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Dear Colleagues,

The global goal is to bring greenhouse gas emissions to zero within the second half of the 21st century, as ratified in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Such a challenging target implies developing novel methods and devices, or improving existing ones, to extract more energy from renewable resources, at low cost. Energy from wind, tides, and waves, and geothermal energy, have been identified as leading technology options to decarbonise the energy system worldwide.

The significant increase in computing power over the past decades has motivated the development of numerical tools, which can be efficiently used for the design and control of renewable energy systems. Authors are invited to submit research and progress related to the development and use of numerical methods for renewable energy applications. This Special Issue will feature original research in these areas, including but not limited to:

Offshore/onshore wind energy
Tidal/wave renewable energy
Geothermal energy.

I invite you to submit a manuscript to this Special Issue, which should ideally include a clear numerical component, for instance Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), numerical optimization, deep learning, etc., demonstrating how numerical methods, models, and codes can be applied for the design, study and/or optimization of existing and/or novel renewable energy systems.

Dr. Patrick G. Verdin
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

computational fluid dynamics
offshore renewable energy
tidal and wind turbines
wave-structure interactions
horizontal and vertical axis turbines
geothermal energy
design optimization
deep wellbore heat exchangers

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

30 pages, 8946 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Experimental and Simulation Study Investigating the Effect of a Transparent Pyramidal Cover on PV Cell Performance

by Adel Alblawi and M. Talaat

Sustainability 2022, 14(5), 2599; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14052599 - 23 Feb 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1570

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) systems are a very popular energy conversion system for electric energy supply due to their ease of connection and fast rate of conversion. However, a disadvantage of these systems is their low efficiency. Many techniques have been proposed to enhance the efficiency of PV systems. In this article, numerical and experimental studies were performed to test the effect of pyramidal transparent covers made of Perspex on the incident radiation reaching PV panels. The energy of light depends on the electric field, and the electric field depends on the permittivity. As the relative permittivity of Perspex is higher than the relative permittivity of air, the energy of the panel with the pyramidal Perspex cover is higher than the energy of the panel without pyramids. In addition, the total irradiance reaching the base of the pyramids was investigated in order to show the effect of the incidence angle on the computed irradiance. A 3D model was constructed and tested with different pyramidal cover dimensions and incidence angles. The tested dimensions were height to base length ratios of 1.5, 1.0, and 0.5. It was found that pyramidal covers with a height to base length ratio of 1.0 achieved the best performance of the three sizes. The simulation model was applied in order to study the solar radiation model for the solar panel with and without pyramids. Two parameters were studied in order to show the effect of the pyramidal covers on solar panel irradiance; these parameters used three different sizes of pyramids to study the effect of changing the incidence angle of the radiation source. The model was constructed in ANSYS-ICEM, then the mesh was exported to FLUENT 14.5. Moreover, the incident radiation on the panel for all tested incidence angles was found to be higher than for the panels without covers. In addition, the existence of the pyramidal cover was found to enhance the homogeneity of the distribution incident of rays on the PV panels. In the case of pyramids with R = 1, enhancement became clear at an incidence angle ranging from 69° to 90°, and the percentage increase in the energy fraction reached 0.2%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Numerical Simulations and Optimization of Renewable Energy Systems)

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21 pages, 1185 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Numerical Analysis of Enhanced Conductive Deep Borehole Heat Exchangers

by Theo Renaud, Lehua Pan, Hannah Doran, Gioia Falcone and Patrick G. Verdin

Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6918; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13126918 - 19 Jun 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2205

Abstract

Geothermal energy is a reliable and mature energy source, but it represents less than 1% of the total renewable energy mix. While the enhanced geothermal system (EGS) concept faces technical validation challenges and suffers from public acceptance issues, the development of unconventional deep-well designs can help to improve their efficiency and reliability. Modelling single-EGS-well designs is key to assessing their long-term thermal performances, particularly in unconventional geological settings. Numerical results obtained with the T2WELL/EOS1 code have been validated with available experimental data from a deep borehole heat exchanger (DBHE), where a temperature of 358

^{\circ}

C has been measured at a depth of 1962 m. Based on a calibrated model, the thermal performances of two enhanced thermal conductive DBHEs with graphite were compared for high geothermal gradients. The analysis highlights the potential recovery of a variable fraction of vapour. Graphite used along the well appears to be the most suitable solution to enhance the thermal output by 5 to 8% when compared to conventional wells. The theoretical implementation of such well in the Newberry volcano field was investigated with a single and doublet DBHE. The findings provide a robust methodology to assess alternative engineering solutions to current geothermal practices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Numerical Simulations and Optimization of Renewable Energy Systems)

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