Advanced energy consumption system for smart farm based on reactive energy utilization technologies

Over the decades, both agriculture and energy grids have encountered significant challenges, such as the lack of power supply to agricultural farms and the difficulties of renewable energy use in the electricity sector. To overcome and address these issues, this paper presents an idea of merging smart farm and renewable energy, using surplus renewable energy for the agriculture sector using the smart farm for renewable energy supplies. First, demonstrate the framework to connect a smart farm energy system and analyze its feasibility and advantages. In this paper, Reactive Energy Utilization Technology (REUT) has been used as an efficient energy consumption system for the smart farm. It is used to predict the optimum wind power scenario in the smart farm by monitoring continuous control variables, with the lowest voltage reached in each scenario, and minimized actual total power losses. A combined system consisting of smart farming production, as well as renewable energy consumption, has been evaluated in experimental results. Experimental results and discussion shows that the proposed method has better renewable energy consumption, accuracy(96.7%), and efficiency(95.6%) for smart farming.     

Determining significance in social impact assessments (SIA) by applying both technical and participatory approaches: Methodology development and application in a case study of the concentrated solar power plant NOORO I in Morocco

One of the main objectives of impact assessments is to identify potentially significant impacts. However, determining this significance has received very limited attention as a procedural step in social impact assessments. Consequently, only limited research and documentation exists on approaches, survey tools and evaluation methods, especially with regard to participatory approaches and combined participatory-technical approaches. This study aims to address this research gap by developing and applying a joined participatory and technical impact significance evaluation. The approach is applied in a case study which analysed the livelihood impacts of the large-scale concentrated solar power plant NOOR_O I in Ouarzazate, Morocco.The analysis shows that although different approaches and significance criteria must be applied when involving both local stakeholders and experts, the linked analysis offers more robust results and an improved basis for decision-making. Furthermore, it was observed in the case study that impacts affecting the social, cultural and political spheres were more often considered significant than impacts affecting the physical and material livelihood dimensions. Regarding sustainability assessments of large-scale renewable energy plants, these findings underline the importance (as for other large-scale infrastructure developments) of placing greater emphasis on the inclusion of social aspects in impact assessments.     

Changes in bird species composition after a wind farm installation: A case study in South America

Facing the growing demand for renewable energy sources, the use of wind energy has been significantly increasing worldwide. Wind farms are known to present low environmental impact and their impact on bird fauna has been the most studied and discussed. In this study, we evaluated the composition of bird communities and changes in land use during three phases of wind farm development: pre-construction, construction and operation. Secondary data was obtained on bird communities, provided by the wildlife monitoring report submitted to the state environment agency of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The total number of species recorded for all phases of wind farm construction was 163 species. One hundred species were present during all phases, and 20 were recorded during at least two phases, 32 species were exclusive to the pre-construction phase, four species were recorded only during the construction phase and seven recorded during the operation phase. The evaluation of bird community structure revealed that the pre-construction phase differed from the 4 years of operation, indicating that an impact on bird species' composition is evident, but more detailed and longer surveys are needed to confirm this trend. The bird community responded to landscape changes, mainly due to the reduction of native and exotic forest cover, in areas affected by wind farms installation and operation, in both, species' composition and environmental guilds. Analysis of secondary data allows us to evaluate which changes may have resulted from the implantation of the wind energy industry to the regional bird fauna, and our findings demonstrates tha the changes associated with the construction and operation of this wind farm have negatively affected the bird community.     

A practical wind farm siting framework integrating ecosystem services — A case study of coastal China

Deploying renewable energy (RE) technologies has been acknowledged as an effective way of mitigating the pressure from increasing energy-related carbon emissions. However, evidence shows that RE deployment frequently leads to the loss and degradation of multiple ecosystem services (ES). Therefore, a sustainable RE deployment scheme should proactively identify and manage the potential trade-offs between RE production and ES provisioning. This study proposed a practical RE siting framework that integrates ES considerations (named as IES framework), and formulated a novel method that integrates Geographic Information Systems, fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process and Weighted Slacks-based Measure to implement this framework. Then, the suitability of wind farm sites in coastal China was evaluated and mapped using the IES framework. Results show that the suitable locations for wind farms in this region were mainly distributed in the provinces of Shandong, Hebei, Liaoning, and Jiangsu. Avian habitat and cultural ES were identified as the two services most vulnerable to wind farm deployment. A suitability map of wind farm siting in coastal China was created. Results prove that the proposed IES framework and the corresponding integrated method can effectively evaluate the trade-offs between RE production and ES provisioning and can be easily extended to guide the site selection for other REs, such as biomass, photovoltaic, and hydroelectric energy.     

Inserting socio-environmental variables in the power sector expansion planning

Energy models consider technical and economic criteria to define the optimal energy mix to produce electricity. However, the results are sub-optimal from the social point of view, since they do not include socio-environmental factors. The purpose of this study is to access the sustainability of power plants considering technical-economic, socio-environmental and institutional aspects so that to improve the expansion planning. Thus, the efficiencies calculated by slacks based measure approach of Data Envelopment Analysis methodology can be implemented as constraints in the models, signalizing that the socio-environmental impact cannot exceed a limit, which can be calculated by the energy model itself. The results show that renewable power plants contribute more to allocative efficiency than fossil fuel ones, both in terms of social and environmental aspects, which are of utmost importance in ranking power plants to model power capacity expansion. Considering just technical and economic factors has proved to be insufficient to optimize the system in terms of allocative efficiency.     

Accuracy of wind farm visualisations: The effect of focal length on perceived accuracy

Wind energy has been the fastest growing renewable energy technology for more than a decade. However, the visual impacts of wind farms are still one of the most controversial effects of wind energy development. Photomontage visualisations are frequently used in Visual Impact Assessments² (VIA) to give a sense of scale of the proposed development. Yet visualisations in VIAs are often perceived to underestimate the scale and magnitude of the visual impact of wind turbines. The aim of this multiphase mixed methods study is to explore the perceived accuracy of images that represent the visual impacts of both onshore and offshore wind farms. Field visits and data from a public survey are used to assess the accuracy of visualisations and to examine the effect of camera lens focal length on perception of scale of wind turbines. Results show that panoramic photomontages are perceived as the least accurate, while images taken at 75 mm focal length in full frame format are perceived as the most accurate form of representation of the scale and visual impact of wind turbines. These findings imply that the panoramic visualisation technique, which has been used for decades to predict the scale of wind turbines in VIAs, is ineffective in predicting accurately the visual impact of wind farms, and an alternative predictive technique is needed. For wind farm visualisations the use of 75 mm full frame image format is recommended in order to improve the accuracy, enable better informed decision making and avoid the loss of credibility of visualisations and VIAs.     

SWOT analysis for the development of photovoltaic solar power in Africa in comparison with China

Development of solar power becomes a necessary measure to combat global climate change and local environmental pollution in the world. In Africa, solar power resource is abundant, and deployment of solar photovoltaic (PV) offers a new opportunity for both economic growth and low-carbon development. Using an approach of SWOT analysis, we investigate the internal strengths and weaknesses, and the external opportunities and threats for PV solar power development in Africa. Particularly, factors are examined and discussed for African countries in terms of their internal strengths of rich solar resource, vast land, suitable application for distributed PV power systems; their weaknesses of small scale of renewable energy investment, shortness of foundation for the PV industrial chain, insufficient awareness of social and environmental benefits of solar PV; their external opportunities of increasing gap between energy supply and demand, raising global awareness of Climate Change, rapid decrease of PV price, as well as their external threats of dominant position of the fossil fuels, potential environmental impacts related to the solar PV development, and discontinuity of energy policies. The analysis particularly emphasizes on a new opportunity for African countries to develop their solar power resource through mutually beneficial cooperation between Africa and China within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).     

Land suitability assessment for wind power plant site selection using ANP-DEMATEL in a GIS environment: case study of Ardabil province,Iran

Wind energy is a renewable energy resource that has increased in usage in most countries. Site selection for the establishment of large wind turbines, called wind farms, like any other engineering project, requires basic information and careful planning. This study assessed the possibility of establishing wind farms in Ardabil province in northwestern Iran by using a combination of analytic network process (ANP) and decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) methods in a geographical information system (GIS) environment. DEMATEL was used to determine the criteria relationships. The weights of the criteria were determined using ANP and the overlaying process was done on GIS. Using 13 information layers in three main criteria including environmental, technical and economical, the land suitability map was produced and reclassified into 5 equally scored divisions from least suitable to most suitable areas. The results showed that about 6.68 % of the area of Ardabil province is most suitable for establishment of wind turbines. Sensitivity analysis shows that significant portions of these most suitable zones coincide with suitable divisions of the input layers. The efficiency and accuracy of the hybrid model (ANP-DEMATEL) was evaluated and the results were compared to the ANP model. The sensitivity analysis, map classification, and factor weights for the two methods showed satisfactory results for the ANP-DEMATEL model in wind power plant site selection.     

Decentralized control of units in smart grids for the support of renewable energy supply

Due to the significant environmental impact of power production from fossil fuels and nuclear fission, future energy systems will increasingly rely on distributed and renewable energy sources (RES). The electrical feed-in from photovoltaic (PV) systems and wind energy converters (WEC) varies greatly both over short and long time periods (from minutes to seasons), and (not only) by this effect the supply of electrical power from RES and the demand for electrical power are not per se matching. In addition, with a growing share of generation capacity especially in distribution grids, the top-down paradigm of electricity distribution is gradually replaced by a bottom-up power supply. This altogether leads to new problems regarding the safe and reliable operation of power grids. In order to address these challenges, the notion of Smart Grids has been introduced. The inherent flexibilities, i.e. the set of feasible power schedules, of distributed power units have to be controlled in order to support demand–supply matching as well as stable grid operation. Controllable power units are e.g. combined heat and power plants, power storage systems such as batteries, and flexible power consumers such as heat pumps. By controlling the flexibilities of these units we are particularly able to optimize the local utilization of RES feed-in in a given power grid by integrating both supply and demand management measures with special respect to the electrical infrastructure. In this context, decentralized systems, autonomous agents and the concept of self-organizing systems will become key elements of the ICT based control of power units. In this contribution, we first show how a decentralized load management system for battery charging/discharging of electrical vehicles (EVs) can increase the locally used share of supply from PV systems in a low voltage grid. For a reliable demand side management of large sets of appliances, dynamic clustering of these appliances into uniformly controlled appliance sets is necessary. We introduce a method for self-organized clustering for this purpose and show how control of such clusters can affect load peaks in distribution grids. Subsequently, we give a short overview on how we are going to expand the idea of self-organized clusters of units into creating a virtual control center for dynamic virtual power plants (DVPP) offering products at a power market. For an efficient organization of DVPPs, the flexibilities of units have to be represented in a compact and easy to use manner. We give an introduction how the problem of representing a set of possibly 10¹⁰⁰ feasible schedules can be solved by a machine-learning approach. In summary, this article provides an overall impression how we use agent based control techniques and methods of self-organization to support the further integration of distributed and renewable energy sources into power grids and energy markets.     

Advancing Energy Access Modelling with Geographic Information System Data

One of the main goals in pursuing sustainable development is to provide universal access to modern energy services, notably through the use of off-grid renewable energy technologies. To date, integrated assessment models (IAMs) poorly address energy access targets. In the context of research dedicated to energy scenarios and climate change mitigation in Africa, we attempt to advance the representation of energy access in one such IAM by using GIS data. In a case study for Ethiopia with the TIAM-ECN model, we demonstrate that by enriching an IAM with information derived from GIS databases, insights are obtained that better capture the dynamics of energy access developments, in comparison to conventional IAM analysis of energy technology deployment pathways. When duly accounting for the geographical spread in demography and technology costs in a developing country, we find that many people may gain access to electricity in remote areas thanks to the availability of affordable off-grid power production options that render expensive grid extensions unnecessary. This effect is not explicitly accounted for in most traditional IAMs. By the middle of the century, off-grid technologies could provide affordable electricity to 70% of the Ethiopian population, based almost entirely on renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydropower.     

Emergy Analysis of Human Carrying Capacity and Regional Sustainability: an Example Using the State of Maine

The human carrying capacity for a region at a specified standard of living depends on the economic and environmental resources of the region and the exchange of resources across regional boundaries. The length of time that a human population living at a given standard can be sustained depends on the rates of use and renewal of the resource base. All environmental, economic, and social resources are produced as a result of energy transformations; therefore, the energy required for their production can be specified and evaluated in common terms by converting their energy values into emergy. Emergy is defined as the available energy of one kind, previously used up directly and indirectly to make a product or service. Its unit is the emjoule. Emergy values and indices are used to evaluate the resource base for Maine, a politically defined region, and to estimate its human carrying capacity at the 1980 standard of living and for possible future resource bases. Emergy indices for Maine are compared with similar indices for Florida, Texas, and the United States to demonstrate variations in human carrying capacity and sustainability among different regions. The 1980 standard of living for Maine, Florida, Texas, and the Nation as measured by emergy use per person fell within a relatively narrow range of 3.4E16 to 4.3E16 solar emjoules y-1. The human carrying capacity for a region is considered within a pulsing paradigm for sustainability and within the constraints provided by a renewable resource base. For example, in the short-term the developed human carrying capacity for Maine is largely determined by the fuel emergy inflow relative to renewable emergy resources. If purchased emergy inflows relative to Maine's renewable emergy increase to the average ratio for a developed country around 1980, the population living in Maine at 1980 standards could increase to 2.9 million or 2.6 times Maine's 1980 population. In contrast, the human carrying capacity based on Maine's renewable resources alone was 0.37 million people at the 1980 standard of living or 33% of the 1980 population.     

Is EIA part of the wind power planning problem?

This research evaluates the importance and effectiveness of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) within wind farm planning debates, drawing on insights from case studies in Scotland. Despite general public support for renewable energy on the grounds that it is needed to tackle climate change and implement sustainable development, many proposed wind farms encounter significant resistance. The importance of planning issues and (EIA) processes has arguably been overlooked within recent wind farm social acceptability discourse. Through semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and textual analysis of EIA documents, the characteristics of EIA are assessed in terms of its perceived purpose and performance. The data show that whilst respondents perceive EIA to be important, they express concerns about bias and about the inability of EIA to address climate change and wind farm decommissioning issues adequately. Furthermore, the research identifies key issues which impede the effectiveness of EIA, and reveals differences between theoretical and practical framings of EIA. The paper questions the assumption that EIA is a universally applicable tool, and argues that its effectiveness should be analysed in the context of specific development sectors. The article concludes by reviewing whether the recently amended EIA Directive (2014/52/EU) could resolve identified problems within national EIA practice.     

Combining policy instruments for sustainable energy systems: An assessment with the GMM model

An assessment of the impact of an illustrative portfolio of policy instruments that address different sustainability concerns in the global energy system in areas of climate change, air pollution and introduction of renewable-energy resources is conducted. The effects of a policy set containing three instruments, implemented either individually or in combination, were examined. The policy instruments under examination in this work include: Cap-and-Trade policies imposing a CO₂ emission reduction target on the global energy system, a renewable portfolio standard that forces a minimum share of renewable electricity generation, and the internalisation of external costs of power generation associated with local pollution. Implementation of these policy instruments significantly changes the structure and environmental performance of the energy sector, and particularly the structure of the electric-generation sector. The positive effects are amplified when the policy instruments are simultaneously applied, illustrating the potential for synergies between these energy-policy domains. The analysis has been conducted with the multi-regional, energy-system Global MARKAL Model (GMM), a “bottom-up” partial-equilibrium model that provides a detailed representation of energy technologies and endogenizes technology learning. ^★A preliminary version of this paper has been presented at the 6th IAEE European Energy Conference on “Modelling in Energy Economics and Policy”, 1–3 September 2004, ETH Zürich, Switzerland.     

Impacts of Decentralized Power Generation on Distribution Networks: a Statistical Typology of European Countries

The development of decentralized sources of power out of renewable sources of energies has been triggering far-reaching consequences for Distribution System Operators over the past decade in Europe. Our paper benchmarks across 23 European countries the impact of the development of renewables on the physical characteristics of power distribution networks and on their investments. It builds on a large spectrum of databases of quantitative indicators about the dynamics of installed capacity of renewable energy resources and the power generation out of them, electricity independence, quality of electricity distribution, smart grids investments, Network System Operators capital expenditures, length of the distribution networks, overall costs of power networks paid by private agents, and electricity losses, all in relation with the development of decentralized generation. The heterogeneity of these indicators across Europe appears to be wide notably because of physical constraints, historic legacies, or policy and regulatory choices. A cluster analysis allows for deriving six groups of countries that display statistically homogenous characteristics. Our results may provide decision makers and regulators with a tool helping them to concentrate on the main issues specific to their countries as compared to the European median, and to look for possible solutions in the experience of other clusters which are shown to perform better for some indicators.     

The role of monitoring in economic management,ecological standardization

It is quite clear that economy management requires diverse information. Monitoring systems provide valuable information on the state of the biosphere, including observational data, analysis, and prediction of this state. These data are used (with due account of scientific technological, and material rescources) for implementing decisions aimed at economy development and nature protection, both at the levels of man-made impact restriction or suspension and biogeocoenosis recovery and restoration.Monitoring implementation has been proven economically effective. The role of the Global Monitoring System is most specific in revealing new ecological problems in the analysis of the measures to be accepted requiring international cooperation.Recently, a need has arisen to expand ecological monitoring, transforming it to an ecological service which would involve the system of observations, analysis, and prediction not only of the state of the biosphere, but also of the state and utilization of renewable natural resources as well.Ecological standardization (restriction of man-made impacts with regard for ecological reserves) should play an ever growing role in economy management to optimize human society/nature interactions and utilization of renewable natural resources. Ecological standardization is aimed at nature and human health protection and, thus, supplements sanitary-hygienic standardization.     

Leaching Characteristics of Fly Ash from Thermal Power Plants of Soma and Tunçbilek, Turkey

Use of lignite in power generation has led to increasing environmental problems associated not only with gaseous emissions but also with the disposal of ash residues. In particular, use of low quality coal with high ash content results in huge quantities of fly ash to be disposed of. The main problem related to fly ash disposal is the heavy metal content of the residue. In this regard, experimental results of numerous studies indicate that toxic trace metals may leach when fly ash contacts water. In this study, fly ash samples obtained from thermal power plants, namely Soma and Tunçbilek, located at the west part of Turkey, were subjected to toxicity tests such as European Committee for standardization (CEN) and toxicity characteristic leaching (TCLP) procedures of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA). The geochemical composition of the tested ash samples from the power plant show variations depending on the coal burned in the plants. Furthermore, the CEN and TCLP extraction results showed variations such that the ash samples were classified as `toxic waste' based on TCLP result whereas they were classified as `non-toxic' wastes based on CEN results, indicating test results are pH dependent.     

Climate Change Impacts and Human Settlements in Africa: Prospects for Adaptation

Climate change impacts on African human settlements arise from a number of climate change-related causes, notably sea level changes, impacts on water resources, extreme weather events, food security, increased health risks from vector home diseases, and temperature-related morbidity in urban environments.Some coastlines and river deltas of Africa have densely populated low-lying areas, which would be affected by a rise in sea level. Other coastal settlements will be subjected to increased coastal erosion. Recent flooding in East Africa highlighted the vulnerability of flood plain settlements and the need to develop adaptive strategies for extreme weather events management and mitigation. In the semi arid and arid zones many settlements are associated with inland drainage water sources. Increases in drought will enhance water supply related vulnerabilities. Inter-basin and international water transfers raise the need for adequate legal frameworks that ensure equity among participating nations.Similarly, water supply and irrigation reservoirs in seasonal river catchments might fail, leading to poor sanitation in urban areas as well as food shortage. Hydroelectric power generation could be restricted in drought periods, and where it is a major contributor to the energy budget, reduced power generation could lead to a multiplicity of other impacts. States are advised to develop other sources of renewable energy.Temperature changes will lead to altered distribution of disease vectors such as mosquitoes, making settlements currently free of vector borne diseases vulnerable. Rapid breeding of the housefly could create a menace associated with enteric disorders, especially in conditions of poor sanitation.The dry savannahs of Africa are projected as possible future food deficit areas. Recurrent crop failures would lead to transmigration into urban areas. Pastoralists are likely to undertake more trans-boundary migrations and probably come into conflict with settled communities.Adaptive measures will involve methods of coastal defences (where applicable), a critical review of the energy sector, both regionally and nationally, a rigorous adherence to city hygiene procedures, an informed agricultural industry that is capable of adapting to changing climate in terms of cropping strategies, and innovations in environment design to maximise human comfort at minimum energy expenditure. In the savannah and arid areas water resource management systems will be needed to optimise water resource use and interstate co-operation where such resources are shared.Climate change issues discussed here raise the need for state support for more research and education in impacts of climate change on human settlements in Africa.     

Monitoring and analysis of natural vegetation in a Special Protected Area of Mountain Antichasia—Meteora, central Greece

Natural ecosystems are renewable resources with special environmental, social, and economical attributes and characteristics. The increasing need of human beings for a better environment results in the use of new technologies that offer many advantages in detecting changes in the ecosystems. Remote sensing tools, technology, and the spatial analysis of the Geographic Information System were used in determining any changes in this study which attempts to classify land cover over a 10-year period. The study area is in Thessaly, central Greece, and has been classified as a Special Protection Area, because of its important wild fauna. The results have shown that current technologies can be used for modeling environmental parameters which improve our knowledge of the attributes, characteristics, situation, trends, and changes of natural ecosystems. The changes over time that have been observed result from the development of the vegetation or to anthropogenic and socioeconomic reasons. Rational range management will be a very comprehensive tool for farmers. This action will have a positive impact on flora in the rangelands. The core strategy is to combine forest, pasture, and livestock so that each component produces usable products.     

Exploration of sustainable development by applying green economy indicators

Following the global trend of sustainable development, development of green economy is the best way of slowing the negative ecological and environmental impact. This research establishes the Taiwan's green economic indicators based on the ecological footprint and energy analysis. The results are as follows: Taiwan's ecological footprint in 2008 intensity index was at 4.364; ecological overshoot index was at 3.364, showing that Taiwan's ecological system is in overload state. Moreover, this study utilizes energy analysis model to study the sustainable development of Taiwan. Findings showed that total energy use in 2008 was 3.14 × 10(23)?sej (solar energy joule, sej), energy of renewable resources was 1.30 × 10(22)?sej, energy of nonrenewable resources was 2.26 × 10(23)?sej, energy of products from renewable resources was 1.30 × 10(22)sej, energy of currency flow was 8.02 × 10(22)?sej and energy of wastes flow was 6.55 × 10(22)?sej. Taiwan's energy per capita and the utilization rate of energy is lower while the environmental loading rate is significantly higher comparing to some other countries. The foregoing findings indicate that Taiwan currently belongs to an economic development pattern based on high resource consumption. The economic development is mainly established on the exploitation and utilization of nonrenewable resources. Therefore, Taiwan should change the development pattern, regulate the industrial structure, promote the utilization rate of resources, develop green pollution-free products, and enhance the sustainable development of ecological economic system.