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Low-temperature preheating, fast charging, and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities are important factors for the further development of electric vehicles (EVs). However, for conventional two-stage chargers, the EV charging/discharging instructions and grid instructions cannot be addressed simultaneously for specific requirements, pulse heating and variable-current charging can cause high-frequency power fluctuations at the grid side. Therefore, it is necessary to design a bidirectional grid-friendly charger for EVs operated under pulse-current heating and variable-current charging. The DC bus, which serves as the medium connecting the bidirectional DC–DC and bidirectional DC–AC, typically employs capacitors. This paper analyzes the reasons why the use of capacitors in the DC bus cannot satisfy the grid and EV requirements, and it proposes a new DC bus configuration that utilizes energy storage batteries instead of capacitors. Due to the voltage-source characteristics of the energy storage batteries, EV instructions and grid instructions can be flexibly and smoothly scheduled by using phase-shift control and adaptive virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control, respectively. In addition, the stability of the control strategy is demonstrated using small signal modeling. Finally, typical operating conditions (such as EV pulse preheating, fast charging with variable current, and grid peak shaving and valley filling) are selected for validation. The results show that in the proposed charger, the grid scheduling instructions and EV charging/discharging instructions do not interfere with each other, and different commands between EVs also do not interfere with each other under a charging pile with dual guns. Without affecting the requirements of EVs, the grid can change the proportion of energy supply based on actual scenarios and can also obtain energy from either EVs or energy storage batteries. For the novel charger, the pulse modulation time for EVs consistently achieves a steady state within 0.1 s; thus, the pulse modulation speed is as much as two times faster than that of conventional chargers with identical parameters.

The sustainable management of agricultural residues is a pivotal element in ensuring the sustainable development of agriculture. This is based on strategies that include the reutilization of residues as a substrate for the cultivation of economically significant mushroom species. The primary aim of this investigation is to assess the viability of utilizing two of the most prevalent agricultural residues in Ecuador as a substrate for the cultivation of hybrids within the Pleurotus genus. This assessment includes an evaluation of the nutritional and productivity parameters exhibited by the resulting mushrooms, employing multivariate statistical methodologies. The hybrid strains were developed by crossing compatible neohaplonts obtained through chemical dedikaryotization. A total of five neohaplonts of Pleurotus ostreatus as parental strain P1 and five monokaryons of Pleurotus djamor as parental strain P2 were randomly crossed in all possible combinations. Two parental hybrid strains, H1 and H2, were produced. These hybrids were cultivated using agricultural waste substrates, specifically, green banana leaves (GBL) and sugarcane bagasse (SB). Two distinct treatments or mixtures were tested: M1 (composed of 80% SB and 20% GBL) and M2 (composed of 20% SB and 80% GBL). It was found that the M1 blend promotes mushroom growth, yielding superior properties attributable to the higher proportion of nutritional content derived from sugarcane bagasse.

In recent years, the environmental sustainability of agri-food systems has become a crucial issue. Agri-food firms are increasingly concerned with the implementation of viable environmentally friendly production processes. The environmental impacts of the table grape sector, as well as other fresh and not transformed food products, involve mainly the farming phase rather than the subsequent conditioning, transportation, packaging, and distribution phases. The purpose of this study was to assess the environmental impacts and the economic viability of three table grapes production models (i.e., early harvesting, normal harvesting, and delayed harvesting), based on the Italian tendone system, during the entire life cycle. The environmental impact analysis was performed using the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, while the economic analysis was performed using the life cycle costing (LCC) approach. The results show that the early and the delayed production models generated the highest environmental burdens, but also the highest economic returns, compared to the normal harvesting production model. The main determinants of the environmental impacts and economic returns are discussed and some practical recommendations are given to improve the sustainability of all the surveyed production models, so to converge public and private interests.

The European Union faces a complex economic conjunction where different factors affect and reduce the number of feasible and sustainable projects according to the legislation and the available resources. In this context, one of the available solutions to the current energy crisis could be the implementation of Renewable Energy Communities (RECs) to support the European dual transition targets. The idea of an energy community is still being defined in the literature and from a legislative perspective. The increasing REC dimension and numerosity demand in-depth studies on opportunities and threats in a still unexplored market. To clarify the Italian and European state of the art of these communities, this study in the first section addresses the socioeconomic and policy conditions needed for the foundation and development of energy communities by analyzing the in-force legislation. The analysis of the current regulation has been conducted to verify how RECs affect local communities and their degrees of freedom and action in regions. The second part of the study aimed to define threats and opportunities in creating new professional profiles and local job opportunities in this new thriving market. In this study, we collected interviews and surveys with market operators, both on the service providers’ side (ESCo) and the communities’ side (promoters), to identify conflicts and advantages associated with establishing communities. The participants were initially selected through publicly available lists, and after verifying the contact correctness, they were contacted by email or phone. The results of the interviews have been processed into a SWOT analysis, showing how national policies currently need to catch up in implementing this efficiency tool and how the restricted number and the variety of the existing communities increase the difficulty in creating cohesive and universal guidelines. Finally, local markets can still not correctly manage this innovative tool’s uncertainty despite being interested in it.

In the United States, today’s ranches are engaging in small-scale nature-based endeavors to diversify their income base. But the geographic boundary of the land they own creates a relatively small area within which to operate, and fragmented ownership diminishes the ability of any single landowner to produce nature-based income. Collective action among nearby landowners can produce a set of resources from which all members of the group can profit. Such action can enhance the economic, social, and environmental sustainability of grasslands and the populations that use them. This article shows that common-interest communities can be used to provide and allocate wildlife and other resources on ranchlands, enabling individual landowners to generate more income from selling nature-based experiences to customers. Common-interest communities are familiar in urban settings but they have not yet been used in this setting. Thus, the article proposes a new approach to ranchland management based upon a familiar set of largely private legal arrangements. More broadly, the article illustrates the relevance of private law and private property to sustainable development by explaining how property owners can use private law to engage in environmentally beneficial and economically profitable enterprises on the vast privately owned landscape of the U.S. Great Plains.

We introduce a field survey method to assess the conservation condition of landscapes. Using a popular rapid assessment format, this study defines observable “stressed states” identified through the use of general metrics to gauge landscape degradation. Fifteen metrics within six thematic categories were selected through a literature review and extensive field trials. Field tests on the Greek island of Samothraki show a strong correlation between a single expert’s scores and five assessor’s scores at 35 landscape sites. Only three of the metrics did not maintain a high consistency among assessors; however, this is explained by the difficulty of interpreting certain anthropogenic stressors (such as livestock grazing) in Mediterranean semi-natural landscapes with culturally-modified vegetation patterns. The protocol and proposed index, with five conservation condition classes, identified areas of excellent and good quality, and reliably distinguished the most degraded landscape conditions on the island. Uncertainties and difficulties of the index are investigated, and further research and validation are proposed. The protocol effectively goes beyond a traditional visual aesthetic assessment; it can be used both by experts and non-scientists as a conservation-relevant multi-disciplinary procedure to support a holistic landscape diagnosis. The combination of an on-site experiential survey and its simple integrative format may be useful as a screening-level index, and for promoting local participation, landscape literacy and educational initiatives.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems are one of the most widely deployed renewable technologies in the world. The efficiency of solar panels has been studied during the last few decades, and, to date, it has not been possible to displace the production of energy using crystalline silicon wafer-based technology whose efficiency has reached values around 26.1%. Moreover, using solar tracking PV systems has become a feasible alternative to increase the electric output of PV silicon technologies instead of using the conventional fixed PV installation on a flat or sloping surface. The following study has compared fixed and dual-axis sun-tracking PV panels in order to quantify the enhancement associated with the amount of energy harvested when using dual-axis tracking PV systems in the city of Manta, located in a coastal region of Ecuador. In order to carry out this study, an IoT monitoring system based on Raspberry Pi3 and Arduino platforms was used. Measurements of solar radiation (W/m2), light intensity (Lux), temperature (°C), short-circuit current (A), and open-circuit voltage (V) were taken every minute for both systems. The results prove that the dual-axis tracking PV system produces, on average, 19.62% more energy than the static PV system. These results present an 8.62% energy increase with respect to a previous study carried out in an equatorial region with similar characteristics to those of the city of Manta, where a one-axis tracking PV system was used.