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Abstract In some shelf sea regions of the world, the tidal range is sufficient to convert the potential energy of the tides into electricity via tidal range power plants. As an island continent, Australia is one such region – a previous study estimated that Australia hosts up to 30% of the world’s resource. Here, we make use of a gridded tidal dataset (TPXO9) to characterize the tidal range resource of Australia. We examine the theoretical resource, and we also investigate the technical resource through 0D modelling with tidal range power plant operation. We find that the tidal range resource of Australia is 2004 TWh/yr, or about 22% of the global resource. This exceeds Australia’s total energy consumption for 2018/2019 (1721 TWh/yr), suggesting tidal range energy has the potential to make a substantial contribution to Australia’s electricity generation (265 TWh/yr in 2018/2019). Due to local resonance, the resource is concentrated in the sparsely populated Kimberley region of Western Australia. However, the tidal range resource in this region presents a renewable energy export opportunity, connecting to markets in southeast Asia. Combining the electricity from two complementary sites, with some degree of optimization tidal range schemes in this region can produce electricity for 45% of the year.

Abstract Sugarcane is a major crop cultivated globally and the residue left over after the crop harvest and extraction of juice is a good biomass source that can be used for the production of several useful chemicals. The sugarcane bagasse is an excellent substrate for the production of various biochemicals and enzymes through fermentation. Now major interest is focused on the utilization of these residue for biofuel production. The sugarcane crop residue is rich in cellulose and hemicellulose, hence it can be used for the production of bioethanol and other liquid transportation fuels. The present review gives a detailed account of the availability of sugarcane residue and various commercially important products that can be produced from this residue. It also provides recent developments in R&D on the bioconversion of sugarcane crop residue for value added products.

Abstract Climate change could substantially impact the performance of the buildings in providing thermal comfort to occupants. Recently launched UK climate projections (UKCP09), clearly indicate that all areas of the UK will get warmer in future with the possibility of more frequent and severe extreme events, such as heat waves. This study, as part of the Low Carbon Futures (LCF) Project, explores the consequent risk of overheating and the vulnerability of a building to extreme events. A simple statistical model proposed by the LCF project elsewhere has been employed to emulate the outputs of the dynamic building simulator (ESP-r) which cannot feasibly be used itself with thousands of available probabilistic climate database. Impact of climate change on the daily external and internal temperature profiles has been illustrated by means of 3D plots over the entire overheating period (May–October) and over 3000 equally probable future climates. Frequency of extreme heat events in changing climate and its impact on overheating issues for a virtual case study domestic house has been analyzed. Results are presented relative to a baseline climate (1961–1990) for three future timelines (2030s, 2050s, and 2080s) and three emission scenarios (Low, Medium, and High).

Abstract The high viscosity of fish oil leads to problem in pumping and spray characteristics. The inefficient mixing of fish oil with air leads to incomplete combustion. The best way to use fish oil as fuel in compression ignition (CI) engines is to convert it into biodiesel. It can be used in CI engines with very little or no engine modifications. This is because it has properties similar to mineral diesel. Combustion tests for methyl ester of fish oil and its blends with diesel fuel were performed in a kirloskar H394 DI diesel engine, to evaluate fish biodiesel as an alternative fuel for diesel engine, at constant speed of 1500 rpm under variable load conditions. The tests showed no major deviations in diesel engine's combustion as well as no significant changes in the engine performance and reduction of main noxious emissions with the exception on NOx. Overall fish biodiesel showed good combustion properties and environmental benefits.

Tidal turbine blades are subject to harsh loading and environmental conditions, including large thrust and torsional loadings, relative to wind turbine blades, due to the high density of seawater, among other factors. The complex combination of these loadings, as well as water ingress and associated composite laminate saturation, have significant implications for blade design, affecting overall device design, stability, scalability, energy production and cost-effectiveness. This study investigates the effect of seawater ingress on composite material properties, and the associated design and life expectancy of tidal turbine blades in operating conditions. The fatigue properties of dry and water-saturated glass fibre reinforced laminates are experimentally evaluated and incorporated into tidal blade design. The fatigue lives of pitch- and stall-regulated tidal turbine blades are found to be altered by seawater immersion. Water saturation is shown to reduce blade life about 3 years for stall-regulated blades and by about 1-2 years for pitch-regulated blades. The effect of water ingress can be compensated by increased laminate thickness. The tidal turbine blade design methodology presented here can be used for evaluation of blade life expectancy and tidal device energy production. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

With vast potential for renewable energy conversion, the ocean could help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Of the various forms of ocean energy, tidal range power is both mature and predictable, dating back to 1966. However, only a few regions of the world are suited to tidal range power. Here, we examine the tidal range potential of the Patagonian shelf – estimated to contain over 100 GW of tidal dissipation. We use a high resolution global tidal atlas (TPXO9) to examine this resource from theoretical and technical perspectives. The theoretical resource is 913 TWh (104 GW) – considerably exceeding neighbouring Argentina’s electricity demand (∼143 TWh in 2021). We find that due to near-resonance with the semidiurnal tides, the resource is concentrated in two regions – Golfo de San Matías, and Bahía Grande to Río Grande. Three sites are chosen for further analysis after considering practical constraints such as water depth and proximity to the electricity grid. Through 0D modelling with tidal range power plant operation we find that the selected sites offer high energy extraction potential, exceeding 40% of the available resource. Further analysis shows how the combination of the sites can reduce the periods of no-generation to under 20%.

Access to a reliable source of electricity is a basic need for any community as it can improve the living standards characterized via the improvement of healthcare, education, and the local economy at large. There are two key factors to consider when assessing the appropriateness of a micro-grid system, the cost-effectiveness of the system and the quality of service. The tradeoff between cost and reliability of the system is a major compromise in designing hybrid systems. In this way, optimization of a Hybrid Micro-Grid System (HMGS) is investigated. A hybrid wind/PV system with battery storage and diesel generator is used for this purpose. The power management algorithm is applied to the load, and the Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) method is used to find the best configuration of the system and for sizing the components. A set of recent hourly wind speed data from three meteorological stations in Iran, namely: Nahavand, Rafsanjan, and Khash, are selected and tested for the optimization of HMGS. Despite design complexity of the aforementioned systems, the results show that the MOPSO optimization model produces appropriate sizing of the components for each location. It is also suggested that the use of HMGS can be considered as a good alternative to promote electrification projects and enhance energy access within remote Iranian areas or other developing countries enjoying the same or similar climatic conditions.

Abstract Justifying continued development and large-scale deployment of Wave Energy Converters (WECs) requires quantification of the potential resource. Currently, estimates are available for individual countries or, at low accuracy, for global resource. Additionally, existing estimates do not provide insight into potential future markets, i.e. the location of the resource. Here, NOAA WaveWatch III data are analysed for a 6-year period to calculate wave energy potential. The global market is then quantified by calculating the energy flux across a line 30 nautical miles offshore. Results are presented by country, continent, hemisphere and for the globe. Confidence values are also presented in the form of 95% confidence intervals. These limits provide insight into the uncertainty associated with the length of dataset used and the variability of the resource. This enables direct comparison with other resource assessment studies, whether using numerical model or measured data. An extensive survey of previous global and regional resource estimates is also conducted, in order to compare both results and methods. Supplementing this, extractable resource is estimated by considering the deployment of an illustrative WEC (Pelamis P2). The global wave power resource is 2.11 ± 0.05 TW, of which 4.6% is extractable with the chosen WEC configuration.