Sustainable Energy Solutions For Remote Areas In The Tropics

This book covers multifaceted aspects of sustainable energy solutions for remote areas in the tropics, particularly focusing on Southeast Asia. With insights from both the academic world and real-life implementation, readers will gain an overview of the range of energy problems currently facing the remote tropics, and what potential solutions are available. The book provides a detailed overview of various energy needs in the Southeast Asian tropics, a region where a significant portion of the population still lives without access to electricity. It not only addresses technical solutions to the energy problems but also tackles the social and wider implications, offering readers a more holistic understanding of the potential held by renewable energy. The chapters are structured to present first an overview of the problem at hand, and then a description of the technologies that could potentially solve it. Applications of the technologies; business models that are now available or being developed; the impact of the technologies; and future, more sustainable solutions are all discussed. Given its in-depth analysis, the book will be of interest to energy professionals in the tropics, energy policymakers, and students studying sustainable energy.

In the implementation of smart cities, sensors and actuators that produce and consume enormous amounts of data in a variety of formats and ontologies will be incorporated into the system as a whole. The data produced by the participating devices need to be adequately categorized and connected to reduce duplication and conflicts. Newer edge computing techniques are needed to manage enormous amounts of data quickly and avoid overloading the cloud infrastructure. Cyber-Physical System Solutions for Smart Cities considers the most recent developments in several crucial software services and cyber infrastructures that are important to smart cities. Covering key topics such as artificial intelligence, smart data, big data, and computer science, this premier reference source is ideal for industry professionals, government officials, policymakers, scholars, researchers, academicians, instructors, and students.

The tropical zones are dominated by developing countries, which mainly face problematic environmental issues. Different than four-season countries, tropical countries have a continuous summer-like season and therefore they are rich in clean energy sources like solar and biomass. Hence, the mitigations of environment and energy issues in the tropics would require specific understanding and different approach to solutions. This book offers an assortment of studies on scenarios of environment as well as energy demand and power generation technologies in the tropics. Many of the countries within the tropics are highly populated, and this results in various problems related to the environment and energy. The demand for energy in these countries keeps increasing but concurrently there are also environmental issues that require serious attention. As the global concern on the environment is alarming today, the choice of power generation should be of the cleanest possible resource. This various reports on research activities carried out in the tropics on the aspect of environment and energy presented in this book are highly beneficial for those who like to see an improvement in the tropics with regard to environment and energy systems.

This publication explores marine renewable energy sources from floating solar farms to deep ocean turbines and shows how increasing the capacity of the blue economy can help the Asia and Pacific region transition to a clean energy, low carbon future. Providing an overview of ADB’s Marine Aquaculture, Reefs, Renewable Energy, and Ecotourism for Ecosystem Services (MARES) project, it examines stressors impacting the region’s oceans and examines the benefits of multifunctional approaches. It considers emerging ocean entrepreneurship and shows how adopting a holistic blue economy vision can produce a regenerative marine environment, support coastal communities, and help meet climate goals.

Sustainability Science and Technology: An Introduction explains the root causes of global failures in natural and human systems, as well as the most readily available technological solutions. The book dispels risky scientific and technological ideas that further complicate the current environmental and socioeconomic predicaments. It also bridges gaps among scientific and technological fields and systematically translates current findings for a wide technical and public audience. Written at a level accessible to all, the story is told one bite-sized chapter at a time, about the size of a scientific journal article. The chapters are self-contained, each grappling with a large topic. This provides more in-depth coverage of a topic than a standard encyclopedia article and promotes the widest possible dialog around sustainability issues and their solutions. Case studies from all continents and all technological development levels expound viable solutions for each of the planetary systems: water, soils, and atmosphere. In turn, the wider socioeconomic context of sustainable science and technology is examined. One of the first books to address the full scope of sustainability, it sets the stage for discussion and sustainability re(training) across professional divides. The editor and contributors take a balanced approach that is neither too technical nor too focused on any particular field. They highlight global and regional perspectives and the linkages between different planetary and human systems. The book helps you understand the thorny essence of sustainability issues—often fraught with ethical dilemmas, obsolete technologies, and lifestyle implications—and how to develop solutions to them.

With the widespread adoption of photovoltaic (PV) systems across the world, many researchers, industry players, and regulators have been exploring the use of reactive power from PV to support the grid. This thesis is the first to comprehensively quantify and analyse the techno-economic cost and benefits of reactive power support using PV. On top of formulating the cost of PV reactive power and identifying the feasible range of its monetary incentives, this thesis has also proposed practical methods to implement the reactive power dispatch effectively and efficiently, with and without communication infrastructure. The findings and approaches in this work can therefore help power system planners and operators towards better integration of PV into the electrical grid, both in terms of regulation and implementation.

This book offers perspectives on how to develop a sustainable global balance of urbanization, land-use intensification, land abandonment, and multifunctional cultural landscapes. The focus is on the latter by describing the large variety of traditional cultural landscapes having evolved through centuries or even millennia by the use of the natural, terrestrial and aquatic resources. Those cultural landscapes encompass pasture, agroforestry, terraced, irrigation, coastal, monastic, and sacred landscapes as well as lake-, river-, and saltscapes. The restoration of low-input land-use systems which often carry a high biodiversity on the species, ecosystem, and landscape level as well as agrobiodiversity and agrodiversity is outlined. The restoration of multifunctional and diverse landscapes, however, is not only an ecological issue but encompasses many socio-economic aspects such as e.g., the revitalization of villages, eco-tourism, healthy food production, infrastructure, and rural-urban partnerships. Global environmental problems, which are related to urbanization and the intensification of the use of land and water resources are comprehensively outlined. Land abandonment which occurs on all continents is qualitatively and quantitatively assessed and the consequences for natural and cultural heritage loss is highlighted. With the presentation of current rural development and landscape conservation strategies on the national as well as international level, the topic reflects the high significance of environmental policy on the global scale. The global implementation of natural and cultural heritage conservation is, for example, given by the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, National Parks, Biosphere Reserves, Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Sites, High Nature Value Farmland, and the Satoyama initiative. However, also the “every-day” landscapes can contribute to biodiversity and strong sustainability. This comprehensive compendium, based on about 4,000 references of scientific studies, literature reviews, project reports, and environmental policy papers is thought for all students, scholars, and stakeholders from multifaceted disciplines, interested in multifunctional cultural landscapes and how traditions and innovation on the landscape level can be merged for a sustainable future on our planet. Case studies from all over the world are presented which can be used in Higher Education or to demonstrate the numerous approaches of sustainable rural development.

Sustainable finance has been one of the emerging areas of finance in the last decade. With its emphasis on any form of financial services that take environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into account in decision-making processes, it can help to improve social well-being, preserve the ecosystems and promote sustainable economic development. Furthermore, it can contribute to economic and financial resilience, along with enabling sustainable recovery against crises arising from physical or financial shocks. The Handbook of Research on Global Aspects of Sustainable Finance in Times of Crises discusses theory and concepts, focuses on practices and strategies, addresses the recent challenges and trends, and presents future prospects regarding sustainable finance. It provides a global look at sustainable finance in a variety of contexts, along with highlighting contemporary issues in light of crises such as the climate emergency and the COVID-19 pandemic. Covering a wide range of topics such as climate finance, green finance, social finance, ESG investing and responsible banking, the book is ideal for corporate managers, portfolio managers, investors, financial analysts, researchers, academicians, students and policymakers.