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Floating photovoltaic systems (FPVSs) are gaining popularity, especially in countries with high population density and abundant solar energy resources. FPVSs provide a variety of advantages, particularly in situations where land is limited. Therefore, the main objective of the study is to evaluate the solar energy potential and investigate the techno-economic perspective of FPVSs at 15 water reservoirs in Northern Cyprus for the first time. Due to the solar radiation variations, solar power generation is uncertain; therefore, precise characterization is required to manage the grid effectively. In this paper, four distribution functions (Johnson SB, pert, Phased Bi-Weibull, and Kumaraswamy) are newly introduced to analyze the characteristics of solar irradiation, expressed by global horizontal irradiation (GHI), at the selected sites. These distribution functions are compared with common distribution functions to assess their suitability. The results demonstrated that the proposed distribution functions, with the exception of Phased Bi-Weibull, outperform the common distribution regarding fitting GHI distribution. Moreover, this work aims to evaluate the effects of floating photovoltaic systems on water evaporation rates at 15 reservoirs. To this aim, five methods were used to estimate the rate of water evaporation based on weather data. Different scenarios of covering the reservoir’s surface with an FPVS were studied and discussed. The findings showed that annual savings at 100% coverage can reach 6.21 × 105 m3 compared to 0 m3 without PV panels. Finally, technical and economic assessment of FPVSs with various scales, floating assemblies, and PV technologies was conducted to determine the optimal system. The results revealed that a floating structure (North orientation-tilt 6°) and bifacial panels produced the maximum performance for the proposed FPVSs at the selected sites. Consequently, it is observed that the percentage of reduction in electricity production from fossil fuel can be varied from 10.19% to 47.21% at 75% FPV occupancy.

Generating electricity from renewable energy instead of fossil fuels brings great benefits to the environment and sustainable development. Thus, assessing the potential of wind and solar energy in agricultural coastal areas can identify sustainable energy solutions for meeting energy demand and producing fresh water for agricultural applications and domestic use. However, it is difficult to accurately assess the wind and solar energy potential in Libya due to the civil war, lack of measured data, and its limited availability. Consequently, this concise work is unique because it is the first to use daily measurement data from Az-Zāwiyah, Libya, for evaluating wind and solar energy based on one year of measured data for 2022. Moreover, the present study aims to investigate the potential of wind and solar energy as promising renewable sources for meeting energy demand in coastal agricultural regions in Libya using multiple datasets for the first time. In this paper, five satellite products (TerraClimate, ERA5, ERA5-Land, MERRA-2, and CFSR) were assessed and compared against measured data for January 2022–December 2022 to understand their suitability, accuracy, and reliability. The results showed that CFSR and ERA5-Land demonstrate the most favorable performance for assessing the wind resource, while all satellite products can be utilized for preliminary solar resource assessment. Then, the assessment of wind and solar resources was evaluated in five agricultural coastal regions (Aljmail, Az-Zāwiyah, Castelverde, Msallatah, and Sabratah) based on the best satellite product for the period of 2000–2022. Furthermore, the performance of the wind and solar power systems was investigated for typical farms, which were chosen to estimate the required energy demand according to daily electrical consumption. The results show that the positive outcomes of implementing these systems were highlighted, with an emphasis on their potential benefits to the entire Libyan agricultural sector. Accordingly, scaling up and generalizing the proposed systems and generalizing them to include all farms in Libya could have a significant impact on national electricity generation, mitigate greenhouse gases, and contribute to the development of the agricultural sector and the country’s economy.

Background: The utilization of herbal medicine (HM) as a component of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is increasing worldwide. Little is known about justifications for its use and the factors associated with it. This study gains insights into the use of herbal medicines in Northern Cyprus, concentrating on targets for its use, the role played by disease type, reasons for its use, and sources of information. Methods: A questionnaire was utilized to achieve the aim of the study. The questionnaire was distributed to a random sample comprised of people in two different regions in Northern Cyprus over a 12-week period from August to November 2020. A self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Moreover, qualitative research explored individuals’ decision making regarding CAM, which aimed to examine 20 patients as a context for beliefs, decision making, and dialogue about CAM. After audio-taping and verbatim transcription, the data were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Results: The findings show that the majority of respondents learned about herbal products (HPs) and CAM from other patients, the Internet, friends, and family. The results indicate that almost half of the respondents were aware of how CAMs, especially herbal preparations, are used to treat common illnesses. Fennel, ginger, and echinacea were the most commonly used HMs, mainly for the treatment of the common cold. Furthermore, nearly 50% of the participants expressed the belief that HMs are safe, have fewer side effects than conventional medicines, and are also effective for treating minor health conditions. The prevalence was strongly associated with education level based on a Pearson Chi-square analysis. Conclusions: Although herbal medicines were mostly used to treat mild to moderate ailments and the participants were aware of their limitations, the combination of self-medication, inexperienced counseling, and lack of awareness of the risks of herbal medicines is potentially harmful. This is particularly important for elderly users, because although they seemed to be more aware of health-related issues, they generally used more medication than younger people. Given our finding that dissatisfaction with modern medicine is the most important reason for the preferred use of herbal medicines, government agencies, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies should be aware of this issue and should aim to create some level of awareness among users.

The growth of populations and economy in Northern Cyprus has led to continuing utilization of fossil fuels as the primary source of electricity, which will raise environmental pollution. Thus, utilizing renewable energy, particularly solar energy, might be a solution to minimize this issue. This paper presents the potential of grid-connected solar PV power generation at Near East University Hospital (NEU Hospital), one of the largest and leading medical facilities in Northern Cyprus, to meet the energy demand during the daytime to reduce energy bills. For this purpose, the first objective of the study is to evaluate the solar energy potential as a power source for the NEU Hospital based on four datasets (actual measurement, Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CMSAF), Surface Radiation Data Set-Heliosat (SARAH), and ERA-5, produced by the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecast). The results showed that the solar resource of the selected location is categorized as excellent (class 5), that is, the global solar radiation is within the range of 1843.8–2035.9 kWH/m2. The second objective is to investigate the impact of orientation angles on PV output, capacity factor, economic feasibility indicators, and CO2 emissions by using different PV modules. The results are compared with optimum orientation angles found by Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS) simulation software. This objective was achieved by using RETScreen Expert software. The results demonstrated that the highest performance of the proposed system was achieved for orientation angles of 180° (azimuth angle) and −35° (tilt angle). Consequently, it is recommended that orientation angles, PV modules, and market prices are considered to maximize energy production and reduce electricity production costs.

The physicochemical properties of biodiesel fuels and their blends prepared from four residential waste vegetable frying oils (sunflower (FSME), canola (FCME), mixture of sunflower and rapeseed (FSRME) and corn (FSCME)) were evaluated and measured to determine the best blend. The results indicate that the stability of 10 biodiesel blends was above 10 h for 0-month, meeting the stability requirement regulated in EN 14214:2014 by adding FSCME, which depends on the concentration amount of FSCME. Besides, the results showed that all fuel samples did not meet the requirements of diesel fuel standards. Therefore, automobile gasoline is used as an additive to unmixed biodiesel in various concentrations to reduce the kinematic viscosity, density and cold flow properties. The results indicate that BG85 and BG80 have met the mixed pure biodiesel with gasoline fulfilled diesel fuel quality standard. Therefore, the samples with stability above 10 h were mixed with gasoline in 15% and 20% to reduce the cold flow properties and meet the specifications of the diesel fuel standards. Moreover, the effect of long-term storage on the properties of all samples was investigated under different storage conditions. The results indicate that higher storage temperatures and longer storage periods negatively influenced the properties of the fuel samples.

The current study is focused on the economic and financial assessments of solar and wind power potential for nine selected regions in Libya for the first time. As the existing meteorological data, including wind speed and global solar radiation, are extremely limited due to the civil war in the country, it was therefore decided to use the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) database as a source of meteorological information to assess the wind and solar potential. The results showed that the country has huge solar energy potential compared to wind energy potential. Additionally, it is found that Al Kufrah is a suitable region for the future installation of the Photovoltaic (PV) power plant due to high annual solar radiation. Based on the actual wind speed analysis, Benghazi and Dernah are the best regions for large-scale wind farm installation in the future taking into account existing meteorological data limitations. The values of the wind power density in all regions are considerable and small-scale wind turbines can be used to generate electricity based on NASA average monthly wind data for 37 years (1982–2019). Moreover, this work aimed to evaluate the wind/PV systems technical and economically through RETScreen Expert (Version 6.0, CanmetENERGY Varennes Research Centre of Natural Resources Canada, Varennes, Canada). Focusing on the power supply crisis in the country, the potential of electricity production by 5 kW grid-connected residential/household rooftop PV in all regions is proposed and presented. Additionally, this paper evaluated a techno-economic analysis of the 50MW wind/PV system in suitable places. The performance of a 5 kW and 50 MW PV solar system with three PV technologies, namely mono-crystalline silicon, poly-crystalline silicon, and thin-film (CdTe), was also analyzed. The results demonstrated that the development of the wind/PV system in the selected regions is both technically and economically feasible. The outcomes of this study can help decision-makers in designing and installing PV power plants as an alternative source for the future.

Solar power is the fastest-growing energy source in the world. New technologies can help to generate more power from solar energy. The present paper aims to encourage people and the government to develop solar energy-based power projects to achieve sustainable energy infrastructures, especially in developing countries. In addition, this paper presents a solar energy road map to attract investors to invest in clean energy technology to help reduce the effect of global warming and enhance sustainable technological development. Therefore, the first objective of the paper is to analyze and compare the monthly global solar radiation for five different locations in Northern Cyprus using the measured data collected from the Meteorological Department and estimated values collected from the satellite imagery database. In addition, the mean hourly meteorological parameters including global solar radiation, air temperature, sunshine, and relative humidity are analyzed statistically and the type of distribution functions are selected based on skewness and kurtosis values. Accordingly, estimating global solar radiation improves solar power generation planning and reduces the cost of measuring. Therefore, models of a surface were analyzed by means of polynomial adjustments considering the values of R-squared. Finally, this study provides a comprehensive and integrated feasibility analysis of a 100 MW grid-connected solar plant project as an economic project in the selected region to reduce electricity tariffs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. RETScreen Expert software was used to conduct the feasibility analysis in terms of energy production, GHG emissions, and financial parameters for the best location for the installation of a 100 MW grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) plant. Finally, the results concluded that the proposed solar system could be used for power generation in Northern Cyprus.

Waste frying, corn and canola cooking oil biodiesels were produced through the transesterification ‎process and their properties were measured. Three different mixtures of biodiesel with the same blending ratio, namely, WCME1 (frying-corn biodiesel), WCME2 (frying-canola-corn biodiesel) and WCME3 (canola-corn biodiesel), were prepared. The effect ‎of ‎blending ‎biodiesel with various ages ‎‎(zero months (WCME3), eight months (WCME1), and 30 months (WCME2)) on kinematic ‎viscosity and‎ density was investigated under varying temperature and volume fraction. It was found that the kinematic viscosity of WCME2 remained within the ranges listed in ASTM D445 (‎1.9−6.0‎ mm2/s) and EN-14214‎ (‎3.5−5.0‎ mm2/s) at 30 months. It was also observed that both viscosity and density decreased as the temperature increased for each fuel sample. In order to improve the cold flow properties of the samples, the Computer-Aided ‎Cooling Curve Analysis (CACCA) technique was used to explore the crystallization/melting ‎profiles of ‎pure ‎methyl biodiesel as ‎well their blends. The results show that pure WCME2 has the lowest cold flow properties compared to other samples. Furthermore, 10 ‎correlations ‎were developed, tested and compared with generalized ‎correlations for the ‎estimation of the ‎viscosity and densities of pure biodiesels and their ‎blends. These equations depend on the temperature and volume fraction of pure components as well as the properties of the fuel.

The increased energy demand and related environmental problems caused by burning fossil fuels have raised interest in alternative energy sources. This study investigated the wind characteristics and available wind energy for three urban regions in Northern Cyprus using the Weibull distribution function. The results illustrate that Gazimağusa is the most applicable location for harvesting the kinetic energy of the wind compared to Lefkoşa and Girne. Moreover, the solar potential at a specific location can be analyzed using a different simulation tool. In the present paper, the performance of a rooftop Photovoltaic (PV) system for household buildings in three selected is assessed. Three types of simulation software (PVGIS, PV*SOL, and PVWatts) are used to evaluate the performance of the 6.4 kWp grid-connected rooftop PV system. This study assessed the energy generation, performance ratio and capacity factor for this PV system. The results concluded that PVGIS is an easy, fast, and reliable software tool that can be used for the simulation of a solar PV system in the studied regions. Furthermore, an economic evaluation of renewable systems in the three urban regions is presented. As a result, a small-scale grid-connected solar/wind system that is able to generate electricity with an excellent percentage of clean energy was proposed and developed. The analysis indicates that the proposed PV projects showed significant potential in the studied locations. In addition, the proposed PV system is the most economical option for generating electricity compared to wind systems due to the low electricity prices and of the ability to recover the initial investment. Consequently, it is expected that the simulation results will help in demonstrating the advantages and challenges of installing grid-connected PV systems for households in Northern Cyprus in order to reduce the electricity consumption produced by fossil fuels.

This paper presents a techno-economic assessment of the wind power potential for eight locations distributed over the Northern part of Cyprus. The wind speed data were collected from the meteorological department located in Lefkoşa, Northern Cyprus.Ten distribution models were used to analyze the wind speed characteristics and wind energy potential at the selected locations. The maximum-likelihood method was used for calculating the parameters of the distribution functions.The power law model is utilized to determine the mean wind speed at various heights. In addition, the wind power density for each location was estimated. Furthermore, the performances of different small-scale vertical axis 3–10 kW wind turbines were evaluated to find those that were suitable and efficient for power generation in the studied locations.The results showed that the annual mean wind speed in the regions is greater than 2 m/s at a height of 10 m. Moreover, it is indicated that Generalized Extreme Value distribution provided the best fit to the actual data for the regions of Lefkoşa, Ercan, Girne, Güzelyurt, and Dipkarpaz. However, the Log-Logistic, Weibull, and Gamma distributions gave a better fit to the actual data of Gazimağusa, YeniBoğaziçi, and Salamis, respectively. The Rayleigh distribution does not fit the actual data from all regions. Furthermore, the values of wind power densityat the areas studied ranged from 38.76 W/m2 to 134.29 W/m2 at a height of 50 m, which indicated that wind energy sources in these selected locations are classified as poor. Meanwhile, based on the wind analysis, small-scale wind turbine use can be suitable for generating electricity in the studied locations. Consequently, an Aeolos-V2 with a rating of 5 kW was found to be capable of producing the annual energy needs of an average household in Northern Cyprus.