Biomass gasification based building cooling, heating, and power (BCHP) system is an effective way of increasing and improving the use of biomass resources and distributed generation. The key step in designing a BCHP plant is to determine the best configuration in terms of the integrated...

The exploitation of solar energy by autonomous, photovoltaic (PV) based systems offers the opportunity for satisfying the electrification needs of numerous remote consumers worldwide in an environmentally friendly way. On the other hand, the sustainable character of these systems is strongly...

Rural electrification and the provision of low cost, low emission technology in developing countries require decision makers to be well informed on the costs, appropriateness and environmental credentials of all available options. While cost and appropriateness are often shaped by observable...

The renewable energy sources are often presented as ‘clean’ sources, not considering the environmental impacts related to their manufacture. The production of the renewable plants, like every production process, entails a consumption of energy and raw materials as well as the release of...

This study examines three agriculture management practices with the aim of improving the environmental performance of corn-derived products such as bioethanol. Corn production is energy intensive and contributes to water quality degradation and global warming, thus affecting the environmental...

Starting from the results of a life cycle assessment of solar thermal collector for sanitary warm water, an energy balance between the employed energy during the collector life cycle and the energy saved thanks to the collector use has been investigated. A sensitivity analysis for estimating the...

A Life Cycle Assessment, LCA, of a nanocrystalline dye sensitized solar cell (ncDSC) system has been performed, according to the ISO14040 standard. In brief, LCA is a tool to analyse the total environmental impact of a product or system from cradle to grave. Six different weighing methods were...

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants typically incorporate one or various auxiliary boilers operating in parallel to the solar field to facilitate start up operations, provide system stability, avoid freezing of heat transfer fluid (HTF) and increase generation capacity. The environmental...

Biomass for bioenergy is an important option within global change mitigation policies. The present research focused on energy net production, net reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) (considered as CO2-equivalents), and energy output:input ratio of the energy cropping systems ‘rapeseed’,...

For wind power generation offshore sites offer significantly better wind conditions compared to onshore. At the same time, the demand for raw materials and therefore the related environmental impacts increase due to technically more demanding wind energy converters and additional components...