Optimization of Power and Levelized Cost for Shrouded Small Wind Turbine

Nowadays, by increasing energy demand and considering the importance of environmental issues in recent decades, the use of renewable energies is expanding. Among renewable energies, wind power and its technology are growing and evolving more rapidly. Resource assessment in Iran has revealed the significant potential of wind energy around the country. To further develop wind energy in the country and create large-scale wind power plants, the consideration of distributed power generation using small wind turbines for applications in agricultural and residential use is needed. Conventional small wind turbines and small wind lens turbines have been developed in recent years. In this research project, a small wind lens turbine is designed. The advantages of this turbine are an increased production capacity and reduced cut-in speed and noise pollution. In this study, a lens (or shroud) is added to a small turbine, and the maximized annual energy production (AEP) and minimization of the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) are modeled. We applied the NSGA-II algorithm for optimization to find the best answer. The input parameters in the objective function of the AEP are cut-in, cut-out, rated speeds, scale factor, and shape factor. Additionally, the input parameters in the objective function of the LCOE are the power production, initial capital cost, annual operating expenses, and balance of energy. The results indicate that installing a wind lens turbine in Kish Island led to an LCOE decrease of 56% on average, and we can see an 83% increase in the AEP. In the Firoozkooh area, an average reduction of 59% in the LCOE and 74% increase in the AEP for a wind lens turbine is observed

Ocena wirtualnej wody w produkcji ziarna w Iranie – przykład grochu i fasoli

Shortage of water is considered as one of the most important straits of agricultural development in Iran. The main purpose of this study is to determine virtual water used to pea and bean production and water use efficiency, select the best area for cultivating these two grains and find the virtual water budget for the aforementioned grains. The results showed that among the three provinces main producers of pea in Iran, the highest virtual water of pea belongs to Lorestan with 3534 dm3·kg–1 and the lowest belongs to West Azerbaijan with 2660 dm3·kg–1 in irrigated cultivation. Water use efficiency in irrigated cultivation in Kermanshah and West Azerbaijan are at the same level; however, Kermanshah has enjoyed much more level of virtual water. For beans, the highest amount of virtual water in irrigated cultivation belongs to Lorestan (3651 dm3·kg–1) and the lowest amount refers to Markazi (2725 dm3·kg–1) and also the highest level of water use efficiency for this product refers to Markazi. Also it was found that 160.15 mln m3 of water has been exported from the country water resources by these products so virtual water budget for studied crops were negative.Deficyt wody uznawany jest za jeden z najważniejszych problemów rozwoju rolnictwa w Iranie. Głównym celem badań przedstawionych w pracy jest oznaczenie ilości wody wirtualnej zużywanej do produkcji grochu i fasoli oraz wydajności zużycia wody, wybór najlepszych terenów do uprawy obu roślin i sporządzenie dla nich bilansu wirtualnej wody. Uzyskane wyniki wykazały, że spośród trzech prowincji – głównych producentów grochu w Iranie – największą objętość wirtualnej wody (3534 dm3·kg–1) zużywa się do nawadnianych upraw w Lorestanie, a najmniejszą (2660 dm3·kg–1) – do nawadnianych upraw w prowincji Zachodni Azerbejdżan. Wydajność zużycia wody w nawadnianych uprawach w Kermanshah i Zachodnim Azerbejdżanie była podobna, a uprawy w Kermanshah cechowało większe zużycie wody wirtualnej. Do produkcji fasoli największą objętość wirtualnej wody stwierdzono w Lorestanie (3651 dm3·kg–1), a najmniejszą w Markazi (2725 dm3·kg–1), gdzie stwierdzono także największą wydajność zużycia wody. Obliczono także, że – eksportując te produkty roślinne – wysłano za granicę 160,15 milionów m3 wody wirtualnej, skutkiem czego bilans wodny badanych upraw był ujemny

A detailed investigation and performance optimization of a photovoltaic panel integrated with a reflecting mirror

In this paper, the performance of a photovoltaic panel integrated with a reflecting mirror is investigated. In this regard, the effects of panel and mirror tilt angles, and the mirror length on the system performance are modeled. The cell temperature rises have also been considered. Moreover, by a 3D model, the lighting and shading statuses are studied in detail, and all the possible conditions are presented and modeled. The resulting model can calculate the amount of incident solar energy on the panel and the generated electrical power in every moment during a year. This amount is dependent on the system configuration and capacity and its location. A 250-W photovoltaic panel and the city of Tehran have been considered the basics of calculations to assess the model results. By employing the genetic algorithm method, the optimum configuration has been found to have 69.084° and 0° tilt angles for the panel and the mirror, respectively, at the mirror length of 2 m. This configuration can generate 2.38 GJ (613.89 kWh) of electrical energy annually. It was also found that the optimum configuration had 0.024 GJ of annual energy losses due to the effects of cell temperature rise

Performance investigation and comparison of polypropylene to Nafion117 as the membrane of a dual-chamber microbial fuel cell

The high cost and recycling issues of common separators as the main components of Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have slowed down the development of MFCs recently. In this paper, a polypropylene membrane is proposed as an inexpensive membrane that can be recycled with lower environmental impacts. An experiment is performed in a dual-chamber microbial fuel cell to investigate and compare the proposed membrane effectiveness to Nafion117. The dual-chamber MFC was used because of its ease of use. A mixture of microbes and glucose was fed to the cell during the experiment. The internal resistance and coulombic efficiency are calculated by measuring the circuit voltage, power density, and open-circuit voltage to monitor the performance. The maximum output voltage of 500 mV was attained at a resistance of 380 kΩ. Furthermore, the maximum output power density was 0.7 mW.m−2, which occurred for 3.3 mA.m−2