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Electric vehicles (EVs) play a crucial role in tertiary sectors due to their eco-friendliness and sustainability when powered by clean energy. Integrating EV charging stations with renewable energy systems is essential to alleviate energy issues and grid pressure. Exploring this integration's feasibility is imperative for sustainable transportation. This study aims to provide a clear approach and methodology for examining the potential of integrating renewable energy technologies with EV charging stations at the district level. Additionally, the study investigates the energy, economic, and environmental benefits of an integrated system comprising photovoltaic/wind turbines (PV/WTs) connected to the electricity grid to meet the energy demand of a tertiary district consisting of five hotels in Egypt. Through the development of a simulation model, the paper verifies whether the proposed energy system can meet the district's energy demand. In addition, the simulation model has been employed to conduct a sensitivity analysis for investigating the impact of different charging rates on economic feasibility. The results indicate that a hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) integrated with an EV charging station can effectively relieve pressure on the electricity grid and provide electricity at competitive prices compared to the national grid. Moreover, the proposed energy system significantly reduces environmental emissions by up to 510 tons of CO2 per year and has the potential to decrease fossil fuel usage by 248 tons per year. Sensitivity analysis highlights the significant impact of charging prices on project profitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, renewable energy resources (RESs) have been utilized to supply electricity to remote areas, instead of the conventional methods of electrical energy production. In this paper, the optimal design of a standalone hybrid RES comprising photovoltaic (PV), wind turbine (WT), and biomass sources as well as an energy storage system, such as a hydro-pumped storage system, is studied. The problem of the optimal sizing of the generating units in the proposed energy system is formulated as an optimization problem and the algorithms heap-based optimizer (HBO), grey wolf optimizer (GWO), and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are applied to achieve the optimal sizing of each component of the proposed grid-independent hybrid system. The optimization problem is formulated depending on the real-time meteorological data of the Ataka region on the Red Sea in Egypt. The main goal of the optimization process is to minimize the cost of energy (COE) and the loss of power supply probability (LPSP), while satisfying the constraints of system operation. The results clarify that the HBO algorithm succeeded in obtaining the best design for the selected RE system with the minimum COE of 0.2750 USD/kWh and a net present cost (NPC) of USD 8,055,051. So, the HBO algorithm has the most promising performance over the GWO algorithm in addressing this optimization problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Water–Energy–Food (WEF) nexus describes natural resource use in the context of social needs and economic development, addressing food, water, and energy security. Population growth and rising economic prosperity will increase the demand for energy, food, and water in the Mediterranean region, compromising the sustainable use of resources. As governments are required to make decisions in order to cope with increasing demands for resources, this paper performs a review of the legislation and WEF policies, identifying the main political and institutional actors involved and the possible policy (in)coherence in four MED countries located on two continents: Egypt, Italy, Spain, and Tunisia. This choice will allow the identification of the barriers and catalysts influencing the implementation of WEF policies and will improve our understanding of the WEF trade-offs and synergies by exploring them on national, regional, and local scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mediterranean rural settlements suffer from numerous environmental challenges, specifically the annual decrease of the farmlands, climate change threats, and growing resource consumption and demand, such as energy, the core of development. Rural areas play a significant role in achieving food security and sustainable development. Therefore, this paper promotes the energy community and agrivoltaic key concepts as pillars to show how buildings and farms' land uses positively impact the ecosystem. The study focused on Egypt and Italy as representatives of the entire region. Two rural settlements with the same characteristics representing typical agriculture-based patterns have been selected: Lasaifar Albalad, representing 339 villages in the Delta Region, northern Egypt, and Pontinia, representing rural typologies of the 1930s in the Lazio Region, central Italy. Then, two focus groups with versatile stakeholders were conducted. The results showed the juxtaposition of the key concepts and national rural and agricultural policies and fostered a novel approach between Egypt and Italy. The study presented the first analysis of both contexts. The focus groups promoted the ideas, led to a better understanding of the implementation possibilities, raised awareness, improved social acceptance, and highlighted the significant barriers. It paved the way for a further study (micro-scale on-ground practices) to be planned and implemented soon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) urge for the reconceptualization of our design of the urban built environments. However, current efforts to integrate urban environmental assessment into practice in Egypt are proving insufficient. This paper utilises the Ladybug tools simulation plugins to investigate the impact of changing the morphological characteristics of three-block typologies (scattered, linear and courtyard) and their associated parameters to understand their multidimensional relationship with environmental conditions, outdoor thermal comfort and energy use intensity. This study based in Cairo, Egypt, considers 3430 hypothetical geometrical configurations comprising of a variety of design parameters and indicators. The results show a strong correlation between the design parameters and the combined performance of thermal comfort and energy consumption (R2 = 0.84), with urban density having the strongest impact on both thermal comfort and energy use (R2 = 0.7 and 0.95, respectively). The design parameters exhibited a consistent impact on the different typologies, albeit with varying magnitude. Compact and medium-density urban forms are shown to elicit the best overall performance, especially for ordinal orientations (e.g., ~45°) across all typologies. Compact high-density scattered forms are favoured when considering thermal comfort, while courtyards outperform other typologies when considering energy efficiency and overall performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retrofitting heritage buildings for energy efficiency is not always easy where cultural values are highly concerned, which requires an integrated approach. This paper aims to assess the potential of applying passive retrofitting scenarios to enhance indoor thermal comfort of heritage buildings in North Africa, as a hot climate, a little attention has been paid to retrofit built heritage in that climate. A mixed-mode ventilation residential building in Cairo, Egypt, was selected as a case study. The study combines field measurements and observations with energy simulations. A simulation model was created and calibrated on the basis of monitored data in the reference building, and the thermal comfort range was evaluated. Sets of passive retrofitting scenarios were proposed. The results (based on the ASHRAE-55-2020 adaptive comfort model at 90% acceptability limits) showed that the annual thermal comfort in the reference building is very low, i.e., 31.4%. The application of hybrid passive retrofitting scenarios significantly impacts indoor thermal comfort in the reference building, where annual comfort hours of up to 66% can be achieved. The originality of this work lies in identifying the most effective energy measures to improve indoor thermal comfort that are optimal from a conservation point of view. The findings contribute to set a comprehensive retrofitting tool that avoids potential risks for the conservation of residential heritage buildings in hot climates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental monitoring of delicate ecosystems or pristine sites is critical to their preservation. The communication infrastructure for such monitoring should have as little impact on the natural ecosystem as possible. Because of their wide range capabilities and independence from heavy infrastructure, low-power wide area network protocols have recently been used in remote monitoring. In this regard, we propose a mobile vehicle-mounted gateway architecture for IoT data collection in communication-network-free areas. The limits of reliable communication are investigated in terms of gateway speed, throughput, and energy consumption. We investigate the performance of various gateway arrival scenarios, focusing on the trade-off between freshness of data, data collection rate, and end-node power consumption. Then we validate our findings using both real-world experiments and simulations. In addition, we present a case study exploiting the proposed architecture to provide coverage for Wadi El-Gemal national park in Egypt. The results show that reliable communication is achieved over all spreading factors (SFs) for gateway speeds up to 150 km/h with negligible performance degradation at SFs = 11 , 12 at speeds more than 100 km/h. The synchronized transmission model ensures the best performance in terms of throughput and power consumption at the expense of the freshness of data. Nonsynchronized transmission allows time-flexible data collection at the expense of increased power consumption. The same throughput as semisynchronized transmission is achieved using four gateways at only five times the energy consumption, while a single gateway requires seventeen times the amount of energy. Furthermore, increasing the number of gateways to ten increases the throughput to the level achieved by the synchronized scenario while consuming eight times the energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this study is to discuss the economical and the environmental analysis of a net zero energy (NZE) tourist village in Alexandria, Egypt, by maximizing the renewable energy fraction and minimizing the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. The hybrid photovoltaics (PV)/wind/diesel/battery system is found to be the optimum hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) for the proposed tourist village under the study. The optimum HRES consists of 1600 kW of PV panels (58.09% solar energy penetration), 1000 kW of wind turbines (41.34% wind energy penetration), 1000 kW of power converters, 200 kW diesel generator (only 0.57% diesel generator penetration) in addition to 2000 batteries with the capacity of 589 Ah each. The levelized cost of energy (COE) from the optimum HRES is $0.17/kWh and the total net present cost (NPC) of this system is $15,383,360. Additionally, the maximum renewable energy fraction is 99.1% and the amount of GHG emitted from the optimum HRES is only 31,289 kg/year, which is negligible in comparison with the other system configurations, therefore the optimum HRES can be considered as a green system. In addition to this, the achieved percentage of the capacity shortage and the unmet load in the optimal HRES is only 0% for both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential and commercial buildings are responsible for almost 50% of the total electricity consumption in Egypt. This percentage is expected to increase due to the global warming effect. This work deals with the cooling energy use reduction strategies for residential buildings compatible with the Egyptian market accounting for the global warming effects. A study in the Egyptian market was done to explore the best available technologies in the Egyptian market. A series of dynamic simulations were executed in each city to optimize the building envelope using the best available technologies to reduce the cooling needs. Financial, energetic and environmental factors were taken into consideration, and comparative analysis was done to assess the best alternatives. The double wall with air gap and insulation on the outside was found to be the best alternative in all the cities. Moreover, simple measures to further reduce the cooling energy need were explored, such as the usage of more efficient lighting and night ventilation. This work led to an average reduction of 40% in the cooling energy needs and CO2 emissions across the three cities, with a maximum discounted payback period down to 6.3 years. Future weather files adapted to climate change were generated, and the selected passive strategies were tested to assess the validity of such strategies in the future. The cooling energy needs are expected to increase by 39%, while the peak cooling loads are also expected to increase by 23% by 2080, rendering the current installed HVAC systems undersized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, a technoeconomic comparison of energy efficiency options for energy districts located in different climatic areas (Naples, Italy and Fayoum, Egypt) is presented. A dynamic simulation model based on TRNSYS is developed to evaluate the different energy efficiency options, which includes different buildings of conceived districts. The TRNSYS model is integrated with the plug-in Google SketchUp TRNSYS3d to estimate the thermal load of the buildings and the temporal variation. The model considers the unsteady state energy balance and includes all the features of the building's envelope. For the considered climatic zones and for the different energy efficiency measures, primary energy savings, pay back periods and reduced CO2 emissions are evaluated. The proposed energy efficiency options include a district heating system for hot water supply, air-to-air conventional heat pumps for both cooling and space heating of the buildings and the integration of photovoltaic and solar thermal systems. The energy actions are compared to baseline scenarios, where the hot water and space heating demand is satisfied by conventional natural gas boilers, the cooling demand is met by conventional air-to-air vapor compression heat pumps and the electric energy demand is satisfied by the power grid. The simulation results provide valuable guidance for selecting the optimal designs and system configurations, as well as suggest guidelines to policymakers to define decarbonization targets in different scenarios. The scenario of Fayoum offers a savings of 67% in primary energy, but the associated payback period extends to 23 years due to the lower cost of energy in comparison to Naples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to experimentally improve the overall efficiency of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels by coating them with hydrophobic SiO2 nanomaterial. Also, an accurate mathematical model was used to estimate the parameters of the PV panel, which is a non-linear optimization problem. Based on the experimental data and using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, the optimal five parameters of a single diode model of a PV panel were determined in this study. This experimental work was conducted and carried out in the Renewable Energy Laboratory of Assiut University, Egypt. A comparative analysis was completed for three identical solar PV panels; the first panel was coated with hydrophobic SiO2 nanomaterial, so it was considered to be a self-cleaning panel; the second panel was uncoated and cleaned manually on a daily basis; and the third panel was kept dusty all the time through the experimental investigation, and was used as a reference. Experimentally, the output power of the PV panels was monitored for each panel in this study. Also, the anti-static and anti-reflection effects of coating solar PV panels with hydrophobic SiO2 nanomaterial were investigated experimentally. According to the obtained experimental results, it was found that the use of SiO2 coating for PV panels results in the better performance of the PV panels. The overall efficiency of the coated panel increased by 15% and 5%, compared to the dusty panel and the uncoated panel which was manually cleaned daily, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]