Sharif Digital Repository

The objective of the present study is the development of an optimization model for identifying the best configuration of renewable-based integrated energy systems. The system includes a combination of renewable energy systems such as wind, solar, hydropower and hydrogen production, storage facilities and conventional fossil-fuel generators. The developed tool consists of various modules where water heating assumes the utilization of waste energy as an option. Furthermore, the application, which is demonstrated for a case study in Tehran, has been considered. The power exchange with the distribution network and injection of hydrogen produced from excess renewable sources into gas network are... 

Aquifers are underground porous formations containing water. Confined aquifers are surrounded by impermeable layers on top and bottom, called cap rocks and bed rocks. A confined aquifer with a very low groundwater flow velocity was considered to meet the annual cooling and heating energy requirements of a residential building complex in Tehran, Iran. Three different alternatives of Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) were employed to meet the heating/cooling demands of the buildings. These alternatives were using ATES for: Cooling alone, heating alone by coupling with at-plate solar collectors, and cooling and heating by coupling with a heat pump. For the economic evaluation of the... 

Progression in the renewable energy field is tied to the development of high-performance energy storage devices with superior power and energy densities. Herein, an innovative material design was employed to prepare binder-free nickel-cobalt sulfide (NCS) on niobium pentoxide (Nb2O5)-decorated carbon spheres (CSs). Initially, CSs were directly grown on nickel foam (NF) via a hydrothermal carbonization approach. Core/shell-like NCS@Nb2O5@CS-NF was then synthesized through a hydrothermal process, followed by an electrodeposition process. When employed as an electrode material, NCS@Nb2O5@CS-NF achieved an excellent volumetric capacity of 9300 C L−1 at a current density of 18 A L−1. Later, an... 

In recent decades, many countries have shown a growing interest in the use of renewable energies for power generation. Geothermal energy is a clean and environmentally friendly source of renewable energy that can be used to produce electricity and heat for industrial and domestic applications. While Afghanistan has undeniably good geothermal potential that can be utilised to alleviate the country’s current energy limitations, so far this potential has remained completely untapped. In this study, the suitability of 21 provinces for geothermal project implementation in Afghanistan was evaluated using multiple multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. The stepwise weight assessment ratio... 

The emerging environmental consequences of overdependence on fossil fuels have pushed many countries to invest in clean and renewable sources of power. Countries like Iran where these sources can be found in abundance can take advantage of this potential to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. This study investigated the feasibility of the standalone use of a hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) to power buildings in the Bostegan village in the Hormozgan province of Iran. Technical, economic, and environmental assessments were performed with the help of the Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources (HOMER) software, and the optimal configuration for the system components was... 

The emerging environmental consequences of overdependence on fossil fuels have pushed many countries to invest in clean and renewable sources of power. Countries like Iran where these sources can be found in abundance can take advantage of this potential to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. This study investigated the feasibility of the standalone use of a hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) to power buildings in the Bostegan village in the Hormozgan province of Iran. Technical, economic, and environmental assessments were performed with the help of the Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources (HOMER) software, and the optimal configuration for the system components was... 

Sustainable economic growth and improvement of the social welfare depend upon the sufficient supply of energy resources, while the utilization of energy resources is one of the main factors of environmental degradation. This research is involved with development of a sustainable energy system model and a new method for sustainability assessment. This model represents the flow of energy from primary resources through processing, conversion, and end-use technologies in an optimization framework where the useful energy demand in various social and economic sectors is met. The impact of energy supply and consumption chain on the environment at each level of energy system is also embedded in the... 

This paper aims to analyze Iran's long-term power sector development from economic, environmental, social, and sustainable perspectives. For this purpose, a linear programming model is developed, which includes three objective functions: minimization of costs, minimization of CO2 emissions, and maximization of created jobs. To provide a sustainable plan, analytical hierarchy process is employed to allocate expert-based weights to the objective functions. Moreover, to support the decision-makers, Pareto-optimal alternatives are explored by varying the weights of objectives. The multi-objective model is solved by applying a weighted method based on fuzzy membership functions. The results show... 

One of the primary factors affecting the amount of worldwide energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is cooking. Solar cooking is an appropriate solution because it is both inexpensive and expandable. To illustrate modern advancements and the current status of solar cooking technology, this paper presents a review of recent experimental and analytical socioeconomic studies on solar cookers. The experimental studies have been divided into three categories based on different solar cooker structures: (i) box types, (ii) concentrating types, and (iii) panel types. Next, different designs are investigated according to their direct or indirect heat transfer modes and optional equipment for... 

This paper addresses a low complexity and high efficient cooling system applicable on photovoltaic (PV) system leading to enhance electrical efficiency and provide preheated water. The developed system consists of a photovoltaic panel, a cooling water system establishing a uniform surface temperature, and a solar water heater. According to the proposed system characteristics, the setup is constructed based on a single mono-crystalline solar panel to absorb more solar radiation intensity and generate more electrical energy per area in compare to a poly-crystalline panel. The preheated water produced by absorbed heat from the photovoltaic is conducted to a solar water heater to satisfy... 

A comprehensive optimal bidding strategy model has been developed for renewable micro-grids to take part in day-ahead (energy and reserve) and real-time markets considering uncertainties. A two-stage stochastic programming method has been employed to integrate the uncertainties into the problem. Moreover, the Latin hypercube sampling method has been proposed to generate the wind speed, solar irradiance, and load realizations via Weibull, Beta, and normal probability density functions, respectively. In addition, a hybrid fast forward/backward scenario reduction technique has been applied to reduce the large number of scenarios. Furthermore, the risk of participation in the markets has been... 

Feed-in tariff (FiT) is one of the most efficient ways that many governments throughout the world use to stimulate investment in renewable energies (REs) technology. For governments, financial management of the policy could be challenging as it needs a considerable amount of budget to support RE producers during the long remuneration period. In this paper, it has been illuminated that the early growth of REs capacity could be a temporary boost. And the socio-economic structure of the system will backlash the policy if some social mechanisms are not considered. Social tolerance for paying REs tax and potential investors’ trust emanated from budget-related mechanisms -which have rarely been... 

A multi-objective energy management strategy for a plus-zero energy building during a year, incorporating renewable resources, air to water heat pump, micro-CHP, ventilation, energy storage systems and thermal-cooling-electrical loads have been proposed in this paper. In this strategy, a novel technology of wind turbine that has been known as INVELOX has been investigated and collaborated in ZEB planning to reach efficient plus-ZEB at lower cost and pollution. As well the building can sell and buy power to/from the upstream network. The total cost and pollution of the building have been considered as objective functions. Also, the effect of objective function priority on the planning of the... 

The global demand for renewable energy sources has arisen significant research interests in marine hydrokinetic energy harvesting from flow induced vibrations. The current study deals with the hydrokinetic energy harvesting potentials of diamond and square oscillators at various inline configurations. Both the sharp edge sections and the wake induced vibrations in tandem arrangement can lead to galloping type of instability with high energy efficiency ratios. The present in-water towing tank experiments comprise 1DoF vibrating systems at Re ranging from 2 × 103 to 4.8 × 104. The results show that the upstream wake generally enhances the system efficiency and the mechanical work done by the... 

Electric spring (ES) as a novel concept in power electronics has been developed for the purpose of dealing with demand-side management. In this paper, to conquer the challenges imposed by intermittent nature of renewable energy sources (RESs) and other uncertainties for constructing a secure modern microgrid (MG), the hybrid distributed operation of ESs and electric vehicles (EVs) parking lot is suggested. The proposed approach is implemented in the context of a hybrid stochastic/robust optimization (HSRO) problem, where the stochastic programming based on unscented transformation (UT) method models the uncertainties associated with load, energy price, RESs, and availability of MG equipment.... 

Thermal power generation needs great volumes of water for cooling purposes. A multi-period Low Water Generation Expansion Planning (LW-GEP) model is proposed to plan the future generation mix including type, capacity, time of installation, and proper cooling system of generation technologies to supply the future electric peak loads under the water resource limitations. Different types of generation technologies with conventional and modern cooling systems are considered as expansion candidates in the proposed LW-GEP model. The access of candidate and existing power plants to the water resources are considered. Renewable resources as water smart solutions are integrated in the proposed energy... 

This study presents a comprehensive framework for evaluating renewable and non-renewable power plants' performance using the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and emergy analysis. The emergy analysis is used to consider the free ecosystem services in the sustainability of the systems as a supplement to the LCA. The results indicate that the wind and photovoltaic power plants have the best performance in terms of the LCA analysis, while the wind and combined cycle power plants have the highest emergy sustainability index. The best scenario is chosen under a two-objective optimization problem, including the single score and emergy sustainability as objective functions. Here, the wind power plant is... 

This study presents a comprehensive framework for evaluating renewable and non-renewable power plants' performance using the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and emergy analysis. The emergy analysis is used to consider the free ecosystem services in the sustainability of the systems as a supplement to the LCA. The results indicate that the wind and photovoltaic power plants have the best performance in terms of the LCA analysis, while the wind and combined cycle power plants have the highest emergy sustainability index. The best scenario is chosen under a two-objective optimization problem, including the single score and emergy sustainability as objective functions. Here, the wind power plant is... 

The main purpose of this study is to provide the heating power for space heating and sanitary hot water for a residential house in sixteen stations located in Belgium using evacuated tube solar water (ETSW). A one-year dynamic simulation was performed using TSOL 5.5 software and Meteonorm 7.1 was used to obtain the climatic data. Technical and environmental studies as well as station rankings are the parameters that have been examined for the first time in the present study. The weighting results of using the Best-Worst method (BWM) revealed that total solar fraction and CO2 emission avoided have the highest and lowest weight, respectively. Station ranking was performed using ARAS technique... 

A Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) is a renewable energy-based HVAC system that extracts or supplies heat from/to the ground via a Ground Heat Exchanger (GHE). One of the most commonly used types of GHE in GSHP systems is the energy pile. In this realm, the GSHP system with a triple helix energy pile has become the focus of attention. To this aim, a comprehensive three-dimensional transient Computational Fluid Dynamics model of the energy pile with triple helix GHE and the surrounding soil is developed. The effect of several parameters, including helix pitch, helix diameter and pipe diameter, on the thermal performance of the system, is investigated. Simulated cases are chosen using the design...