Christopher Lund

Despite their vulnerability to climate change, mining and refining industries significantly provide energy transition materials. However, if no mitigation is implemented, the demand growth will increase direct and indirect emissions in the critical mineral sector. This research aims to comprehensively evaluate the decarbonisation agenda in lithium, nickel, and cobalt industries by profoundly examining the performances, strategies, and risks associated with climate transition. This study examines company reports of 27 players that accounted for at least half of the global lithium, nickel, and cobalt production. This study uses content analysis methodology to reveal patterns in decarbonisation targets, performances and practices. More than two-thirds of the observed companies favour onsite solar and wind generation. At least one-third of the samples mention energy-efficient equipment and electric vehicle adoption. Despite having a well-crafted strategy to reduce operational emissions, more efforts are needed to reduce the value-chain emissions. This study highlights the need for improvement in the carbon inventory and disclosure of scope three emissions by utilising artificial intelligence and maintaining strategic partnerships with stakeholders. Political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental (PESTLE) analysis also revealed patterns and linkages among the current decarbonisation challenges and opportunities, of which the industries are vulnerable to demand fluctuation, rising from regulatory and technological changes. This study highlights the current dynamics in the critical mineral supply chain, which may affect decarbonisation strategies in the industry. This study also provides a holistic approach to offer empirical practice for the industries, allowing them to tailor their strategies.

Due to the intermittent and uncertain nature of emerging renewable energy sources in the modern power grid, the level of dispatchable power sources has been reduced. The contemporary power system is attempting to address this by investing in energy storage within the context of standalone microgrids (SMGs), which can operate in an island mode and off-grid. While renewable-rich SMGs can facilitate a higher level of renewable energy penetration, they also have more reliability issues compared to conventional power systems due to the intermittency of renewables. When an SMG system needs to be upgraded for reliability improvement, the cost of that reliability improvement should be divided among diverse customer sectors. In this research, we present four distinct approaches along with comprehensive simulation outcomes to address the problem of allocating reliability costs. The central issue in this study revolves around determining whether all consumers should bear an equal share of the reliability improvement costs or if these expenses should be distributed among them differently. When an SMG system requires an upgrade to enhance its reliability, it becomes imperative to allocate the associated costs among various customer sectors as equitably as possible. In our investigation, we model an SMG through a simulation experiment, involving nine distinct customer sectors, and utilize their hourly demand profiles for an entire year. We explore how to distribute the total investment cost of reliability improvement to each customer sector using four distinct methods. The first two methods consider the annual and seasonal peak demands in each industry. The third approach involves an analysis of Loss of Load (LOL) events and determining the hourly load requirements for each sector during these events. In the fourth approach, we employ the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) technique. The annual peak demand approach resulted in the educational sector bearing the highest proportion of the reliability improvement cost, accounting for 21.90% of the total burden. Similarly, the seasonal peak demand approach identified the educational sector as the most significant contributor, though with a reduced share of 15.44%. The normalized average demand during Loss of Load (LOL) events also indicated the same sector as the highest contributor, with 12.34% of the total cost. Lastly, the TOPSIS-based approach assigned a 15.24% reliability cost burden to the educational sector. Although all four approaches consistently identify the educational sector as the most critical in terms of its impact on system reliability, they yield different cost allocations due to variations in the methodology and weighting of demand characteristics. The underlying reasons for these differences, along with the practical implications and applicability of each method, are comprehensively discussed in this research paper. Based on our case study findings, we conclude that the education sector, which contributes more to LOL events, should bear the highest amount of the Cost of Reliability Improvement (CRI), while the hotel and catering sector’s share should be the lowest percentage. This highlights the necessity for varying reliability improvement costs for different consumer sectors.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind power generation are key contributors to the integration of renewable energy into modern power systems. The intermittent and variable nature of these renewables has a substantial impact on the power system’s reliability. In time-series simulation studies, inaccuracies in solar irradiation and wind speed parameters can lead to unreliable evaluations of system reliability, ultimately resulting in flawed decision making regarding the investment and operation of energy systems. This paper investigates the reliability deviation due to modeling uncertainties in a 100% renewable-based system. This study employs two methods to assess and contrast the reliability of a standalone microgrid (SMG) system in order to achieve this goal: (i) random uncertainty within a selected confidence interval and (ii) splitting the cumulative distribution function (CDF) into five regions of equal probability. In this study, an SMG system is modeled, and loss of load probability (LOLP) is evaluated in both approaches. Six different sensitivity analysis studies, including annual load demand growth, are performed. The results from the simulations demonstrate that the suggested methods can estimate the reliability of a microgrid powered by renewable energy sources, as well as its probability of reaching certain levels of reliability.

Loss of load probability (LOLP) and expected energy not served (EENS) are commonly used in electrical power systems to evaluate reliability. LOLP defined as the probability that available generation capacity will be inadequate to supply customer demand. EENS defined as the expected amount of energy not being served to consumers by the system during the period considered due to system capacity shortages or unexpected power outages. Loss of Load Frequency (LOLF) is referred to a number of loss of load (LOL) event happened in the operation life span of the SMG. Loss of Load Reduction (LOLR) is defined as the required reduction in LOLF to obtain a specific reliability level. While power systems are designed to minimize LOLP and EENS, this is constrained by the total cost: investment cost, operation and maintenance cost, and cost of customer interruption (CCI). This research considers Standalone Microgrid (SMG), also known as Autonomous Microgrid which only operates in off-grid mode and cannot be connected to wider electrical power system. When designing a 100 % renewable energy integrated SMGs, it is crucial to determine the cost-effective reliability level (CERL). The CERL occurs when the total cost is minimum. This research proposes an approach to calculate the CERL for a fully renewable SMG. An analytical formulation is proposed to represent the LOLR needed to obtain a specific reliability level as a function of the required size of reliability improvement alternatives. The CCI is evaluated using LOLF and EENS indices. Finally, the total cost of the SMG system is evaluated for each reliability level. Consequently, the total cost of the SMG system is expressed as a function of reliability levels, and the minimum value of total cost and the corresponding reliability level are evaluated. In this research, a Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) approach is used to find hourly LOLF, considering 25 years (219,000 h) of SMG lifespan, regression analysis is used for an analytical formulation, and mixed integer linear programming (MILP) is used for the investment decision making based on a cost minimisation approach. The result demonstrates that the CERL of the SMG system evaluated in the case study is 98.71 %.
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•Monte Carlo simulation is used for loss of load frequency over 25 years.•Cost-effective reliability level of SMG is evaluated using total cost curve.•The failure analysis is performed in a hybrid renewable energy SMG system.•Curve fitting technique is used to determine various equations.•To minimize total cost, SMG should be operated at 98.25 % reliability.

Energy storage systems (ESSs) can help to reduce the intermittency and uncertainty of renewable energy supplies in power systems. ESSs are critical components of renewable-rich standalone microgrids (SMGs) to balance power generation and load demand, which is referred to as reliability. To achieve the same level of reliability as conventional power systems for renewable-based SMGs, significant investment in ESSs is required. However, due to the high investment costs of ESSs, the installation of large ESSs will not result in an affordable solution for achieving renewable SMG at the required reliability. As a result, this paper proposes a new sharing concept for ESS, namely energy storage as a service (ESaaS), to be implemented across microgrids as a low-cost alternative for improving reliability. In the proposed ESaaS concept, microgrids can use ESS from an ESS provider as required for different timeframes such as monthly, weekly, or daily, depending on the renewable resources and load profile characteristics. In this paper, the use of ESaaS is investigated over a range of timeframes for a 100 % renewable-based SMG with photovoltaic (PV), wind turbine (WT), and ESS. The SMG reliability is evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation both before and after the ESaaS strategy has been implemented. To evaluate the ESaaS affordability in improving the reliability of an SMG, this paper proposes the criteria of marginal cost of reliability, which indicates the rate of additional investment amount per percentage of reliability improvement. The marginal cost of reliability combines the economic and technical aspects of ESaaS in one simple criterion for effective decision-making among investment strategies such as different timeframes of ESaaS or permanent ESS. The simulation results show the ESaaS based on daily contract results in a lower marginal cost of reliability for the case study. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed ESaaS approach using marginal cost of reliability, the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is also calculated for different strategies of reliability improvement. The results confirm that the lowest LCOE is obtained using the strategy that provides the lowest marginal cost of reliability for the case study. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is performed to assess the difference in marginal cost of reliability under various uncertainties associated with the installed capacity of PV and WT, and the cost of utilising the ESaaS.

Clustering historical electricity consumption data is very important for creating representative demand profiles for the planning and operation of the power grids. This paper investigates a multi-dimensional framework for data clustering, which takes scattering and separation metrics, as well as the number of clusters into account. A combination of wavelet mutation with the Invasive Weed Optimization (IWO) method for clustering features is proposed. One notable advantage of the IWO method over other metaheuristic optimization algorithms is its ability to dynamically adapt the number of weed colonies during the search process, resulting in improved exploration and exploitation of the search space. The proposed strategy is applied to cluster the electricity consumption data from a large municipal government center in Perth, Western Australia. The suggested method is then evaluated by comparing it with the well-known method in the literature, namely, the k-means technique. After the data clustering, the obtained results are implemented in the design of a multi-microgrid system under two different scenarios of cooperative and noncooperative modes. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, the proposed method is implemented on the operational planning of a real multi-microgrid distribution system in Western Australia using linear programming to take the advantage of the mathematical-based solvers. After performing some investigations, the cooperative mechanism, where the microgrids have participated in supplying the demand of microgrids was found to yield to greater operational and investment cost minimimzation. In terms of numerical comparison, the total cost in the cooperative model is 6.5% lower than that in a non-cooperative situation.

A survey has been carried out of graduates and employers working in the sustainable energy (SE) industry in Australia. The aims were to identify the key areas of content to be included in University level SE training and the type of degree structures that are most appropriate for SE professionals. Attention was also directed to the mode of instruction (online, blended or face-to-face) and the role of work-integrated learning (WIL). This paper presents the results of the survey, which provide guidance to Universities seeking to develop new, or revise existing, SE education offerings. The results of the survey clearly indicate that responding students and employers prefer a generalist degree in engineering, with a stream in sustainable energy as the initial qualification for professionals in this field. Specialist degrees at postgraduate level were also considered appropriate for continuing professional education (CPE). Both graduates and employers agreed on key areas to be included in the SE courses. These key areas are generic skills (research methods, team work, report writing), generation technologies (especially PV, wind and biomass), and enablers (such as economics, policy and project management). The graduates, many of whom came from overseas countries, generally agreed about the course content and its relevance to employment in their countries. Face-to-face or blended learning was preferred by both groups as the mode of instruction for the first degree. Online learning was considered a valuable adjunct in the undergraduate course and more suitable for CPE in postgraduate courses. WIL and more practical work were considered important, especially in the first degree. There was some disagreement about the appropriate length of work placements, with graduates preferring 6–8 weeks and employers 10–12 weeks. This work should provide a basis for further course development and curriculum reform for sustainable energy education.

Optimising voltage levels to a controlled stable level at a facility can not only reduce the cost of energy but also enhance equipment performance, prolong equipment life, reduce maintenance costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Voltage optimisation (VO) technology has been widely used in a number of different industries locally and internationally, but not to a large extent within the red meat processing sector in Australia. To determine whether VO technology can be implemented, and whether it is technically and economically viable for red meat processing sites, this study investigated, through case study analyses, the potential effectiveness of VO technology in Australian abattoirs. Through an extensive literature survey, the study initially explored the need and considerations of deploying VO technologies at a typical red meat processing plant. To determine the advantages of using VO technology the study then performed site analyses to investigate power quality (PQ) issues, such as voltage regulation, harmonics and power factor, at two typical medium-sized abattoirs, one in Western Australia and another in Queensland. Finally, an economic assessment of the use of VO in the red meat processing industry was undertaken to identify the potential electricity savings and payback periods. From the case study analyses, it is evident that power quality issues, such as under voltage, overvoltage, and harmonic distortion, can be reduced and significant energy savings can be achieved with the optimum selection of VO technology and voltage level. The outcomes of this study will enable engineering and operations staff to be better informed about the economic and technical benefits of (and possible issues with) using VO technologies in an abattoir.

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) has been used to study crystalline silicon (c-Si) (100) surfaces bombarded with argon, xenon and neon to examine the interaction of core peaks from these noble gases with the valence band region of silicon. XPS valence band spectra of xenon- and argon-bombarded silicon were found to have prominent peaks at binding energies of approximately 6eV for the xenon (5p1/2, 5p3/2) and 9.3eV for the argon (3p) core levels, respectively. These core level peaks are within the silicon valence band energy range. Attempts to compensate for the interfering peaks are reported but it is concluded that it is better to select a bombarding ion whose core levels do not overlap with the silicon valence band. Results for the ion bombardment are reported for neon, which has a peak at approximately 15.5eV that does not significantly interfere with the photoelectron valence band spectrum of silicon.

Simple methods for increasing the maximum achievable current density of amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cells include bandgap and layer thickness optimisation, and light confinement strategies. The goal of the optical modelling work presented here has been to examine the nature and potential of these effects, in particular the optical enhancement resulting from the use of finely textured transparent conducting oxides. A computer program that combines coherent and incoherent optical theory has been used as a flexible tool for simulating the performance of any general thin film solar cell structure. An effective medium approximation has been used to model the optical effects of microroughness (texturing with correlation lengths smaller than the wavelength of light). This work suggests that effective interface grading due to microroughness does have a significant effect on the optical performance of a-Si:H solar cells, and that both enhancement and deterioration in the maximum achievable current density can be the outcome. Where both effective interface grading (microroughness) and larger scale texturing (macroroughness) are fully exploited, optical yields may be increased beyond their current level. This work emphasises the importance of characterising and controlling the interface morphology to optimise the short circuit current and maintain the open circuit voltage