In many developing countries, fuelwood can contribute to 50–90% of all household energy, largely driven by the 2.6 billion individuals dependent on it to meet their daily household cooking energy requirements. This dependency can have negative impacts on forest stocks and climate change. Both, a transition to cleaner cooking and sustainable management of forest resources to ensure long-term supply

The initiatives taken by Algeria to tap its renewable energy potential have been exceptional in recent years. Therefore, the Algerian government aims to ensure a large portion of electricity demand with clean and sustainable resources. In this sense, many projects and large-scale PV plants were installed in the southern regions. This work explores and evaluates the performance of one of the largest

The present study investigates the effects of a deflector on the self-starting speed and power performance of two-bladed and three-bladed Savonius rotors for hydrokinetic applications under low water flow speed conditions. The rotors were tested inside a closed-circuit wind tunnel both with and without a deflector with air as the flow medium. The air data obtained from the experiment were used to calculate

In this study, a water electro-mobility concept has been analyzed in the Amazon using the case study of the native communities in the Yarinacocha district in Peru. Multi-Attribute Tradespace Exploration (MATE) methodology is applied to identify the various stakeholders' objectives, generate the designs, and evaluate them. This methodology captured the intention of assessing not only technical aspects

Woodlands in the Sudanian zone are under different management regimes, including total protection and controlled use mainly for feeding livestock and collecting fuelwood. This study conducted in Sudanian woodlands of Benin, around the Biosphere Reserve of Pendjari (BRP) aimed to: (i) determine the effect of selective stem thinning and branch pruning on the production of standing biomass of the woodlands;

In this study, the commercial woodfuel consumption at 119 markets within 30 km of the border of Lawachara National Park (LNP) in northeastern Bangladesh was examined. The study included interviews with a total of 587 commercial woodfuel consumers, representing restaurants, tea stalls, and food manufacturers. The way in which the market attributes (travel distance to LNP, elevation, degree of urbanisation

This paper presents an Agent-Based Model that determines the minimum cost strategy for rural electrification delivery systems and associated decentralized generation focusing entirely on renewable resources. The model creates generalized scenarios examining stakeholders' preferences for renewable resources to deploy and preferences between centralized and decentralized generation. Literature suggests

Concentrated in the northern region of Brazil, the country's 250 isolated systems represent around 1% of the national energy consumption and have been historically supplied by diesel power plants, an expensive solution that relies on complicated logistics and is responsible for high GHG emissions. Although many publications indicate that renewables are already a cost-effective solution, especially

This paper presents an analysis of the path towards a clean energy transition in rural areas, from the time that households do not have electricity access from any source, to when they get access to the national electricity; considering the intermediate access to an off-grid renewable technology, as well as the post-electrification years. For this, field household-level data are collected through surveys

This study contributes to the design, assembly, and heat distribution test of the Injera bakery in Ethiopia for the clean energy and proficient cookstoves sub-sector of Ethiopia. Accordingly, an improved burner manifold, composite clay baking pan, and optimum design and assembly information are provided. Additionally, the thermal distribution throughout the baking pan (local name: ‘Mitad’) is tested

Empirical studies have shown that internal temperatures in refugee shelters are impacting morbidity, and possibly mortality. Within a displacement setting, solutions are often constrained by time, cost, material availability and local requirements. This often results in “deemed suitable” designs rather than optimal solutions. In this study, we ask which route is most appropriate to optimise thermal

In this paper, we study the recent energy use intensity (EUI) in kWh/m2/year of Hong Kong's secondary schools. We found a 22% increase of EUI from, 2003 (86 kWh/m2/year) to 2017 (105 kWh/m2/year) approximately. It may be due to the increase in the number of air-conditioned classrooms. We then use a novel two-stage regression-based approach to analyse the most important set of statistically significant

As lots of the total energy was used by buildings, the number of residential buildings has dramatically increased in South Korea. Thus, it is imperative to pay more attention to energy consumption by residential buildings. In addition, it is important to predict energy consumption in residential buildings accurately. While several studies have currently focused on the data-driven method to predict

Despite global progress towards improving energy access, major challenges remain for closing the energy access gap between ultra-poor and better off households, and for reaching ultra-poor and last mile populations. Using data from Malawi, we explore the energy access gap between ultra-poor (N = 900) and better-off households (N = 2666) from the same communities. Compared to better-off households,

Off-grid systems, and mini-grids in particular, are expected to play a significant role in improving electricity access to one billion people until 2040. One of the major challenges for mini-grids is associated with their high costs, low financial viability and local development impact. Productive use of electricity can be an important driver of local development and impacts the total load in a mini-grid

Chinese investment and technology will play an important role in meeting growing global demand for new low carbon energy infrastructure, and Chinese companies are increasingly looking outward for market development opportunities. This outward expansion is directly connected to larger trends within China to promote overseas investments, primarily through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Using an

We propose a scalable computational framework to examine the effects of settlement patterns on the electrification of an entire country. We first propose a data processing strategy to convert structure locations, identified from satellite imagery, to estimated household locations using census data. Then, we present a computational framework that involves a two-level network design algorithm to find

Lack of access to electricity is one of the major impediments to economic development and the provision of public services in rural/off-grid areas of developing countries. This study examines the drivers and impacts of rural electrification with Solar Photovoltaic (PV) systems in Ethiopia from a cross-sectional study of 605 rural households and direct field examination of 137 solar PVs/lanterns. Multiple

Differing estimates have emerged about how much land or water area is used by existing wind farms and how much power can be obtained from that area. Whereas, no single unique method exists to define wind farm spacing area, the spacing area (thus installed and output power densities) of a wind farm can be determined in a way to meet specific logical criteria, This study proposes a new, intuitive, data

One of the pressing challenges to economic development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is access to electrical power. In Nigeria, there is a large gap in electricity access between rural and urban areas; only about 40% have access in rural areas as compared to almost 60% in urban areas. A potential solution is the use of off-grid solar electricity to meet their needs. This article seeks to assess the tradeoffs

The aim of this paper is to present a novel concept for control of hybrid photovoltaic-thermal systems: a Maximum Exergy Point Tracker. It operates by evaluation of the exergetic and energetic performance of a solar photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) system, to find the maximum cell temperature that produces at least the same exergy as the system without cogeneration. This maximum working temperature is a

Household consumption is not sufficiently studied in climate change research, despite the fact that it is a variable related to GHG emissions. The objective of this paper is to assess the amount, structure, and intensity of total GHG emissions (direct and indirect) related to Mexican household consumption by income level by means of an Input-Output analysis. Our study produced the following three main

Energy efficiency of domestic refrigerators has markedly improved over recent years. Despite these improvements, low-income households in Australia still tend to own older and less energy-efficient refrigerators. Replacement of old refrigerators with energy-efficient appliances presents an important opportunity to reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and the electricity bills of households for sustainable

The rural electrification-based literature reports a limited modelling knowledge concerning the long-term dynamics of the nexus between electricity access and local development in rural areas of developing countries. This can hinder the achievement of the Agenda 2030 goals related to sustainable access to electricity for all. In order to overcome this literature gap and support the implementation of

This research assesses the transition of a fossil fuel-based electricity production jurisdiction to a renewable-based electricity jurisdiction through an extensive scenario analysis. This fills a knowledge gap where a wide-range of fossil-to-renewable electricity generation pathways is compared within a single analysis framework. To conduct this study, a novel data-intensive electricity system model

In Tanzania, fuelwood availability for cooking is an increasing challenge for rural households struggling to meet this need. Here, a possible pathway for smallholder farmers to reduce their dependency on off-farm fuelwood is evaluated. We compare the cooking performance of on-farm produced fuels, like wood from Gliricidia sepium (Jacq.) Kunth ex Walp. and Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp. (pigeon pea stalks)

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

Knowledge on the effects of climate change in a system can contribute to the better management of its water and energy resources. This study evaluates the consequences of alterations in the rainfall and temperature patterns for a hydroelectric plant. The methodology adopted consists of four steps. First, a hydrological model is developed for the chosen basin following a semi-distributed and conceptual

Located deep in the Kelabit Highlands in Malaysian Borneo, the remote town of Bario offers us a natural laboratory of rural electrification projects through which to understand end-user perceptions of success and failure, and the factors that contribute to these perceptions. We use a case-study based approach and focus on three off-grid energy projects: a 110 kW mini-hydro power plant; a 12 kW wind

This paper analyzes the effects of the 9-min pan-India voluntary lights-off policy that was planned and executed by the Government of India in April 2020 on the National Grid and the steps that were taken to maintain grid stability during the event. The policy was a symbolic gesture of public solidarity with frontline healthcare and emergency workers in the nation's war against the COVID-19 pandemic

This study uses a static computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to examine the potential economic impacts of ethanol production in Uganda. We introduce an ethanol sector in the 2016/17 Uganda's social accounting matrix (SAM) using maize, cassava, sugarcane, and molasses as feedstocks. Furthermore, we evaluate the suitability of each feedstock. By simulating a 10% blending mandate, we find that

The transport sector has become an important source of urban greenhouse gas (GHG) and air pollutant emissions, with the continuous growth of transportation demand. The co-benefits of reducing GHG and air pollutant emissions in the transport sector are receiving more and more attention. Taking Guangzhou as the case study city, this study quantitatively analyzed the co-benefits of reducing CO2 and air

Water heating represents a large fraction of energy consumption in the residential sector, and it has significant health, economic, and environmental implications. However, it is well known that temperatures between 20 °C and 42 °C promote the multiplication of Legionella species, which are the causative agent of the Legionnaires' disease, a life-threatening form of pneumonia. Conventional tank water

Stove and fuel stacking is becoming accepted as part of the clean cooking transition process, even though it attenuates positive health and climate benefits that can be realized by cookstove interventions. This study analyses the underlying drivers of stove and fuel stacking from the household perspectives, and its implications for improving impact of clean cooking programs. The study draws on a case

Renewable energy cooperatives (RECs) in Turkey have received considerable attention in recent years and the total number of cooperatives is 46 in 2020. With increased environmental awareness and energy demand, RECs aim the local and renewable resources to be used by the people of the region by creating an example venture model through cooperatives. The growth in the number of cooperatives has resulted

As the largest carbon emitter, China has launched the emissions trading scheme (ETS) in 2013. Since then, whether ETS in China really help reduce carbon emissions has become a hot-button issue. By far, scholars tend to offer the macro-level empirical evidence, and the conclusions are at best mixed. Therefore, we try to reveal the effect of China's ETS from the micro level by focusing on the policy

Many countries have set renewable energy targets in their electricity supply mix to encourage investments in renewable energy technologies. In developing countries, however, many of such targets are either abandoned or fall far short of the target date, primarily due to issues of financing, cost of electricity, and level of unmet demand. This paper presents a Generation Expansion Planning model that

Small solar home systems (SHS) have emerged as potential alternatives to grid electrification in rural sub-Saharan Africa, enabling households to make modest investments into their power systems, and to modify those systems according to their changing incomes and power demands. In this work investigate how introduction of rural unelectrified households to basic electricity temporally stimulates increasing

A design and optimization procedure of simplified wind turbine rotors for small-scale applications is presented. The need for this research has arisen from the recent national initiative of the government of Sri Lanka titled ‘Battle for Wind Energy’ in promoting small scale grid connected wind plants for electricity customers under Net Metering scheme. The main objective of this research is to assist

Despite increased access to modern energy services being a key development priority, few studies have examined whether improved access is sufficient to facilitate universal energy use at the household level. Using micro data from Vietnam, we study how a national grid expansion is translated into households' electricity use over time. Our analysis reveals that household income is an important determinant

As countries start to implement the Sustainable Development Goals in their national development agendas, reviews of the current policy environment are necessary to ensure that the goals are achievable by 2030. The present study assesses the effectiveness of energy policy in Indonesia in supporting progress towards universal energy access, a substantial increase in renewable energy deployment, and improvement

Following the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21), the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climae Change strengthens the attempts of the European Union to decarbonize the building sector and to facilitate the transition from fossil fuels towards cleaner energy. The last version of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2018/844/EU is human centric and requires the integration of indoor environmental

Equitable energy supply planning is nearly impossible in regions with limited data availability. Lack of representation among marginalised populations can perpetuate existing structural and socio-cultural inequities, despite aggregate improvements to energy supply. In Nepal, this represents an acute challenge for the 460 rural municipalities recently tasked with improving supply provision for their

If hydrokinetic turbines are to make a significant contribution to small scale off-grid power supply, they will need to be affordable, reliable and easily deployed at many sites, not just a few with exceptional combinations of depth and high flow velocity. Few if any products currently on the market meet these criteria. This paper addresses the challenge of providing small scale electrical power and

Drum kiln with heat distribution pipe is a new design for vertical drum kiln. It is a small kiln for charcoal, biochar and wood vinegar production. It consists of a 200 l oil drum covered with fiberglass and galvanized steel as an insulator. The heat distribution pipe with slots is installed in the middle part of the kiln. There are four exhaust chimneys for smoke ventilation and wood vinegar collection

Currently, feasible construction practices are not enough to reach zero energy buildings, therefore, European Union (EU) legislation states that new buildings and renovations should be designed as “nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB)”; however, design alternatives need to be carefully considered and selected before implementation. This study aims to investigate the effect of building façade elements

Reducing the burden of household air pollution could be achieved with exclusive adoption of cleaner fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). However, we lack understanding of how much LPG is required to support exclusive use and how household characteristics affect this quantity. This paper used data from 90 participants in the Cardiopulmonary outcomes and Household Air Pollution (CHAP) trial in

The frequency of power outages being experienced in Sub-Saharan Africa mean that traditional methods of electricity demand forecasting which rely on directly observed demand data are inadequate for use in projections. Nevertheless, accurate forecasting methods are urgently required to ensure efficient power system operations and expansion planning. To address this gap, we develop a novel method to

This paper presents a comprehensive energy management system based centralized control for a smart greenhouse integrating a microgrid with the aim to optimize and control the global internal environment and the crop growth. The objective is to develop an advanced and comprehensive energy management platform based model predictive control (MPC) considering intermittent behaviour of renewable energy

In this study, we use water boiling tests (WBTs), controlled cooking tests (CCTs) and in-home kitchen performance tests (KPTs) to analyze changes in fuel consumption and emissions resulting from low-cost modifications to traditional open fires. The modifications consist of adding rock-beds, ceramic grates or metal grates to open fires. In both traditional and modified stoves, cooking pots are supported

Biomass cookstoves have been studied extensively for several decades. The Water Boiling Test (WBT) has been a widely adopted protocol for obtaining measurements needed to quantify biomass cookstove performance metrics. WBT metrics have been commonly used to evaluate cookstove effectiveness and serve as a basis for comparing biomass cookstoves. This paper demonstrates the influence of variations in

Solar technologies promise to provide clean energy to the poorest populations. Motivated by observations of low-quality products in the solar home system market, this study analyzes the role of product quality in the transition to cleaner energy technologies in developing countries. Our systematic empirical analysis of the Ugandan solar home system market reveals several market segments. Plug-and-play

Utilization of hydro-power as a renewable energy source is now of prime importance in the world. Hydropower energy is available in abundance as a renewable source. For run-of river, low head reaction type Kaplan turbines mostly used. In this paper, a parametric study has been conducted on a complex geometry of Kaplan blade through static and dynamic computational analysis by varying the blade profile

Today, identifying energy poverty is one of the scientific community's challenges. In this sense, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) assumes getting to know which areas are the most vulnerable. This study considers the development of a new territory energy poverty evaluation indicator, called Poverty Adaptive Degree Hourly Index (PADHI). The novelty of this indicator is that it combines the

Solar home systems (SHSs) have seen rapid growth and have proven to be a viable source of electricity for households due to their capability to reach remote users that do not have access to grid systems. Based on a comprehensive literature review of 139 papers focussing on SHSs in Sub-Saharan Africa, this paper highlights the key trends, research gaps and policy recommendations. The literature was

Solar photovoltaics are being promoted in various parts of the developing world for irrigation pumps as a clean energy source, for use in remote areas, to provide livelihood generation, and in India, additionally to address issues with grid supply. India has a well-developed system of electricity distribution for irrigation, but socio-political issues in this sector have led to a system with poor quality