S and micronutrients like Fe, Zn, B and Mo. NUE depends on the ability to efficiently take up the nutrient from the soil, but also on transport, storage, mobilization, usage within the plant and the environment. A number of approaches can help us to understand NUE as a whole. One involves adopting best crop management practices that take into account root-induced rhizosphere processes, which play a pivotal role in controlling nutrient dynamics in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. New technologies, from basic tools like leaf color charts to sophisticated sensor-based systems and laser land leveling, can reduce the dependency on laboratory assistance and manual labor. Another approach concerns the development of crop plants through genetic manipulations that allow them to take up and assimilate nutrients more efficiently, as well as identifying processes of plant responses to nutrient deficiency stress and exploring natural genetic variation. Though only recently introduced, the ability of microbial inoculants to induce NUE is gaining in importance, as the loss, immobilization, release and availability of nutrients are mediated by soil microbial processes.

A unique feature of this book is its focus on nanotechnological solutions for the production of bioenergy and biofuels. Coverage includes topics such as nanobiotechnology, microalgae, biofuel cells, biomass pretreatment, and biomass conversion. An international team of experts also addresses the need to precisely characterize nanoparticles and the role of catalysts. The range of topics addressed, together with a chapter on risk management, make this book a highly useful resource for a broad readership including physicists, chemists, microbiologists, biotechnologists, food technologists, agricultural engineers, and nanotechnologists.

Offshore wind energy is one of the most promising and fastest growing alternative energy sources in the world. "Offshore Wind Energy Cost Modeling "provides a methodological framework to assess installation and decommissioning costs, and using examples from the European experience, provides a broad review of existing processes and systems used in the offshore wind industry.

"Offshore Wind Energy Cost Modeling" provides a step-by-step guide to modeling costs over four sections. These sections cover:

.Background and introductory material,

.Installation processes and vessel requirements,

.Installation cost estimation, and

.Decommissioning methods and cost estimation.

This self-contained and detailed treatment of the key principles in offshore wind development is supported throughout by visual aids and data tables. "Offshore Wind Energy Cost Modeling "is a key resource for anyone interested in the offshore wind industry, particularly those interested in the technical and economic aspects of installation and decommissioning. The book provides a reliable point of reference for industry practitioners and policy makers developing generalizable installation or decommissioning cost estimates.

.Background and introductory material,

.Installation processes and vessel requirements,

.Installation cost estimation, and

.Decommissioning methods and cost estimation.

This self-contained and detailed treatment of the key principles in offshore wind development is supported throughout by visual aids and data tables. "Offshore Wind Energy Cost Modeling "is a key resource for anyone interested in the offshore wind industry, particularly those interested in the technical and economic aspects of installation and decommissioning. The book provides a reliable point of reference for industry practitioners and policy makers developing generalizable installation or decommissioning cost estimates.

This self-contained and detailed treatment of the key principles in offshore wind development is supported throughout by visual aids and data tables. "Offshore Wind Energy Cost Modeling "is a key resource for anyone interested in the offshore wind industry, particularly those interested in the technical and economic aspects of installation and decommissioning. The book provides a reliable point of reference for industry practitioners and policy makers developing generalizable installation or decommissioning cost estimates.

"

The book discusses the concept of the smart city, and is based on a multi-service and multi-sectoral approach to urban planning, including various urban functions and the human capital of cities. The work is divided into three parts. The first is an introductory section which covers definitions, policies and tools used at European level for the development and classification of a smart city. The second presents a selection of examples of Western and Eastern communities, which experienced technologies and strategies that have made them smart. The third describes in detail the main three possible approaches (economical, technological and social) to the smart city concept which are the focus ambits of the holistic concept of smart city. The work provides a good overview of the concept of smart city, and also offers a critical analysis of the various approaches to smart cities, in order to provide tools to develop solutions that address the smart development of cities with an approach as multi-sectoral as possible. Its accessible language and several examples make the book easy to read and appealing to public administrators, students, planners and researchers.

This book examines recent developments in Latin American biofuel production. Taking "sustainable development" as a central theme, each chapter considers one country in the region and explores how biofuel production is evolving given concerns about food sovereignty, trade and other social issues. Environmental conservation, as well as an increasingly complex and globalized economic structure, Is also taken into account. The contributions to this volume critically explore the ways in which biofuel production in Latin America impact social, economic and environmental systems: the so-called "three pillars of sustainability". Numerous stakeholders, drawn from government, industry, civil society and academia have attempted to define "Sustainable Development" in the context of biofuel production and to operationalize it through a series of principles, criteria, and highly specific indicators. Nevertheless, it remains a fluid and contested concept with deep political and social ramifications, which each chapter explores in detail.

This is an inspiring look at how new 'alternative energy' policies are leading the way in the fight against the global energy crisis. The looming threat of global warming may be the greatest long-term challenge of the modern age. "Switching to Solar" is an inspiring and optimistic story of a green revolution in the making, exploring how the unrelenting efforts of a small band of grassroots activists have discovered ways to turn solar into a practical retail energy solution. The crucial driver for the adoption of solar energy is not technology, but policy. Focusing on initiatives in Germany, it describes the use of 'feed-in tariffs' - where those producing excess energy from solar sell to energy companies - as the most successful mechanism for driving the widespread deployment of solar energy.

Presenting a complete guide for the planning, design and implementation of solar PV systems for off-grid applications, this book features analysis based on the authors' own laboratory testing as well as their in the field experiences. Incorporating the latest developments in smart-digital and control technologies into the design criteria of the PV system, this book will also focus on how to integrate newer smart design approaches and techniques for improving the efficiency, reliability and flexibility of the entire system. The design and implementation of India's first-of its-kind Smart Mini-Grid system (SMG) at TERI premises, which involves the integration of multiple renewable energy resources (including solar PV) through smart controllers for managing the load intelligently and effectively is presented as a key case study. Maximizing reader insights into the performance of different components of solar PV systems under different operating conditions, the book will be of interest to graduate students, researchers, PV designers, planners, and practitioners working in the area of solar PV design, implementation and assessment.

After the United Nations adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to "end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all," researchers and policy makers highlighted the importance of targeted investment in science, technology, and innovation (STI) to make tangible progress. Science, Technology, and Innovation for Sustainable Development Goals showcases the roles that STI solutions can play in meeting on-the-ground socio-economic and environmental challenges among domestic and international organizations concerned with the SDGs in three overlapping areas: agriculture, health, and environment/energy. Authors and researchers from 31 countries tackle both big-picture questions, such as scaling up the adoption and diffusion of new sustainable technologies, and specific, localized case studies, focusing on developing and middle-income countries and specific STI solutions and policies. Issues addressed include renewable energy, automated vehicles, vaccines, digital health, agricultural biotechnology, and precision agriculture. In bringing together diverse voices from both policy and academic spheres, this volume provides practical and relevant insights and advice to support policy makers and managers seeking to enhance the roles of STI in sustainable development.

This book analyzes the influence of electric vehicles on microclimate and the indirect influence on power load from a unique perspective. It discusses different aspects of Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, including large and small-scale charging infrastructures, and describes the effect on electricity price, voltage, frequency and other key V2G technologies. It introduces various aspects of the influence of electric vehicles on the power grids and the control strategies for achieving economic, safe and steady grid operation using V2G technologies. This book is suitable for senior undergraduates and postgraduates majoring in electrical, transportation, or environmental engineering, as well as other related professionals.

This book focuses on tritium as a fuel for fusion reactors and a next-generation energy source. Following an introduction of tritium as a hydrogen radioisotope, important issues involved in establishing safe and economical tritium fuel cycles including breeding for a fusion reactor are summarized; these include the handling of large amounts of tritium: confinement, leakage, contamination, permeation, regulation and tritium accountancy, and impacts on surrounding areas. Targeting and encouraging the students and technicians who will design and operate fusion reactors in the near future, this book offers a valuable resource on tritium science and technology.

This book provides a comprehensive guide to the design of sustainable and green computing systems (GSC). Coverage includes important breakthroughs in various aspects of GSC, including multi-core architectures, interconnection technology, data centers, high performance computing (HPC), and sensor networks. The authors address the challenges of power efficiency and sustainability in various contexts, including system design, computer architecture, programming languages, compilers and networking.

Although fossil fuels remain the primary global energy source, developing and expanding economies are creating an ever-widening gap between supply and demand. Efficient energy management offers a cost-effective opportunity for both industrialized and developing nations to limit the enormous financial and environmental costs associated with burning fossil fuels. The implication of photovoltaic systems in particular presents the potential for clean and sustainable electrical energy to be generated from an unrestricted source. "Energy Management in Buildings Using Photovoltaics "demonstrates how adopting 'best practices' for energy management and harvesting can reduce the need to construct new generating facilities.

Illustrated with figures, tables and photos, "Energy Management in Buildings Using Photovoltaics" provides an introduction and step by step instructions on designing and planning photovoltaic systems and energy policies for both residential and industrial buildings. With particular focus on the example of provided by European industry, the creation of energy efficient systems is explored including chapters on:

Zero Energy Buildings,

Photovoltaics Technology, and

Connection of the Network

By presenting this topic from basic introduction to highly technical analysis, "Energy Management in Buildings Using Photovoltaics "acts a study guide for postgraduate students as well as a key point of reference for researchers and technical consultants in the field of photovoltaic systems.

"

"House Rating Schemes" provides information to students, architects and researchers in the field of the built environment. It reviews current House Rating Schemes (HRS) used in different countries and investigates how these schemes assess the thermal performance of a house. It challenges the way that these schemes assess building energy efficiency and their inability to evaluate free running buildings which do not need an energy load for heating and cooling indoor environments. Finally, the book proposes a new index and method for HRS in which the efficiency of a house design can be evaluated with reference to its thermal performance in both free running and conditioned operation modes. The book deals with various approaches and methods for rating buildings on the basis of different indexes, with implications for both energy efficiency and thermal comfort. It also guides readers through a computer simulation program for developing a rating system that evaluates and ranks building energy efficiency.

This book unpacks the politics of climate change in Australia in the context of successive conservative Coalition governments resisting any moves to mitigate emissions and as local communities and transnational corporations struggle with each other to control the transition to a sustainable energy future. As Australia has abundant clean energy resources in terms of solar and wind, the book offers a test case for study of the energy policy transition in the 21st century. It does so by using tools from political economy and sociology, teasing out public attitudes to renewable energy technologies and innovative infrastructure investments, unpacking the complex parameters of this historical debate, tracing the rise of household 'prosumers' and arguing the case for grassroots ownership of renewable infrastructure or 'energy sovereignty' - already pioneered by some isolated communities in Australia. The cultural and emancipatory benefits of cooperative ventures are well known. However, capitalism is not readily defeated by democracy. The promotion of individual households as 'virtual power stations', of 'smart technologies' and even of cryptocurrency into the energy transition innovative mix opens up ever new horizons for corporate control.

This volume represents the proceedings of the Second International Conference on Sustainability in Energy and Buildings, SEB'10, held in the City of Brighton and Hove in the United Kingdom, and organised by KES International. Organised by the KES International organisation, SEB'10 formed a welcome opportunity for researchers in subjects related to sustainability, renewable energy technology, and applications in the built environment to mix with other scientists, industrialists and stakeholders in the field. SEB'10 attracted papers on a range of renewable energy and sustainability related topics and in addition the conference explored two innovative themes:- * The application of intelligent sensing, control, optimisation and modelling techniques to sustainability and * The technology of sustainable buildings. These techniques could ultimately be applied to the intelligent building SEB'10 attracted about 100 submissions from around the world. These were subjected to a two-stage blind peer-review process. With the objective of producing a high quality conference, the best 30% of these were selected for presentation at the conference and publication in this volume of proceedings. The papers in this volume are grouped into the five themes under which they were presented: Building Sustainability, Sustainable Power Generation, Sustainable Energy Policy and Strategy, Energy Monitoring and Management and Solar Energy Technology. These proceedings form an interesting and informative collection of papers, useful as a resource for further research, and a valuable source of information for those interested in the subject.

Systems engineered by man to harness solar heat in a controlled manner now include a diverse range of technologies each serving distinctive needs in particular climate contexts. This text covers the breadth of solar energy technologies for the conversion of solar energy to provide heat, either as the directly-used output or as an intermediary to other uses such as power generation or cooling. It is a wholly updated, extended and revised version of "Solar Energy Thermal Technology" first published in 1992. The text draws on the own author's research and that of numerous colleagues and collaborators at Cranfield University, University of Ulster, Dublin Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and University of Nigeria.

The initial chapters deal with relevant fundamental aspects of solar energy meteorology, radiative heat transfer, material properties and energy storage. Solar energy collectors are discussed in detail before a set of chapters deal with each of the full range of applications. The early chapters consider: the solar energy resource, its distribution in geographical, spectral, skyward geometrical and temporal domains; the physics of solar energy absorption, transmission and loss at surfaces; and techniques for storing collected solar energy. Specific collector sub-systems are then discussed in chapters seven to nine. For each system, practical issues are discussed and a proven analytical procedure for predicting performance described. Similarly analyses are presented in the concluding chapters on solar energy systems. These range from dryers to greenhouses to systems that render buildings solar energy systems in themselves and the associated design issues.

The context for any use of solar energy is the prevailing climate. This text, being global in scope, definates the most appropriate regions for particular technologies and applications. It is a research-orientated academic work citing publications on the peer-reviewed literature covering engineering and applied science topics intended both for student use, as a reference tool for teaching solar energy and for those researching solar thermal applications in universities, industry or national/commercial laboratories. Insight into the challenges of implementation including practical constraints and operational considerations are provided to aid those undertaking feasibility studies, technical assistance, training assignments or operating testing facilities."

Optimal Control of Hybrid Vehicles provides a description of power train control for hybrid vehicles. The background, environmental motivation and control challenges associated with hybrid vehicles are introduced. The text includes mathematical models for all relevant components in the hybrid power train. The power split problem in hybrid power trains is formally described and several numerical solutions detailed, including dynamic programming and a novel solution for state-constrained optimal control problems based on the maximum principle. Real-time-implementable strategies that can approximate the optimal solution closely are dealt with in depth. Several approaches are discussed and compared, including a state-of-the-art strategy which is adaptive for vehicle conditions like velocity and mass. Three case studies are included in the book: * a control strategy for a micro-hybrid power train; * experimental results obtained with a real-time strategy implemented in a hybrid electric truck; and * an analysis of the optimal component sizes for a hybrid power train. Optimal Control of Hybrid Vehicles will appeal to academic researchers and graduate students interested in hybrid vehicle control or in the applications of optimal control. Practitioners working in the design of control systems for the automotive industry will also find the ideas propounded in this book of interest.