scholarly journals Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Grid-Integrated Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems in Northern Nigeria

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 5889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ismail Abubakar Jumare ◽  
Ramchandra Bhandari ◽  
Abdellatif Zerga
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Toxicity Potential ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Depletion Potential

Life cycle assessment is a crucial tool in evaluating systems performances for sustainability and decision-making. This paper provided environmental impact of integrating renewable energy systems to the utility-grid based on a baseline optimized energy production data from “HOMER” for renewable systems modelling of a site in northern Nigeria. The ultimate goal was to ascertain the best hybrid option(s) in sustaining the environment. Different assumptions and scenarios were modelled and simulated using Ganzleitlichen Bilanz (GaBi). Uncertainty analysis was ensured to the impact data based on pedigree-matrix and Excel-program, as well as overall policy relevance. The results of the impact categories revealed first scenario (i.e., conventional path-based) with the highest impacts on global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), human toxicity potential (HTP), and abiotic depletion potential (ADPfossils). The lowest impacts arise in the renewable-based scenarios for all the considered categories except the Ozone-layer depletion potential Category where the highest contribution falls in the third scenario (i.e., photovoltaic (PV)/biomass-biogas system) although all values being infinitesimal. In quantitative terms, the reduction in the GWP from the highest being the first scenario to the lowest being the fourth scenario (i.e., wind/biomass-biogas system) was 96.5%. Hence, with the outstanding contributions of the hybrid renewable systems, adopting them especially the lowest impact scenarios with expansions is relevant for environmental sustainability.

The role of ‘living laboratories’ in unlocking the potential of renewable energy and smart distributed energy systems to address the UN SDGs

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Fogwill ◽  
Zoe Robinson ◽  
David Healey ◽  
Sharon George ◽  
Phillip Catney ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Landscape ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Distributed Energy ◽  
Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Energy Networks ◽  
Climate Action

<p>The UN Sustainable Development Goals provide a framework towards a more sustainable future.  Although each goal can be targeted separately, the greatest benefit is to be had in ensuring that projects exploit synergies between different goals, are developed with an interdisciplinary perspective, and integrate different stakeholders across academia, business, government, NGOs, and communities.</p><p>In combination, Renewable Energy Systems (RES) and distributed ‘smart’ energy networks (SEN) provide opportunities to drive down CO<sub>2</sub> emissions, clearly addressing SDG13, ‘climate action’.  However, significant potential exists to positively contribute to a wider suite of goals as well as the potential to negatively impact other aspects. Addressing these tensions and opportunities requires development of a detailed understanding of the full societal, economic and environmental impacts of such developments.</p><p>Such integrated renewable energy systems and smart energy networks are in the early stages of development.  Taking a ‘living laboratory approach’ enables the development and live-testing of new energy systems, including the opportunity to consider full life cycle assessment impacts and benefits, as well as investigate and co-develop interactions with end-users.  Here we outline the potential of one of Europe’s largest ‘at scale’ multi-vector smart energy systems, developed as a ‘living laboratory’ at Keele University in the UK, to demonstrate an integrated approach to addressing the UN’s SDGs through integrated RES-SEN systems. The scale and scope of the project provides the opportunity for the detailed analysis required to provide a model of a scalable, integrated RES-SEN approach as part of an evolving energy landscape, where multi-vector renewables, and distributed energy and storage provide new models for decarbonisation, whilst also contributing more widely to the UN’s SDGs.</p><p>This project represents an ambitious and innovative demonstrator programme that brings together multiple stakeholders to explore the potential for addressing the core SDGs of ‘climate action’, ‘affordable and clean energy’, ‘sustainable cities and communities’, ‘decent work and economic growth’, and ‘industry, innovation and infrastructure’, while exploring the additional potential impacts and benefits to ‘quality education’, ‘life on land’ and ‘partnerships for the goal’. The programme of work focusses on technical developments, societal adoption and full economic life-cycle assessment, which combined are developing a blue print for the integration of RES-SEN technologies across the evolving energy landscape by working in partnership with key industrial and commercial partners to contribute to a wide array of the UN’s SDGs.  </p><p> </p>

scholarly journals Applications of solar and wind renewable energy in agriculture: A review

2019 ◽  
Vol 102 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuliana de Jesus Acosta-Silva ◽  
Irineo Torres-Pacheco ◽  
Yasuhiro Matsumoto ◽  
Manuel Toledano-Ayala ◽  
Genaro Martín Soto-Zarazúa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Climate Control ◽  
Greenhouse Production ◽  
Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Greenhouse Crops ◽  
Renewable Energy System ◽  
The Impact

The growing demand for food and the unstable price of fossil fuels has led to the search for environmentally friendly sources of energy. Energy is one of the largest overhead costs in the production of greenhouse crops for favorable climate control. The use of wind–solar renewable energy system for the control of greenhouse environments reduces fuel consumption and so enhances the sustainability of greenhouse production. This review describes the impact of solar–wind renewable energy systems in agricultural greenhouses.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Analysis of a Geothermal Power Plant: Comparison of the Environmental Performance with Other Renewable Energy Systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo Basosi ◽  
Roberto Bonciani ◽  
Dario Frosali ◽  
Giampaolo Manfrida ◽  
Maria Laura Parisi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Power Plant ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Life Cycle Analysis ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Geothermal Power Plant ◽  
A Value ◽  
Geothermal Power

A life cycle analysis was performed for the assessment of the environmental performances of three existing Italian power plants of comparable nominal power operating with different sources of renewable energy: Geothermal, solar, and wind. Primary data were used for building the life cycle inventories. The results are characterized by employing a wide portfolio of environmental indicators employing the ReCiPe 2016 and the ILCD 2011 Midpoint+ methods; normalization and weighting are also applied using the ReCiPe 2016 method at the endpoint level. The midpoint results demonstrate a good eco-profile of the geothermal power plant compared to other renewable energy systems and a definite step forward over the performance of the national energy mix. The Eco-Point single score calculation showed that wind energy is the best technology with a value of 0.0012 Eco-points/kWh, a result in line with previously documented life cycle analysis studies. Nevertheless, the geothermal power plant achieved a value of 0.0177 Eco-points/kWh which is close to that calculated for the photovoltaic plant (0.0087 Eco-points/kWh) and much lower than the national energy mix one (0.1240 Eco-points/kWh). Also, a scenario analysis allowed for a critical discussion about potential improvements to the environmental performance of the geothermal power plant.

scholarly journals Optimizing the selection of sustainability measures to minimize life-cycle cost of existing buildings

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moatassem Abdallah ◽  
Khaled El-Rayes ◽  
Liang Liu
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Optimization Model ◽  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Building Life Cycle ◽  
Selection Of

Buildings have significant impacts on the environment and economy as they were reported by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in 2009 to account for 40% of the global energy consumption. Building owners are increasingly seeking to integrate sustainability and green measures in their buildings to minimize energy and water consumption as well as life-cycle cost. Due to the large number of feasiblecombinations of sustainability measures, decision makers are often faced with a challenging task that requires them to identify an optimal set of upgrade measures to minimize the building life-cycle cost. This paper presents a model for optimizing the selection of building upgrade measures to minimize the life-cycle cost of existing buildings while complying with owner-specified requirements for building operational performance and budget constraints. The optimization model accounts for initial upgrade cost, operational cost and saving, escalation in utility costs, maintenance cost, replacement cost, and salvage value of building fixtures and equipment, and renewable energy systems. A case study of a rest area building in the state of Illinois in the United States was analyzed to illustrate the unique capabilities of the developed optimization model. The main findings of this analysis illustrate the capabilities of the model in identifying optimal building upgrade measures to achieve the highest savings of building life-cycle cost within a user-specified upgrade budget; and generating practical and detailed recommendations on replacing building fixtures and equipment and installing renewable energy systems.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Assessment on Different Synthetic Routes of ZIF-8 Nanomaterials

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (16) ◽  
pp. 4998
Author(s):  
Vasileios Ntouros ◽  
Ioannis Kousis ◽  
Dimitra Papadaki ◽  
Anna Laura Pisello ◽  
Margarita Niki Assimakopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Electricity Consumption ◽  
Research Activity ◽  
Synthetic Routes ◽  
The Impact

In the last twenty years, research activity around the environmental applications of metal–organic frameworks has bloomed due to their CO2 capture ability, tunable properties, porosity, and well-defined crystalline structure. Thus, hundreds of MOFs have been developed. However, the impact of their production on the environment has not been investigated as thoroughly as their potential applications. In this work, the environmental performance of various synthetic routes of MOF nanoparticles, in particular ZIF-8, is assessed through a life cycle assessment. For this purpose, five representative synthesis routes were considered, and synthesis data were obtained based on available literature. The synthesis included different solvents (de-ionized water, methanol, dimethylformamide) as well as different synthetic steps (i.e., hours of drying, stirring, precursor). The findings revealed that the main environmental weak points identified during production were: (a) the use of dimethylformamide (DMF) and methanol (MeOH) as substances impacting environmental sustainability, which accounted for more than 85% of the overall environmental impacts in those synthetic routes where they were utilized as solvents and as cleaning agents at the same time; (b) the electricity consumption, especially due to the Greek energy mix which is fossil-fuel dependent, and accounted for up to 13% of the overall environmental impacts in some synthetic routes. Nonetheless, for the optimization of the impacts provided by the energy use, suggestions are made based on the use of alternative, cleaner renewable energy sources, which (for the case of wind energy) will decrease the impacts by up to 2%.

scholarly journals Optimal Sizing and Techno-Economic Analysis of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems—A Case Study of a Photovoltaic/Wind/Battery/Diesel System in Fanisau, Northern Nigeria

Processes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 1381
Author(s):  
Nasser Yimen ◽  
Theodore Tchotang ◽  
Abraham Kanmogne ◽  
Idriss Abdelkhalikh Idriss ◽  
Bashir Musa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Rural Electrification ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Diesel Generator ◽  
Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Hybrid Renewable Energy

Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems (HRESs) have been touted as an appropriate way for supplying electricity to remote and off-grid areas in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where rural electrification challenges are the most pronounced. This study proposes a two-step methodology for optimizing and analyzing a stand-alone photovoltaic/wind/battery/diesel hybrid system to meet the electricity needs of Fanisua, an off-grid and remote village of northern Nigeria. In the first step, the MATLAB environment was used to run simulations and optimize the system via the genetic algorithm. Then, techno-economic and emissions analysis was carried out in the second step to compare the proposed system to the existing traditional modes of rural electrification in sub-Saharan Africa, namely, the grid-extension and diesel generator. The break-even distance parameter was adopted in the comparison with grid-extension. Besides, the hypothetical project of replacing the diesel generator by the optimal system was analyzed using the Simple Payback Period (SPP) and Net Present Value (NPV) parameters. The resulting optimal design architecture included an 89.271-kW photovoltaic array, a 100.31-W diesel generator, and 148 batteries with a total annualized cost (TAC) and cost of energy (COE) of USD 43,807 and USD 0.25/kWh, respectively. The break-even distance found was 16.2 km, while the NPV and SPP of the hypothetical project were USD 572,382 and 2.8 years, respectively. The savings in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of the proposed system compared to the grid extension and the diesel generator were found to be 85,401.08 kg/year and 122,062.85 kg/year, respectively. This study highlighted the role that solar PV-based HRESs could play in the sustainable electricity supply in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

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