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Processes
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Renewable Energy in Environmental Engineering
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Renewable Energy in Environmental Engineering

A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 February 2023) | Viewed by 10298

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Piero Bevilacqua

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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, Italy
Interests: green roofs; green solutions; energy saving in buildings; photovoltaic systems; innovative air-conditioning systems; dynamic simulation of buildings and plants; experimental analysis of thermal properties
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Giovanni Nicoletti

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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering, University of Calabria, 87036 Cosenza, Italy
Interests: entropic analysis of energy systems; solar hydrogen; hydrocarbon fuels, environmental pollution, wall vibrations; conductive and convective thermal exchange; atmospheric pollution; environmental impact; environmental issues; energy management; sustainability and development of territory and environment; renewable energy sources
Prof. Roberto Bruno

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical, Energy and Management Engineering, Università della Calabria, 87036 Cosenza, Italy
Interests: thermal analysis of building components using a climatic chamber; passive systems in buildings to reduce thermal energy requirements; measurement of climatic quantities; net- and near-zero-energy buildings; double-skin systems in existing buildings; innovative technologies for building air conditioning; solar cooling; innovative photovoltaic generators; cogenerative and trigenerative photovoltaic systems; high-efficiency and variable-flow air conditioning systems; models for the intelligent management of building-plant systems with cognitive algorithms; back cooling of PV systems; innovative thermal storage systems; green roofs; heat pumps combined with active solar systems; energy recovery from the LNG regasification process; biofuel production from intensive production of microalgae within photo-bioreactors
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Environmental protection has become a cardinal target for setting proper models of sustainable development. The process of sustainable development requires research and development of technologies that have a low environmental impact, massively promoting the employment of renewable energy sources. The reduction of fossil fuel consumption is indeed one of the main instruments promoted in national and international strategies to attain such goals. Environmental engineering involves research into technologies that can be applied to minimize the impact on the environment, pushing toward the development of solutions that allow environmental pressure to be ameliorated while at the same time meeting the current energy demand.

The recent interest in environmental engineering problems has led to the development of techniques and technologies to reduce atmospheric pollution; improve water management and treatment; and rationalize waste treatment, disposal, and management.

This Special Issue, “Renewable Energy in Environmental Engineering”, aims to gather contributions that deal with advances in environmentally clean technologies, renewable energy, and sustainable development. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Sustainable development;
  • Environmental protection;
  • Atmospheric pollution;
  • Environmental impact;
  • Renewable energy;
  • Water management;
  • Waste management;
  • Solar technologies.

Dr. Piero Bevilacqua
Prof. Giovanni Nicoletti
Prof. Roberto Bruno
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • renewable sources
  • environmental impact
  • atmospheric pollution
  • fossil fuels
  • wind turbines
  • solar energy
  • photovoltaic
  • hydroelectric generation
  • CO2 emissions
  • CO2 capture and storage
  • environmental impact
  • waste management
  • water management

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 6699 KiB  
Article
Application of Neuro-Fuzzy Techniques for Energy Scheduling in Smart Grids Integrating Photovoltaic Panels
by Otilia Elena Dragomir, Florin Dragomir, Marius Păun, Octavian Duca, Ion Valentin Gurgu and Ioan-Cătălin Drăgoi
Processes 2023, 11(4), 1021; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11041021 - 28 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1183
Abstract
In recent years, most of the research in the field of smart grids integrating renewable energy sources assumed energy efficiency as a scheduling objective. However, the aspects of energy consumption or energy demand have not been described clearly, even though they have been [...] Read more.
In recent years, most of the research in the field of smart grids integrating renewable energy sources assumed energy efficiency as a scheduling objective. However, the aspects of energy consumption or energy demand have not been described clearly, even though they have been proven to be an effective way of reducing energy consumption. In this context, this study aimed to cover a key research challenge in the field, such as the development of an intelligent strategy for solving energy consumption scheduling problems. The added value of our proposal consists of classifying individual consumption profiles assigned to each operation cycle phase, instead of considering an average of non-varying consumption of household appliances. Within this hybrid approach, the proposed explainable system, based on self-organizing maps of neural networks, fuzzy clustering algorithm, and scheduling technics, correlates the complex interrelation between power generated from renewable energy sources in a smart grid, prosumers’ load behaviors, and the consumption profile of controllable or uncontrollable appliances. The tests were made using green energy consumption and production from real monitored data sets. The load-shifting algorithm that was used to reduce energy consumption from the national energy grid proved its effectiveness. In fact, consumers paid 25% less for the energy they used from the national energy grid during the times when the amount of electricity produced from renewable sources was reduced as a result of weather conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy in Environmental Engineering)
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17 pages, 1119 KiB  
Article
Connecting Fiscal Decentralization with Climate Change Mitigation in China: Directions for Carbon Capturing Systems
by Tao Deng, Mohammed Arshad Khan, Moin Uddin and Ahsanuddin Haider
Processes 2023, 11(3), 712; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11030712 - 27 Feb 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1659
Abstract
The research aims to assess the relationship between fiscal decentralization and climate change mitigation to warrant the direction for the carbon-capturing systems of China. The study estimated the results of China and applied unit root test, cointegration analysis, CS-ARDL test, and robustness analysis. [...] Read more.
The research aims to assess the relationship between fiscal decentralization and climate change mitigation to warrant the direction for the carbon-capturing systems of China. The study estimated the results of China and applied unit root test, cointegration analysis, CS-ARDL test, and robustness analysis. The survey results highlighted a significant relationship between the fiscal decentralization index and climate change mitigation. More specifically, the budgetary decentralization index’s economic, governmental, and institutional factors play a substantial role in climate change mitigation in the short run. While governmental factors are found insignificant asein the long run, economic, institutional, and cultural factors revealed a significant connection in the Chinese setting. The results of the study are robust in both long-run and short-run perspectives. The study also presented prudential guidelines for using fiscal decentralization as an environmental tool for climate change mitigation and launching an effective system for carbon capture management from the Chinese perspective. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy in Environmental Engineering)
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21 pages, 4308 KiB  
Article
Dynamic Load Sharing Behavior for the Pitch Drive in MW Wind Turbines
by Congfang Hu, Tao Yuan, Shiping Yang, Yunbo Hu and Xiao Liang
Processes 2023, 11(2), 544; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr11020544 - 10 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1194
Abstract
For a wind energy system, main speed-increasing gearboxes, pitch drives and yaw drives are composed of a multistage planetary gear system. However, inevitable errors in the manufacturing and assembling of the gears lead to uneven load of distribution in the planetary gear system; [...] Read more.
For a wind energy system, main speed-increasing gearboxes, pitch drives and yaw drives are composed of a multistage planetary gear system. However, inevitable errors in the manufacturing and assembling of the gears lead to uneven load of distribution in the planetary gear system; thus, its service life and reliability decrease greatly, which would eventually affect the normal operation of the whole wind power system. In this study, a dynamic load sharing model of pitch drive is established with a lumped-parameter method. Given the manufacturing and assembly errors and central floating gear, the dynamic equations for each component, the stiffness matrix and damping matrix, the dynamic load sharing coefficient and the floating displacement of the sun gear are obtained according to the dynamic meshing force and damping load. Furthermore, the load sharing coefficient for external and internal meshing of the pitch drive for a 2 MW wind turbine with a three-stage planetary gear are achieved. Then, the floating displacement of the sun gear and the displacement of other gears are also obtained. Moreover, the influence of both external and internal meshing stiffness, the eccentric error and tooth frequency error for all components on the load sharing coefficient of all stages are investigated. Lastly, the theoretical components displacement of this model is compared with experiment results of the pitch drive under 50%, 100% and 150% rated torque in a test rig; the correctness of the model is verified by the experiment results. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy in Environmental Engineering)
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19 pages, 1424 KiB  
Article
Wastewater Treatment Plants as Local Thermal Power Stations—Modifying Internal Heat Supply for Covering External Heat Demand
by Florian Kretschmer, Bernd Hrdy, Georg Neugebauer and Gernot Stoeglehner
Processes 2021, 9(11), 1981; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9111981 - 06 Nov 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2426
Abstract
To counteract climate change, the application of renewable energy sources and their efficient use are of crucial importance. In this context, wastewater has also gained increased attention in recent years. For decades, wastewater treatment plants have applied the heat from digester gas combustion [...] Read more.
To counteract climate change, the application of renewable energy sources and their efficient use are of crucial importance. In this context, wastewater has also gained increased attention in recent years. For decades, wastewater treatment plants have applied the heat from digester gas combustion to supply internal demands. However, in the context of efficient energy use the question arises: can using high temperature heat for supplying low temperature demand still be considered the best option? This article presents an innovative approach to covering wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) internal demand with low temperature wastewater heat recovery, making thermal energy from digester gas combustion available for feed-in to a local high temperature district heating network. The presented feasibility study was carried out in an Austrian municipality and investigates the heat balance, the economic risk, climatic benefits and the social aspects of the suggested approach. The practical implementation of the novel approach was planned in two steps. First, the WWTP should be connected to the district heating network to enable the feed-in of excess heat. Second, the WWTP internal heat supply should be modified and based on wastewater heat recovery from the effluent. Due to the promising results of the feasibility study, the first step was realized in summer 2020. The second and final step was initiated in 2021. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy in Environmental Engineering)
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19 pages, 8276 KiB  
Article
A Second Law Analysis to Determine the Environmental Impact of Boilers Supplied by Different Fuels
by Giovanni Nicoletti, Roberto Bruno, Piero Bevilacqua, Natale Arcuri and Gerardo Nicoletti
Processes 2021, 9(1), 113; https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9010113 - 07 Jan 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1599
Abstract
A novel procedure to determine the environmental quality of boilers based on the combustion entropy degradation, the pollutants emission and the device efficiency is proposed. The entropy generation due to the chemical reaction was determined and then the irreversibilities on the external environment [...] Read more.
A novel procedure to determine the environmental quality of boilers based on the combustion entropy degradation, the pollutants emission and the device efficiency is proposed. The entropy generation due to the chemical reaction was determined and then the irreversibilities on the external environment were first quantified. Successively, the entropy generation numbers of the combustion reactions were combined with the heat transfer process entropy generation of the boilers to consider the actual functioning conditions, in order to quantify the environmental damages by introducing an Environment Quality Index (EQI). A parametric study varying the heat exchanger efficiency, fluid flow rates and temperatures, for different fuel typologies, was performed to assess the environmental impact. Solar hydrogen was considered for its importance as future renewable energy carrier. The results showed that the highest EQI was produced by the natural gas, but if heat exchanger parameters are defined opportunely, the score gap with other fluids can be recovered. For hydrogen and coal decreasing the flue gases temperature or by increasing the flue gases mass flow rate can strongly improve the EQI index, whereas the gap recovery for Diesel is rather difficult. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy in Environmental Engineering)
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