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India is facing two major transitions. In 2040, its energy demand will double while 800 million Indians will live in cities by 2050. Situated at this intersection, this article contributes to the field of urban energy research by looking at Solar Rooftop Systems (SRS) in a district located in the extended periphery of Delhi. Using a multi-pronged qualitative methodology in a corridor made of villages and small towns, we argue that public policies are framed applying a rigid territorial grid opposing urban and rural, ignoring the motivations of both residential and professional users, which are not bounded by the rural/urban binary. This disjunction explains that renewable energy does not lead to a new imagination of urban and energy systems. These two fields remain disconnected while solar energy fuels consumption and the city expansion in its peripheries. Finally, the observed variegated urban energy landscapes (UEL) embody a land and energy intensive form of urban growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Delhi has been experiencing a dramatic surge in pollution levels, especially in the past decade. Renewable energy sources emit negligible carbon pollutants compared to conventional energy sources. However, they are fundamentally intermittent, necessitating a robust storage system. In recent times, hybrid systems have proven to be breakthrough solutions for mitigating electrical energy shortages while also enhancing overall system dependability. This study focuses on hydrogen energy storage which can help overcome variable output power issues for an electric vehicle charging station in Karampura, Delhi. The framework is proposed for three vehicles charging simultaneously, all the while at the charging station, with normal energy utilization of 2100 kWh/day. The most optimum system is found by simulating results from three different combinations (namely photovoltaic [PV]‐Hydrogen, Wind‐Hydrogen, and PV‐Wind‐Hydrogen) using HOMER software. The Levelized cost for the Hybrid combination is most viable, whereas the Wind system costs 7.19% more and the PV combination costs 12.12% higher. In a similar manner, the net present cost (NPC) of a solar PV system and a wind turbine system is $1.80 million and $1.63 million, respectively, whereas the NPC of a hybrid system is $1.52 million. The cost of operating a PV solar system is $79 767, a wind turbine system is $46 078, and a hybrid system is $35 926. These findings suggest that a hydrogen‐based hybrid renewable energy system is an economically feasible combination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High consumption of fossil fuels, increased greenhouse gas emissions and deterioration of local air quality have resulted from rapid industrialization and urbanization in India in the last decade. India has taken many initiatives to address these problems such as new automobile fuel policies, energy efficiency measures, promotion of renewable energy use, relocation of highly polluting industries, enforcing use of low emission fuels like CNG for public transport in large cities, and introducing metro rail networks in megacities. This paper highlights results of adopted policies in Delhi showing relationships between air quality and climate change and having sustainable development as the driving force with focus on environmental and social dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identification of the most relevant parameters of a sustainable transportation system is regarded as a significant choice that influences the success of policy-related intervention to improve efficiency. A hybrid-based approach has been used to analyze the data in multiple steps to improve accuracy and objectivity. In the first step, evidence on social, economic, and environmental indicators was formed for each opinion and then combined. The second step proposed a mathematical framework to treat indecision on the indicators collected from multiple sources, viz. expert and public opinion survey, models, and actual measurement during pre- and post-implementation stages of the Odd–Even scheme. By setting up, a reliability function and consistency index are used to evaluate and rank the Odd–Even transportation scheme introduced by the Government of Delhi. A case study in South Delhi's surrounding areas has been examined to demonstrate the proposed hybrid approach and evaluate the parameters in terms of the index. The result shows that the indicators like trip cost, trip time, safety and security, user's satisfaction, congestion level, parking demand, and fuel consumption affected positively by 1766.6, 22.9, 283.3, 19.1, 187.5, 200, and 17.2 percent, respectively, after the implementation of the scheme. The overall increase in the index was found as 28.2%, which favors the "Odd–Even" scheme as a sustainable transportation measure in Delhi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy efficiency measures in buildings, along with maintaining indoor thermal comfort, are increasingly drawing attention. The most widely accepted indices, Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and Percentage People Dissatisfied (PPD), have been used in this study for evaluating thermal comfort of a small office room in Delhi. Various parameters influencing thermal comfort have been measured for two months and the observations have been used for assessing the PMV and PPD, which have then been compared with the simulation results from IDA ICE 4.7 Beta software, and found to be in agreement. Moreover, a comparison of the PMV values has been done with other indices such as Tropical Summer Index (TSI) and Corrected Effective Temperature (CET). Parametric study for the office room has also been performed to predict the shifts in the comfort levels by changing types and thicknesses of wall as well as roof insulations, provision of blinds, and types of window glazing, using which, the best possible solution to enhance the thermal environment of the office room has been proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization and associated land-use changes in cities cause an increase in the demand for electricity by altering the local climate. The present study aims to examine the variations in total energy and cooling energy demand in a calibrated building energy model, caused by urban heat island formation over Delhi. The study used Sentinel-2A multispectral imagery for land use and land cover (LULC) of mapping of Delhi, and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery for land surface temperature (LST) mapping during March 2018. It was observed that regions with dense built-up areas (i.e., with built-up area greater than 90%) had a higher annual land surface temperature (LST), i.e., 293.5 K and urban heat island intensity (UHII) ranging from 0.9 K–5.9 K. In contrast, lower annual values of LST (290K) and UHII (0.0–0.4 K) were observed in regions with high vegetation cover (53%). Statistical analysis reveals that a negative correlation exists between vegetation and nighttime LST, which is further confirmed by linear regression analysis. Energy simulations were performed on a calibrated building model placed at three different sites, identified on the basis of land use and land cover percentage and annual LST. Simulation results showed that the site located in the central part of Delhi displayed higher annual energy consumption (255.21 MWh/y) compared to the site located in the rural periphery (235.69 MWh/y). For all the three sites, the maximum electricity consumption was observed in the summer season, while the minimum was seen in the winter season. The study indicates that UHI formation leads to increased energy consumption in buildings, and thus UHI mitigation measures hold great potential for energy saving in a large city like Delhi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]