Short-rotation woody crops (SRWCs) are a promising means to enhance the EU renewable energy sources while mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, there are concerns that the GHG mitigation potential of bioelectricity may be nullified due to GHG emissions from direct land use changes...

Buildings’ thermal-energetic assessment and the relative proposal of new technical solutions applied to both summer and winter analyses has a strategic role in increasing the year-round performance of buildings.

Along with the entry into force of the new European Directive 2010/31/EU on the Energy Performance of Buildings (EPBD recast), each Member State has the responsibility of supporting activities for the construction of nearly zero energy buildings with a very high energy performance. In order to...

A process design for small-scale production of Substitute Natural Gas (SNG) by steam gasification of woody biomass is performed. In the course of this work, thermodynamic models for the novel process steps are developed and implemented into an already existing model library of commercial process...

Coal-fired electricity generation has become the largest source of carbon emission in China. This study utilizes life-cycle assessment to assess the effect of carbon emissions and to calculate the coefficient of carbon emissions in coal-to-energy chains. Results show that the carbon emission...

Development of novel solar–fossil fuel hybrid system is important for the efficient utilization of low temperature solar heat. A solar-assisted methane chemically recuperated gas turbine (SOLRGT) system was proposed by Zhang and co-worker, which integrated solar heat into a high efficiency...

Asphalt pavements subject to solar radiation can reach high temperatures causing not only environmental problems such as the heat island effect on cities but also structural damage due to rutting or hardening as a result of thermal cycles. Asphalt solar collectors are doubly effective active...

The potential of polygeneration systems, in terms of profitability, energy saving and pollutant emissions reduction, highly depends on several factors such as plant efficiency, local normative and tariff conditions and reference technologies adopted to compare the results. In Part I of this...

High levels of energy consumption in residential buildings and global warming are important issues. Thus the energy performance of buildings should be improved in the early stages of design. This article describes an approach for developing guidelines on sensitive and robust design parameters...