Search

Understanding and evaluating the implications of photovoltaic solar panels (PVSPs) deployment on urban settings, as well as the pessimistic effects of densely populated areas on PVSPs efficiency, is becoming incredibly valuable. Thus, the deployment of low-efficiency, low-cost, and widely available PVSPs may diminish total solar reflectance, raising the risks of PVSPs-based urban heating, particularly during the summertime heatwaves. This study employs and assesses physical parameterizations that account for the impact of PVSPs on Sydney's urban environment in the context of the mesoscale model weather research and forecasting (WRF). To account for the impacts of PVSPs, the parameterization presented in this paper assumes that PVSP arrays are parallel, detachable from roofs, and consist of a single layer. Results showed that increasing PVSPs can raise peak summer ambient temperatures by up to 1.4 °C and surface temperatures by up to 2.3°C at city-scale. Temperature variability was found between the city's eastern and western parts due to the presence of PVSPs. In addition, local warming effects of PVSP were observed at urban district-scale as well. The large-scale deployment of PVSPs at local district-scale of the Sydney during a typical hot day caused air temperature to rise by 1.5 °C during the daytime and decrease by 2.7 °C at nighttime. The patterns of the city's ambient temperature distribution were found to be strongly dependent on synoptic meteorological conditions and advection flow strength. The maximum increases in sensible heat flux and latent heat flux were 245.5 Wm -2 and 11.5 Wm -2 , respectively. Wind speed may be raised by up to 1.2 ms -2  due to regional low effect over city domain. As a result, large-scale deployment of PVSPs promotes advective flow between the city and its environs. Modification of the PVSPs in Sydney results in an increase in planetary boundary layer (PBL) heights of up to 537.9 m above the city and may lower pollutant concentrations at ground level. The advent of sea breeze in the city's eastern parts, which reduces the temperature of the coastal zone, along with inland westerly winds, which heat the city's western zones, lessened the intensity of the urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon induced by PVSPs warming. The findings of this study can be used to help policymakers make informed decisions about the use of PVSPs systems. PVSPs with a high solar reflectance in wavelengths that do not convert solar energy to electricity can be considered as an alternative solution to reduce local warming in urban environments., (© 2023. Springer Nature Limited.)

Pervious pavement system (PPS) is a suitable alternative technique for mitigating urban flooding and urban heat island (UHI) simultaneously. However, existing literature has revealed that PPSs cannot achieve the expected permeability and evaporation. To overcome this gap, this study presents an elaborate review of problems associated with PPSs and highlights its benefits to stormwater management and UHI mitigation. We determined key parameters of PPSs that could influence urban flooding and UHI mitigation, including hydrological properties, thermal physical properties, structure design, and clogging resistance. We identified the co-benefits approach of PPS towards performance synergism on stormwater management and UHI mitigation from quality controlled design and fabrication, periodic maintenance, and effective evaluation system based on practice environments. The results indicate that existing studies of PPSs primarily focus on permeability, while little emphasis is given to the evaporative cooling performance, leading to a biased development with a loss of test standards and regulations that cannot control the cooling potential of the system. The performance synergism of permeability and evaporative cooling in PPS should be studied further, while considering quality control of the materials and in-situ practice design. Parameter controls (with commonly used standards) during fabrication, periodic maintenance (during operation), and pre- and post-evaluation processes of PPSs should work collectively to achieve optimal benefits and reduced costs., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

In this study we investigated the association between daily weather types (WTs) and the Urban Heat Island (UHI) in two Mediterranean coastal metropolises. For this purpose, we employed an existing weather type classification scheme and examined which WTs influence or drive the intensity of the UHI. We used the gridded weather typing classification (GWTC), in which meteorological conditions at a single location are categorized in daily WTs. We compared these WTs with the maximum temperature differences between urban centers and rural areas in the two major metropolises of Greece (Athens and Thessaloniki). These metropolises have dissimilar geography and spatial planning as well as their urban climate characteristics have differences. We used two groups of temperature time series on a daily basis. One with high and the other with low temperature differences (upper 5% and lower 5% of the maximum temperature differences (ΔΤ max )) which reported the WTs that contribute to increase of UHI Intensity. We found that urban overheating was amplified during daytime under Humid, Humid Warm and Warm conditions in both Athens and Thessaloniki. As for nighttime, urban overheating is associated with Warm, Dry and Dry Warm conditions in Thessaloniki while in Athens increased under Humid, Humid Warm and Warm conditions., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)