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Abstract To achieve the EU climate and energy objectives, a transition towards a future sustainable energy system is needed. The integration of the huge potential for industrial waste heat recovery into smart energy system represents a main opportunity to accomplish these goals. To successfully implement this strategy, all the several stakeholders' conflicting objectives should be considered. In this paper an evolutionary multi-objective optimization model is developed to perform a sustainability evaluation of an energy system involving an industrial facility as the waste heat source and the neighbourhood as district heating network end users. An Italian case study of heat recovery from a steel casting facility shows how the model allows to properly select the district heating network set of users to fully exploit the available waste energy. Design directions such as the thermal energy storage capacity can be also provided. Moreover, the model enables the analysis of the trade-off between the stakeholders’ different perspectives, allowing to identify possible win-win solutions for both the industrial sector and the citizenship.

Introduction. The article presents an analysis of researches on the operation of public transport vehicles with an electric drive. Electric buses have been tested in megacities, and despite the advantages, problems were identi- fied both in the selection of the charging type, technological features and with the availability and operation of the charging infrastructure. The operation process is associated with a number of technical restrictions, which in prac- tice make it difficult to select routes for the electric bus operation. The aim of the study is to develop an algorithm for selecting a rational regular urban route for the electric bus operation and to test it on the example of the route network of Tyumen.Materials and methods. A structural diagram of the factors influencing the selection of the route for the electric bus operation has been formed. As a result of processing expert assessments, the most significant factors were identified. The diagram of the interconnections of these factors is identified and limitations for the algorithm are for- mulated based on the theory of systems analysis. The algorithm for selecting the rational regular urban route for the electric bus operation has been developed. It enables creating the simulation model for selecting a rational regular urban route for the operation of an electric bus.Results. The diagram of factors influencing the selection of a rational regular urban route for the operation of an electric bus, taking into account their mutual relations, has been formed. The algorithm and simulation model for se- lecting a rational regular urban route for the operation of an electric bus has been developed. Several urban routes in Tyumen were assessed for the rationality of the introduction of electric buses.Discussion and conclusions. Evaluation of five regular urban routes in Tyumen using the developed algorithm and the simulation model revealed three rational routes, and also showed the inefficiency of the other two. It due to the discrepancy between the duration of the charging session and breaks in operation, as well as the insufficient charge level of the traction battery to ensure the required autonomous movement of the vehicle. In the course of the continuation of these studies, the developed algorithm will be supplemented with the stage of economic assess- ment of routes for the operation of electric buses.

The research deals with the issue of slums, urban sprawl on agriculture land and its impact on the city of Baghdad. This topic needs close attention because it has become a problem facing the city of Baghdad through recruiting agricultural lands and converting them to residential homes in addition to the transgression on the state lands and building abuses. This research deals with the causes of slums, irregular urban sprawl and risks of excesses on land uses of land in Baghdad. In this research, we try to know the extent to which these problems have affected the city of Baghdad. The research methodology based on the descriptive methodology to clarify the factors affecting urban sprawl at the expense of agricultural land, using studies in government and service institutions and images from satellites to clarify the size of urban sprawl over periods after the 2003 war. Finally, a conclusion and future solutions were set to solve these problems.

Abstract Reaching universal access to electricity by 2030 requires a massive deployment of mini-grids in rural areas of developing countries. Among the many challenges hindering this process, there are the high uncertainties in assessing demand patterns in rural communities, the costs of field survey campaigns, and the absence of ample and reliable datasets coming from existing projects. This paper tries to address these issues by presenting and discussing a database of load profiles from sixty-one off-grid mini-grids from developing countries worldwide, gathered from the literature, private developers and fieldworks, and reported with technical, socio-economic and geographical characterization factors. A clustering procedure led to the identification of five archetypal load profile clusters, which are presented and analyzed together with their load duration curves. Subsequently, the distribution among the clusters of the various characterization factors selected is studied. The proposed approach allows to widen the range of load profiles usually considered, and to seek correlations between the load profile shapes, the peak power and average energy consumption per connection, the number of customers, the age of measurement, geographical position, operator model, type of tariff and generation technologies present. This work establishes a first step in the creation of a shared database for load profiles of rural mini-grids, helping to overcome the lack of available data and difficulties of demand assessment, proposing original insights for researchers to understand load patterns, and contributing to reduce risks and uncertainties for mini-grid developers.

As part of the Copenhagen Accord, individual countries have submitted greenhouse gas reduction proposals for the year 2020. This paper analyses the implications for emission reductions, the carbon price, and abatement costs of these submissions. The submissions of the Annex I (industrialised) countries are estimated to lead to a total reduction target of 12-18% below 1990 levels. The submissions of the seven major emerging economies are estimated to lead to an 11-14% reduction below baseline emissions, depending on international (financial) support. Global abatement costs in 2020 are estimated at about USD 60-100 billion, assuming that at least two-thirds of Annex I emission reduction targets need to be achieved domestically. The largest share of these costs are incurred by Annex I countries, although the costs as share of GDP are similar for Annex I as a group and the seven emerging economies as a group, even when assuming substantial international transfers from Annex I countries to the emerging economies to finance their abatement costs. If the restriction of achieving two-thirds of the emission reduction target domestically is abandoned, it would more than double the international carbon price and at the same time reduce global abatement costs by almost 25%.

Based on the children’s road traffic injuries analysis and field pedestrians’ behavior observations during the roadway crossing, in order to reduce accidents among pedestrians-children, to create safe approaches to educational institutions is proposed.

Improving access to safe drinking water can result in multi-dimensional impacts on people's livelihood. This has been aptly reflected in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) as one of the major objectives. Despite the availability of diverse and complex set of technologies for water purification, pragmatic and cost-effective use of the same is impeding the use of available sources of water. Hence, in country like India simple low-energy technologies such as solar still are likely to succeed. Solar stills would suffice the basic minimum drinking water requirements of man. Solar stills use sunlight, to kill or inactivate many, if not all, of the pathogens found in water. This paper provides an integrated assessment of the suitability of domestic solar still as a viable safe water technology for India. Also an attempt has been made to critically assess the operational feasibility and costs incurred for using this technology in rural India.

Abstract Given the need to reduce the CO2 emissions coming from the manufacturing sector, it is important, for planning purposes, to know which countries and which manufacturing sub-sectors have the greatest potential for reducing energy use. Using data from the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the authors estimate trends in global decoupling of energy use and manufacturing value added, compare energy-use intensity in six country groups and estimate the potential for reducing energy use and CO2 emissions under two scenarios and compare selected sub-sector energy intensity and estimate the potential for reducing energy use CO2 emissions. The comparison of energy intensities across country groups and among countries suggests that there still remains significant potential to reduce energy use and associated CO2 emissions. The analysis of four sub-sectors in developing and transition economies also shows similar but varied potential for reducing energy use and associated CO2 emissions.

Abstract Off-grid systems based on PV and batteries are becoming a solution of great interest for rural electrification. Nevertheless, sizing these systems is not straightforward since it means matching unpredictable energy sources with uncertain demands while providing the best reliability and costs. In our opinion, the effect of users’ energy consumptions uncertainty on the sizing of these systems has not been appropriately investigated. This paper addresses this issue and analyzes the effect of load profile uncertainty on the off-grid PV systems optimum design. Specifically a novel sizing methodology has been introduced based on: (i) an effective approach of modelling rural energy needs; (ii) an innovative stochastic method which formulates different possible realistic daily load profiles for un-electrified rural areas; (iii) a PV-battery techno-economic analysis via steady-state simulation; (iv) the evaluation of the optimum system sizing via a numerical method based on net present cost and loss of load probability. Finally, the proposed methodology has been applied to find the optimum size of an off-grid PV system for a peri-urban area of Uganda. The results show that the optimum system configurations are significantly affected by load profiles; consequently an approach to identify the robust solution with regards the assumed uncertainty is proposed.