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This research presents a 100% renewable energy (RE) scenario by 2050 with a high share of electric vehicles on the grid (V2G) developed in Ecuador with the support of the EnergyPLAN analysis tool. Hour-by-hour data iterations were performed to determine solutions among various features, including energy storage, V2G connections that spanned the distribution system, and long-term evaluation. The high participation in V2G connections keeps the electrical system available; meanwhile, the high proportions of variable renewable energy are the pillar of the joint electrical system. The layout of the sustainable mobility scenario and the high V2G participation maintain the balance of the electrical system during most of the day, simplifying the storage equipment requirements. Consequently, the influence of V2G systems on storage is a significant result that must be considered in the energy transition that Ecuador is developing in the long term. The stored electricity will not only serve as storage for future grid use. Additionally, the V2G batteries serve as a buffer between generation from diversified renewable sources and the end-use stage.

Microbial electrochemical technologies (METs) constitute the core of a number of emerging technologies with a high potential for treating urban wastewater due to a fascinating reaction mechanism—the electron transfer between bacteria and electrodes to transform metabolism into electrical current. In the current work, we focus on the model electroactive microorganism Geobacter sulfurreducens to explore both the design of new start-up procedures and electrochemical operations. Our chemostat-grown plug and play cells, were able to reduce the start-up period by 20-fold while enhancing chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal by more than 6-fold during this period. Moreover, a filter-press based bioreactor was successfully tested for both acetate-supplemented synthetic wastewater and real urban wastewater. This proof-of-concept pre-pilot treatment included a microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) followed in time by a microbial fuel cell (MFC) to finally generate electrical current of ca. 20 A·m−2 with a power of 10 W·m−2 while removing 42 g COD day−1·m−2. The effective removal of acetate suggests a potential use of this modular technology for treating acetogenic wastewater where Geobacter sulfurreducens outcompetes other organisms.

The prevailing need for a more sustainable management of natural resources depends not only on the decisions made by governments and the will of the population, but also on the knowledge of the role of energy in our society and the relevance of preserving natural resources. In this sense, critical work is being done to instill key concepts—such as the circular economy and sustainable energy—in higher education institutions. In this way, it is expected that future professionals and managers will be aware of the importance of energy optimization, and will learn a series of computational methods that can support the decision-making process. In the context of higher education, this paper reviews the main trends and challenges related to the concepts of circular economy and sustainable energy. Besides, we analyze the role of simulation and serious games as a learning tool for the aforementioned concepts. Finally, the paper provides insights and discusses open research opportunities regarding the use of these computational tools to incorporate circular economy concepts in higher education degrees. Our findings show that, while efforts are being made to include these concepts in current programs, there is still much work to be done, especially from the point of view of university management. In addition, the analysis of the teaching methodologies analyzed shows that, although their implementation has been successful in favoring the active learning of students, their use (especially that of serious games) is not yet widespread.

In this study, our aim was to explore the potential energy savings obtainable from the recycling of 1 tonne of Construction and Demolition Waste (C&DW) generated in the Metropolitan City of Naples. The main fraction composing the functional unit are mixed C&DW, soil and stones, concrete, iron, steel and aluminium. The results evidence that the recycling option for the C&DW is better than landfilling as well as that the production of recycled aggregates is environmentally sustainable since the induced energy and environmental impacts are lower than the avoided energy and environmental impacts in the life cycle of recycled aggregates. This LCA study shows that the transition to the Circular Economy offers many opportunities for improving the energy and environmental performances of the construction sector in the life cycle of construction materials by means of internal recycling strategies (recycling C&DW into recycled aggregates, recycled steel, iron and aluminum) as well as external recycling by using input of other sectors (agri-food by-products) for the manufacturing of construction materials. In this way, the C&D sector also contributes to realizing the energy and bioeconomy transition by disentangling itself from fossil fuel dependence.

The large potential for waste resource and heat recovery in industry has been motivating research toward increasing efficiency. Process integration methods have proven to be effective tools in improving industrial sites while decreasing their resource and energy consumption; however, location aspects and their impact are generally overlooked. This paper presents a method based on process integration, which considers the location of plants. The impact of the locations is included within the mixed integer linear programming framework in the form of heat losses, temperature and pressure drop, and piping cost. The objective function is selected as minimisation of the total cost of the system excluding piping cost and ϵ -constraints are applied on the piping cost to systematically generate multiple solutions. The method is applied to a case study with industrial plants from different sectors. First, the interaction between two plants and their utility integration are illustrated, depending on the piping cost limit which results in the heat pump and boiler on one site being gradually replaced by excess heat recovered from the other plant. Then, the optimisation of the whole system is carried out, as a large-scale application. At low piping cost allowances, heat is shared through high pressure steam in above-ground pipes, while at higher piping cost limits the system switches toward lower pressure steam sharing in underground pipes. Compared to the business-as-usual operation of the sites, the optimal solution obtained with the proposed method leads to 20% reduction in the overall cost of the system, including the piping cost. Further reduction in the cost is possible using a state of the art method but the technical and economic feasibility is not guaranteed. Thus, the present work provides a tool to find optimal industrial symbiosis solutions under different investment limits on the infrastructure between plants.

In recent years, solar price drops and regulations have helped residential users to invest in grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) facilities. In Spain, a novel law promotes self-consumption by discounting electricity fed into the grid from the utility bill. However, the performance of PV-based facilities depends on diverse factors. The contribution of this paper is to evaluate the techno-economic performance of such installations for different considerations linked to the Spanish law. A simulation model is used to examine different representative cities, load profiles and alternative objectives: maximising profitability and self-sufficiency. For profit maximisation, results show that load profile variations entail PV size changes up to 5 kWp for the same location, together with huge economic and self-sufficiency differences. In contrast, the solar radiation and compensation rate have a more limited influence. For self-sufficiency maximisation, the economic performance drops close to EUR 0, as benefits are used to double the PV size, buy batteries and reach close to 70% self-sufficiency. Finally, a sensitivity analysis shows a limited impact of the utility tariff and the technology cost on the PV size, but a relevant influence on the benefits. These results can help investors and families to quantify the risks and benefits of domestic self-consumption facilities.

The capacity factor of a power plant is the ratio of generation over its potential generation. It is an important measure to describe wind and solar resources. However, the fluctuating nature of renewable power generation makes it difficult to integrate all generation at times. Whenever generation exceeds the load, curtailment or storage of energy is required. With increasing renewable shares in the power system, the level of curtailment will further increase. In this work, the influence of the curtailment on the capacity factors for a highly renewable German power system is studied. An effective capacity factor is introduced, and the implications for the distribution of renewable power plants are discussed. Three years of highly-resolved weather data were used to model wind and solar power generation. Together with historical load data and a transmission model, a possible future German power system was simulated. It is shown that effective capacity factors for unlimited transmission are strongly reduced by up to 60% (wind) and 70% (photovoltaics) and therefore of limited value in a highly renewable power system. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that wind power benefits more strongly from a reinforced transmission grid than photovoltaics (PV) does.