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The present paper develops a methodology to choose the best connection scheme for traction substations of a Massive Electrical Railway System (MERS) and distribution substations in urban areas using graph theory and economical optimization.

As a relatively mature technology, biomass molded fuel (BMF) is widely used in distributed and centralized heating in China and has received considerable government attention. Although many BFM incentive policies have been developed, decreased domestic traditional fuel prices in China have caused BMF to lose its economic viability and new policy recommendations are needed to stimulate this industry. The present study built a regionalized net present value (NPV) model based on real production process simulation to test the impacts of each policy factor. The calculations showed that BMF production costs vary remarkably between regions, with the cost of agricultural briquette fuel (ABF) ranging from 86 US dollar per metric ton (USD/t) to 110 (USD/t), while that of woody pellet fuel (WPF) varies from 122 USD/t to 154 USD/t. The largest part of BMF’s cost composition is feedstock, which accounts for up 50%–60% of the total; accordingly a feedstock subsidy is the most effective policy factor, but in consideration of policy implementation, it would be better to use a production subsidy. For ABF, the optimal product subsidy varies from 26 USD/t to 57 USD/t among different regions of China, while for WPF, the range is 36 USD/t to 75 USD/t. Based on the data, a regional BMF development strategy is also proposed in this study.

Este artículo presenta el estado actual de las técnicas de inteligencia artificial y su aplicación al campo de la detección y diagnóstico de fallas en sistemas dinámicos. Inicialmente, se hace una breve descripción de lo que se considera un mecanismo de detección y diagnóstico de fallas, y se explican los enfoques actuales de estudio y aplicación de tales mecanismos. Posteriormente, se presentan los resultados más importantes de las diferentes técnicas de inteligencia artificial aplicadas a la detección y diagnóstico de fallas. Finalmente, se presenta un análisis comparativo con base en las características deseables de los mecanismos de detección y diagnóstico de fallas. El artículo concluye mencionando los beneficios de la clasificación de las técnicas presentadas y enumerando las posibles vías hacia donde debe ir la investigación en este campo.

The wind power forecasting error restricts the benefit of the wind farm in the electricity market. Considering the cooperation of wind power bidding and energy storage system (ESS) operation with uncertainty, this paper proposes a coordinated bidding/operation model for the wind farm to improve its benefits in the electricity market. The maximum entropy based deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm, Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) is used to construct the model. The maximum entropy framework enables the designed agent to explore various optimal possibilities, which means the learned coordinated bidding/operation strategy is more stable considering the forecasting error. Particularly, penalty terms are introduced into the benefit function to relax the constraints and improve the convergency. The case study illustrates that the learned policy can effectively improve the wind farm benefit while ensuring robustness.

In this paper, we critically analyze the optimization strategy of distribution network based on adapting adjustment of transformer's taps and review a large amount of relevant literature in order to explore the state-of-the-art research progresses in both academia and industry. By the analysis and literature review, a complete research proposal pertaining to the optimization strategy of distribution network based on adapting adjustment of transformer's taps can be formed, which points out the promising future of the relevant techniques as well as the existing problems worth investigating.

With the 2015 Paris Agreement pursuing efforts to limit global temperature increase to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and the “energy trilemma” goals of energy security, energy equity and environmental sustainability, decarbonisation remains a priority across all of the United Kingdom (United Kingdom) energy system, not just electricity. Electricity and thermal energy storage technologies can offer a host of benefits across the energy value chain through the abilityS to capture, store and then release electricity or thermal energy over a period of time. These benefits include helping capture the full potential of renewable generation and providing services such as frequency response and reserve to Great Britain’s (GB) electricity system. In addition, with the aforementioned climate targets in mind, energy storage can also play a role in facilitating the decarbonisation of other activities and sectors. Here we delve deeper into how energy storage technologies can contribute to both energy sector transformation and more broadly, decarbonisation. Furthermore, we discuss the importance of ensuring a technology-agnostic approach to the development of policy and regulation with relevance to energy storage. This ensures that storage technologies with significant potential to contribute to the ‘energy trilemma’ goals are not precluded from entering the market due to unfavourable policy and regulatory frameworks.

AbstractThis work reports the synthesis, characterization, photophysical, and photovoltaic properties of five new thieno[3,2‐b][1]benzothiophene isoindigo (TBTI)‐containing low bandgap donor–acceptor conjugated polymers with a series of comonomers and different side chains. When TBTI is combined with different electron‐rich moieties, even small structural variations can have significant impact on thin film morphology of the polymer:phenyl C70 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) blends. More importantly, high‐resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy is used to investigate the phase‐separated bulk heterojunction domains, which can be accurately and precisely resolved, enabling an enhanced correlation between polymer chemical structure, photovoltaic device performance, and morphology.

Abstract The consumption of takeaway food is increasing worldwide. Single-use containers used for takeaway food represent a significant source of waste and environmental impacts due to their low recyclability. Consequently, it is important to identify the best available alternatives and improvement opportunities to reduce the environmental impacts of fast-food containers. For these purposes, this study estimates and compares for the first time the life cycle impacts of three most widely-used types of takeaway container: aluminium, polypropylene and extruded polystyrene. These are also compared to reusable polypropylene containers. The findings suggest that single-use polypropylene containers are the worst option for seven out of 12 impacts considered, including global warming potential. They are followed by the aluminium alternative with five highest impacts, including depletion of ozone layer and human toxicity. Overall, extruded polystyrene containers have the lowest impacts due to the lower material and electricity requirements in their manufacture. They are also the best option when compared to reused takeaway polypropylene containers, unless the latter are reused 3–39 times. The number of uses needed for the reusable “Tupperware” polypropylene food savers is even higher, ranging from 16 to 208 times, with terrestrial ecotoxicity being always higher than for extruded polystyrene, regardless of the number of uses. However, extruded polystyrene containers are currently not recycled and cannot be considered a sustainable option. If they were recycled in accordance with the European Union 2025 policy on waste packaging, most of their impacts would be reduced by >18%, while also reducing littering and negative effects on marine organisms. Most of the impacts of the other two types of container would also be reduced (>20%) through increased recycling. Implementing the European Union 2025 policy on recycling of waste packaging would reduce all the impacts by 2%–60%, including a 33% reduction in global warming potential. Based on 2025 million takeaway containers used annually in the European Union, the latter would save 61,700 t CO2 eq./yr, equivalent to the emissions of 55,000 light-duty vehicles. The outcomes of this study will be of interest to packaging manufacturers, food outlets, policy makers and consumers.