Dear Colleagues,

The need to resort increasingly to renewable energy sources is currently forcing governments and distribution network service providers (DNSPs) to grapple with how to manage the costs of electricity supply with the prospect of distributed generation while still meeting the social objectives of access and affordability in remote areas. In developed countries, the so-called prosumer, simultaneously producing and consuming electricity, is spreading, thus making concrete the diffusion of micro-grids and the need for their development in the light of demand–response optimization. The electric power distribution networks of many undeveloped countries, on the other hand, today reveal an insufficient or null supply to many remote communities. This often implies the need to resort to solar power or thermoelectric generators burning diesel oil. The latter, in particular, is expensive, environmentally damaging, and fails to exploit the vast renewable resources available. A symbolic example is the majority of off-grid energy supply to the Brazilian northwest region, largely dominated by the rainforest, which alone accounts for about half of the nation’s territory. In most cases, sole market mechanisms are not sufficient to guarantee the economic sustainability of remote electrification projects. Moreover, despite local DNSPs encouraging renewables from the “bottom up” by often providing feed-in tariffs to reduce the supply cost and environmental damage from fossil fuel generation, a range of barriers still currently frustrates a dynamic and adaptive approach that fully recognizes local challenges and provides pathways to be followed to optimize valorisation.

Actions must be therefore undertaken toward a more intensive exploitation of bioenergy, in standalone configurations or by multi-source-integrated systems along with solar, wind, and hydro power. Resorting to off-grid solutions of hybrid energy generation and storage today constitutes a viable route not only to supply services to remote districts but also to lower the load over national networks and to increase the resilience of territories exposed to natural disasters or climate change effects.

Submissions addressing technical and economic challenges to a more rationale and sustainable use of resources, especially of residual materials, that discuss costs of management and disposal are welcome.

Dr. Michela Costa
Dr. Daniele Piazzullo
Guest Editors

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• waste-to-energy
• biomass
• integrated renewable generation
• hybrid energy systems
• off-grid power systems