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Reducing energy consumption of a building may have a significant effect on the energy and environmental costs. Nowadays, energy simulations have come to the aid of engineers in the design and implementation of buildings with a perspective on energy consumption.

In the current study, the suggested volume of a residential building in the Savadkuh City, Iran, is modeled using Ecotect® software, and the amount of radiation on the sides during various months of the year is studied. Then, using EnergyPlus™ software, climate analyses are performed on the suggested design, and finally, the amount of heating and cooling loads of the building are examined under two difference scenarios of mediator space.

Results indicated that nearly at all times of the year, both the heating and cooling loads were reduced in the scenario where mediator space had two functions, i.e. as greenhouse and as a space for higher ventilation, compared to the scenario where mediator space did not have a climate role and merely served as an entrance and passageway with rigid dividers.

Nowadays, energy simulations have come to the aid of engineers in the design and implementation of buildings with a perspective on energy consumption. Therefore, in the current study, the suggested volume of a residential building in the Savadkuh City, Iran, is modeled using Ecotect® software, and the amount of radiation on the sides during various months of the year is studied. Then, using EnergyPlus™ software, climate analyses are performed on the suggested design, and finally, the amount of heating and cooling loads of the building are examined under two difference scenarios of mediator space.

Rural areas are one of the effective regions in economy and self-sufficiency field especially in agricultural and livestock section. Planning in the rural section and the effort in solving the problems of farmers lead to increase their interest in farming and manufacturing in the villages and decrease their migration to the cities and metropolitans. Therefore, the present study aimed at feasibility of electricity to a rural household in Iran using off-grid solar-based hybrid system.

In renewable energy projects, a successful evaluation requires suitable criteria so that one can properly analyze the operational behavior of all feasible scenarios. In the present paper, HOMER software has been used for this purpose for a village with no access to electricity grid (Bar Aftab-e Jalaleh, Iran). Due to drastic fluctuation of fossil fuel prices and varied solar radiations in various years because of climate change, sensitivity analysis has been performed using HOMER.

In the optimum status economically, 70% of needed energy is provided by solar cells at the price 0.792 $/kWh. The comparison between the optimum condition economically and the condition that only use fossil fuels revealed that the return on investment will occur after less than 2 years and have remained profitable over 23 years.

The authors hope that the results of this study can be used in planning of the authorities to realize the interests of people in this village.

According to the surveys, despite Iran being the first country in terms of providing solar power to the villages, so far no socio-economic-environmental assessment has been done for a solar cell-based micro-grid in an off-grid mode for a remote village that is deprived of electricity from a national electricity grid. In addition, for the first time in Iran, the effect of the fuel price and solar radiation parameters variability on the performance of system have been investigated.

In this study, a solar water heating system along with a seasonal thermal energy storage and a heat pump is designed for a villa with an area of 192 m² in Tehran, the capital of Iran.

According to the material and the area of the residential space, the required heating of the building was calculated manually and then the thermodynamic analysis of the system and simulation was done in MATLAB software. Finally, regarding the waste of system, an efficient solar heating system, providing all the required energy to heat the building, was obtained.

The surface area of the solar collector is equal to 46 m², the capacity of the tank is about 2,850 m³, insulation thickness stands at 55 cm and the coefficient of performance in required heat pump is accounted to about 9.02. Also, according to the assessments, the maximum level of received energy by the collector in this system occurs at a maximum temperature of 68ºC.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, in the present work, for the first time, using mathematical modeling and analyzing of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, as well as using of computational code in MATLAB software environment, the solar-assisted ground source heat pump system is simulated in a residential unit located in Tehran.

This paper, using energy softwares, designed of Iran and optimized a residential villa in Saman city located in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province.

Having used the ideas of Climate Consultant software, the basic designing was conducted by Design Builder Software, and the cooling and heating loads and lighting tools and equipment were calculated. Then, the amount of consuming of heating, cooling and lighting load of the building was optimized through insulation of walls and ceiling, using green roof, double glazing UPVC windows, light intensity sensor and variable refrigerant flow (VRF) system.

Simulation results for the stated scenarios showed an annual reduction in energy consumption of 21.1, 7.9, 26.41, 27.3 and 72.3 per cent, respectively. Also, by combining all the five scenarios, an optimal state was achieved which, from the results, brought about an annual reduction of 86.9 per cent in the energy consumption.

The authors hope that the results of the current paper could be helpful for designers and engineers in reduction of energy consumption for designing a building in similar climatic conditions.

Every day, the sun provides by far more energy than the amount necessary to meet the whole world’s energy demand. Solar energy, unlike fossil fuels, does not suffer from depleting resource and also releases no greenhouse gas emissions when being used. Hence, using solar irradiance to produce electricity via photovoltaic (PV) systems has significant benefits which can lead to a sustainable and clean future. In this regard, the purpose of this study is first to assess the technical and economic viability of solar power generation sites in the capitals of the states of Canada. Then, a novel integrated technique is developed to prioritize all the alternatives.

In this study, ten provinces in Canada are evaluated for the construction of solar power plants. The new hybrid approach composed of data envelopment analysis (DEA), balanced scorecard (BSC) and game theory (GT) is implemented to rank the nominated locations from techno-economic-environmental efficiency aspects. The input data are obtained using HOMER software.

Applying the proposed hybrid approach, the order of high to low efficiency locations was found as Winnipeg, Victoria, Edmonton, Quebec, Halifax, St John’s, Ottawa, Regina, Charlottetown and Toronto. Construction of ten solar plants in the ten studied locations was assessed and it was ascertained that usage of solar energy in Winnipeg, Victoria and Edmonton would be economically and environmentally justified.

As to novelty, it should be clarified that the authors propose an effective hybrid method combining DEA, BSC and GT for prioritizing all available scenarios concerned with the construction of a solar power plant.

Wind as a major source of renewable energy has received tremendous attentions due to its unique features to reduce carbon emission and also to keep the environment safe. Nevertheless, to use wind energy properly, the environmental circumstances and geographical location related to wind intensity should be considered as a priority. Different factors may affect the selection of a suitable location for developments of wind power plants; thus, these factors should be considered concurrently to identify the optimum location of wind plants.

In this study, first, basic data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used, then dual DEA was used and, finally, Anderson Petersen (AP) model of dual DEA was selected to prioritize cities or decision-making units (DMUs). Numerical Taxonomy (NT) method was also used to assess the validity of AP dual model in DEA. The prescribed approach was applied for five cities in East Azerbaijan province of Iran.

The results indicate that wind power as a renewable energy can be harnessed in few cities, and the ranking by DEA illustrated that the city of Tabriz is the first priority.

Low environmental degradation effects in comparison to other methods and the ability to utilization at a widespread level include the benefits of using wind energy in the generation of electricity. In this regard, the study of relevant potentials and finding suitable locations for the deployment of wind energy utilization equipment are essential. Using DEA method helps us to choose optimal locations according to different criteria.

Wind energy is justifiable in reducing social costs in comparison with fossil fuel plants, which includes negative effects, and its electricity can be used as a sustainable energy in the country's economic, social and cultural development.

For identifying the most proper location for development of wind power plants in Iran, DEA is applied for the first time to prioritize the suitable locations for installations of wind turbines among five different cities in the East Azerbaijan region. A number of crucial factors including land price, distance to power, rate of natural hazards, wind speed and topography are considered for location optimization of wind turbines for the first time. Also, to validate the results of DEA method, NT method is used to assess the validity of AP dual model in DEA.

In hot and dry climates, air conditioning accounts for a large portion of total energy consumption; therefore, this paper aims to investigate the impact of sol-air temperature and ground temperature on the loss of cooling energy in hot and dry regions of Iran.

In line with this objective, the values of sol-air temperature along different directions and ground temperature at different depths were assessed with respect to climatic data of Yazd City. The impact of sol-air temperature and ground temperature on the rate of heat loss was investigated. So, energy loss of the walls aligned to four primary directions was calculated. This process was repeated for a 36 m² building with three different shape factors. All analyses were conducted for the period from May to September, during which buildings need to be cooled by air conditioners.

Numerical analyses conducted for hot and dry climate show that sol-air temperature leads to a 41-17 per cent increase in the wall’s energy loss compared with ambient temperature. Meanwhile, building the wall below the surface leads to a significant reduction in energy loss. For example, building the wall 400 cm below the surface leads to about 74.8-79.2 per cent energy saving compared with above ground design. The results also show that increasing the direct contact between soil and building envelope decreases the energy loss, so energy loss of a building that is built 400 cm below the surface is 53.7-55.3 per cent lower than that of a building built above the surface.

The impact of sol-air temperature and ground temperature on the cooling energy loss of a building in hot and dry climate was investigated. Numerical analysis shows that solar radiation increases heat loss from building envelope. Soil temperature fluctuations decrease with depth. Heat loss from building envelope in an underground building is lower than that from building envelope in a building built above the ground. Three different shape factors showed that sol-air temperature has the maximum impact on square-shaped plan and minimal impact on buildings with east-west orientation.

Tourism is one of the upcoming service industry in India with high potentials for future growth, particularly in rural areas. Many potential barriers are affecting the growth of tourism in rural India. Therefore, it is essential to explore and prioritize the barriers to tourism growth in rural India.

Qualitative and quantitative responses from “16” experts related to tourism and hospitality management from central India are collected for this study. An integrated Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) based framework is adopted to identify and relate significant barriers to tourism growth in India.

The result of the study identified many significant barriers and their importance to tourism growth in rural India.

The findings of this study add to the knowledge base of tourism research in line with the previous literature. This study offers an in-depth understanding of barriers focusing on rural tourism growth and devising both the plan of action and the suggestive measures in dealing with rural tourism.

The study provides a robust framework by integrating Interpretive Structural Modelling(ISM) and Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) to explore and prioritizing the critical barriers to rural tourism growth in India. The results of this study can help the decision-maker to fundamentally improve the economy of India through the growth of rural tourism.

This paper aims to evaluate the effect of optimal use of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems on improving the loss of life (LOL) of distribution transformers, reducing power losses as well as the unbalance rate of the 69-bus distribution network.

The problem is studied in three scenarios, considering different objective functions as multi-objective optimization in balanced and unbalanced operations. Meta-heuristic golden ratio optimization method (GROM) is used to determine the optimal size of the rooftop PV in the network.

The simulation results show that in all scenarios, the GROM by optimally installing the rooftop PV is significantly capable to reduce the transformer distribution loss of loss, unbalance rate and power loss as well as reduce the temperature of the oil and transformer winding. Also, the lowest %LOL, power loss and unbalance rate occurred in the second scenario for the balanced network and first scenario, respectively. In addition, the results showed that the unbalance of the network results in increased power losses and LOL of the distribution transformer.

The better capability of GROM is proved compared with the grey wolf optimization algorithm with better objective function and by achieving better values of LOL, unbalance rate and power loss. The results also showed that the %LOL, unbalance and power losses are weakened compared to without considering the PV cost but the achieved results are realistic and cost-effective.