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Medium and heavy-duty battery electric trucks (BETs) may play a key role in mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from road freight transport. However, technological challenges such as limited range and cargo carrying capacity as well as the required charging time need to be efficiently addressed before the large-scale adoption of BETs. In this study, we apply a geospatial data analysis approach by using a battery electric vehicle potential (BEVPO) model with the datasets of road freight transport surveys for analyzing the potential of large-scale BET adoption in Finland and Switzerland for trucks with gross vehicle weight (GVW) of over 3.5 t. Our results show that trucks with payload capacities up to 30 t have the most potential for electrification by relying on the currently available battery and plug-in charging technology, with 93% (55% tkm) and 89% (84% tkm) trip coverage in Finland and Switzerland, respectively. Electric road systems (ERSs) would be essential for covering 51% trips (41% tkm) of heavy-duty trucks heavier than 30 t in Finland. Furthermore, range-extender technology could improve the trip electrification potential by 3–10 percentage points (4–12 percentage points of tkm).

The paper proves the economic feasibility of using a local autonomous source of energy supply, which is formed from electrical equipment of other functional purposes based on an asynchronous machine with capacitive self-excitation. To assess the technical and economic indicators of the effectiveness of introducing a local autonomous source of energy supply, the discounted method is adopted, where an indicator of savings from possible losses due to the exclusion of labor resources from production is used as an additional influence factor.

AbstractThe stability of synchronised networked systems is a multi-faceted challenge for many natural and technological fields, from cardiac and neuronal tissue pacemakers to power grids. For these, the ongoing transition to distributed renewable energy sources leads to a proliferation of dynamical actors. The desynchronisation of a few or even one of those would likely result in a substantial blackout. Thus the dynamical stability of the synchronous state has become a leading topic in power grid research. Here we uncover that, when taking into account physical losses in the network, the back-reaction of the network induces new exotic solitary states in the individual actors and the stability characteristics of the synchronous state are dramatically altered. These effects will have to be explicitly taken into account in the design of future power grids. We expect the results presented here to transfer to other systems of coupled heterogeneous Newtonian oscillators.

Using the method of computer modelling, considered in this paper is optimization of a passive air system design for cooling the powerful LED luminaire based on heat pipes and cooling rings. Thermal and mass characteristics of the cooling system have been studied for various design parameters: distance between rings, thickness of ring materials and thermal loads. It has been shown that, to provide a minimal case temperature of LED source, the optimal distance between cooling rings should be 6 mm, but in this case the mass of cooling system is not least. To reduce the luminaire mass, it is reasonable to choose the distance between the cooling rings equal to 8 mm. Then the temperature of light source increases by only 1.8 °С, or by 2.2%, while the mass of cooling system reduces by 1357 g, or by 20.5%. At the same time, lowering the ring thickness from 2 down to 0.8 mm can in addition reduce this mass by 2700 g, or by 48.6%. However, when doing so the temperature of LED source case is increased by 5.9 °С. The offered cooling system based on heat pipes is capable to provide the thermal resistance 0.131 С/W when scattering the thermal power 500 W under the maximum temperature of LED source crystal 135.5 С. Recommendations for application of the developed cooling system have been formulated.

Mathematical model for operation quality assessment of electric grid with renewable sources of energy is suggested, the given model takes into consideration balance reliability and voltage quality. The assessment of renewable sources of electric energy impact on functional preparedness of distributed electric grid to provide reliable and quality energy supply was performed, applying the developed model.

Abstract A major problem in the operation of photovoltaic (PV) panels is the need for frequent maintenance and cleaning. In the present work, the effect of a self-cleaning, photocatalytic, antireflective glass coating on the efficiency of PV panels is investigated. The optical and photocatalytic properties of the coating were determined via UV–vis spectroscopy and degradation of organic pollutant Methylene Blue, respectively. Increased light transmittance in the visible light region and enhanced self-cleaning of the coated in comparison to the uncoated glass was demonstrated. The adhesion and the stability of the coating were tested in conditions of thermal fluctuations, UV weathering and sandblasting. The outdoor performance of coated and uncoated PV panels and arrays were monitored for several months at different climate conditions (Greece and China) in order the extra energy produced due to coating to be measured. An average 5–6% gain was found for both cases for the entire period of time. It was established that specific conditions such as intensity and angle of the incident light, occurrence of rain and sand storms influence significantly the power difference (ΔPm) between coated and uncoated PV panels. The increase of ΔPm under diffused light (cloudy day) and irradiation with high incident angle (morning, evening) reached ∼20% and 30% respectively, that were related to the anti-reflecting property of the glass coating. The coated surface showed better dust removal ability due to its superhydrophilicity (θ = 6°). The superior efficiency of coated panels as well as the low-cost spraying procedure without any post-deposition treatment render the nanocomposite SurfaShield G coating very important especially for northern regions with limited sunlight periods.

AbstractDespite the rapid increase in the performance of perovskite solar cells (PSC), they still suffer from low lab‐to‐lab or people‐to‐people reproducibility. Aiming for a universal condition to high‐performance devices, we investigated the morphology evolution of a composite perovskite by tuning annealing temperature and precursor concentration of the perovskite film. Here, we introduce thermal annealing as a powerful tool to generate a well‐controlled excess of PbI2 in the perovskite formulation and show that this benefits the photovoltaic performance. We demonstrated the correlation between the film microstructure and electronic property and device performance. An optimized average grain size/thickness aspect ratio of the perovskite crystallite is identified, which brings about a highly reproducible power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.5 %, with a certified value of 19.08 %. Negligible hysteresis and outstanding morphology stability are observed with these devices. These findings lay the foundation for further boosting the PCE of PSC and can be very instructive for fabrication of high‐quality perovskite films for a variety of applications, such as light‐emitting diodes, field‐effect transistors, and photodetectors.

Abstract The mission of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (RSER) is to communicate the most significant and relevant critical thinking in renewable and sustainable energy research and development, bringing together the research community, the private sector and policy and decision-makers. The aim of the journal is to share problems, solutions, novel ideas and technologies that support the transition to a low-carbon future and achieve the global emissions targets as established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). The Process Integration, Modelling and Optimisation for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction (PRES) 2018 conference brought together the following topics through interdisciplinary dialogue: (a) Process Integration for sustainable development; (b) Process analysis, modelling and optimisation; (c) Total Site Integration; (d) Heat transfer and heat exchangers; (e) Energy-saving and clean technologies; (f) Sustainable processing and production; (g) Renewable and high efficiency utility systems; (h) Footprint minimisation and mitigation; (i) Operations and supply chain management; (j) Waste minimisation, processing and management; (k) Batch process analysis and integration; (l) Process network dynamics, flexibility and control; (m) Industrial implementation and optimisation; (n) Numerical fluid flow and heat transfer simulation; (o) Sustainability and Process Integration teaching, learning and knowledge tools. This Virtual Special Issue (VSI) captures many of the most significant developments in renewable and sustainable energy research.