Cyprus is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It has an isolated electricity grid and energy system which is fully reliant on imported fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels for electricity generation has a negative impact on the environment due to the greenhouse gas emissions and importing the fuels places a huge burden on the economy of the country and a risk in terms of the electricity supply security of the island. One way to reduce dependency on imported fuels is to implement renewable energy solutions in the island. There are many studies assessing the availability of renewable energy sources, evaluating future electricity demand and investigating methods of demand reduction in Cyprus but there are a very limited number of studies specifically produced for Cyprus that address the integration and cost of renewable energy sources and explore their effects on the grid system. This thesis illustrates the big picture of Cyprus in terms of availability of exploitable renewable energy sources, current electricity generation and electricity demand characteristics. In order to address the grid code barrier, the grid codes of developed European countries are investigated. From this research, amendments to the current grid are produced. These additional mandatory codes will form the infrastructure for renewable energy projects and bring knowledge to the current system operator from other experienced countries. In addition renewable energy technologies worldwide are investigated in terms of output capacity, energy pricing, investment, and operation costs. Pricing and cost information is applied to the case of Cyprus. By further optimizing the technologies appropriately to Cyprus conditions, current and future cost analysis is produced. By producing reliable data on the cost and performance of renewable energy technologies the significant barrier to the uptake of these technologies is lowered. This will enable governments and financial bodies to arrive at an accurate assessment of which renewable energy technologies are the most appropriate for their particular circumstances.

"This research focuses on studying the feasibility of tethered undersea kite (TUSK) systems for power generation. Underwater tethered kite systems consist of a rigid wing that moves in a circular or figure-8 path below the surface. The tether can connect to a platform mounted either on the surface or anchored to the seafloor. On the kite is a turbine that extracts energy from the kite’s forward motion, which has the potential to be several times the current velocity. This speed multiplication combined with the density increase of water as opposed to air is one of the main benefits of this class of systems over wind turbines. A scale-model TUSK kite was designed. Testing was conducted in a water flume at Alden Research Labs (ARL). Model scale factors were determined from a real world prototype TUSK system currently in commercial development. The scale-model kite was primarily constructed out of ABS plastic using 3D printing rapid prototyping methods. Other components of the system were either repurposed from prior projects or constructed with traditional methods. Testing was conducted at current speeds of 0.15 m/s, 0.31 m/s, and 0.46 m/s; kite pitch angles of 80?, 85?, and 90?; and over circular and figure 8 trajectory shapes. Data collected included the azimuth and declination angles of the rigid tether as well as the power output of the generator on board the kite. Filtering techniques were employed on the data to generate graphs of kite position, velocity, and output for analysis. Relationships between current velocity, kite velocity, kite pitch angle, and power output have been measured. Inaccuracies in the model and areas for improvement in future work have been identified."

It is undeniable that activities and events within the water, energy, and food (WEF) security nexus are inextricably linked and their relationships numerous and substantial. Complexity increases when factors governing the daily lives of humanity namely social, technology advancement, environment, economic, and policies (STEEP) adds upon the difficulty in addressing the relationships. It is thus paramount to address the problems from a holistic and systematic approach to maximise benefits as well as to minimize the negative impacts upon one another. However, there exists little to zero means of measuring their performance, whether qualitatively or quantitatively, within the context of a nexus. Moreover, minimal understanding exists regarding the relationships between the WEF securities in Malaysia, an emerging economy rich in natural resources, which envisions to be a developed nation. This research sought to establish a measurement system for the WEF security nexus in Malaysia within the context of resource security wellbeing, sectoral balance, and sustainable development using a System Dynamics (SD) approach. This entailed an extensive literature review and qualitative interview with key stakeholders from the industrial sectors. The front end of the SD process is concerned with obtaining important and relevant information from literature and interviews, which are then used to construct causal loop diagrams (CLD). The back end of the SD is concerned with converting the CLDs into a stock and flow diagram (SFD), which provides a platform for quantitative simulation of different well-designed scenarios. Key findings from this research can be highlighted; these include: renewables are necessary for the long-term energy plan of Malaysia, nuclear power is necessary to keep electricity tariff low, water tariff of supply and services are severely low, increasing self-sufficiency level (SSL) of Malaysia’s staple food is important, under-utilised crops are efficient in meeting nutrient requirements, and cash crops imposed systemic stresses upon the water sector more than the energy sector. Consequently, recommendations for policy makers are suggested accordingly to achieve a reasonable proportion of RE penetration, providing education on nuclear benefits, centralising and streamlining water governance, socio-economic improvement of water economics, increase SSL of staple food, embark upon widespread adoption of local under-utilized crops, and controlling land use of non-food crops. The outcome of this research forms a vital and novel contribution to knowledge, when it is a pioneering work to address the WEF security nexus for Malaysia; especially in considering their securities for the country as a system rather than unaffected individual entities. This work will contribute towards spearheading the awareness and, hopefully, trigger further and more in-depth work in transdisciplinary resource and technology management. As a pioneering effort, this research has nonetheless provided the foundation and the fundamental understanding to an integrative and inclusive cross-sectoral national resource backbone - The WEF security nexus measurement system of Malaysia.

The transition from declining conventional fossil fuel energy to renewables is one of the most significant challenges facing humanity. Hydrogen is anticipated as the key future energy vector. This is sought to bring more value and utility to renewable energy resources, and eventually providing an energy storage medium to replace fossil fuels such as for automotive applications. This thesis contains an investigation of hydrogen production through renewable low-cost and low-carbon processes. Literature reviews of conventional and renewable H₂ production methods and storage (compression, liquefaction, adsorption materials and hydrides) are presented in detail (in appendices). Particular attention has been given to energy efficiency, cost and practicality of processes. Electrolysis of water is investigated in detail. Wind turbines and solar photovoltaics are reviewed and physically investigated as key renewable electrical energy sources for renewable H₂ production via electrolysis. Conventional and novel electrical power control is investigated and tested to support low-cost wind/solar-powered electrolysis. Biological H₂ production from mixed-acid fermentation of Escherichia coli is practically investigated from the energy-physics perspective and considered as one possible route to permit renewable H₂ production in the long-term. Photocatalytic materials are also investigated as additional future routes for renewable H₂ production; in this work they are investigated using nanoscale materials processing and surface analysis techniques. This thesis has an energy-focussed, applied and practical theme, achieving a broad investigation of the topics herein. Experimental investigations were chosen based upon relevance, practicality, concurrent research, availability of resources, and for application of novel nanoscale materials processing. Power control elements for wind-powered H₂ production have for example been optimised by complete investigation of supply/load characteristics rather than adopting the more conventional power electrical/electronic approach. Ultimately the work here aims to demonstrate (at small-scale) that renewable H₂ production can be achieved at relatively low cost, e.g. by wind-powered electrolysis, inferring that pathways can be established within existing means to produce much larger quantities of renewable H₂ economically.

We are now facing the challenge of sustainable development. This thesis focuses on the building illumination of one downtown hospitality building, the Renaissance Vancouver Hotel (RVH), to demonstrate three options for sustainable development of architectural lighting. The thesis employs architectural exterior lighting based on the technology of light emitting diodes (LEDs) as a vehicle to demonstrate how to reduce the energy consumption and maintenance costs of decorative lighting on building façades via three transformative lighting strategies. These three transformative lighting strategies demonstrate three possibilities of applying LEDs to develop architectural creativity and energy sustainability for an outdoor decorative lighting system. The first transformation utilizes LEDs for the retrofit of existing compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) on the RVH’s façades and rooftop, in order to improve and diversify the building’s illumination in a sustainable manner. The second transformation optimizes the yearly programming of the new outdoor decorative LED lighting in accordance with differing seasonal and temporal themes in order to save energy, demonstrate architectural creativity via versatile lighting patterns, and systematically manage the unstable generation of renewable energy. The third transformation explores the potential of on-site electricity generation in an urban context instead of its purchase from BC Hydro. Photovoltaic (PV) panels will generate the electrical requirements of the RVH’s decorative exterior LED lighting. This transformation will transfer daytime solar energy to electricity for night outdoor building illumination; consequently, it can encourage outdoor activities in the nighttime for Vancouverites, and is a means of compensating for the limited daytime hours in Vancouver’s winter months.

Green Power is the energy produced from renewable power. Internationally, the sales of green power, which are different from regular merchandise of power, are viewed as a market mechanism based on voluntarily-purchased-by-users. The system of green power, one of the nation¡¦s policies of renewable energy, is also an efficient means to increase the percentage of generating power by renewable energy. To differentiate green power from regular power, the price of green power will be higher in advanced countries in order to establish the market mechanism based on voluntarily-purchased-by-users. The money received by green power is mainly used to develop renewable energy, to depreciate high costs of renewable energy constructions and to provide the opportunities for the public to involve in environmental protection and enhance their awareness of environmental protection. Several countries, such as the US, Canada, European Union (EU), Australia and Japan have the sales system of the green power. In 2005, Shanghai, China also started such a system. In Taiwan, the Act of Renewable Energy Development, which is highly critical to the energy development of the country, has been passed on June 12, 2009 in the Legislative Yuan. The thesis has analyzed several foreign green power cases and gleaned experiences from their system. Combined with the circumstances, including the project of renewable power development and the source and the productivity of green power, the thesis has tried to build a green power system suitable for the country. The thesis also used different methods to develop pricing of green power. The thesis has combined today¡¦s circumstances and experiences learned from foreign cases to provide a suitable system of sales and pricing of green power under the legal restrictions in Taiwan.

With the increasing demand for energy throughout the world, the environment around us is getting severely affected. The conventional energy sources (coal, oil and gas) are unfortunately the biggest polluters of the environment. The aforementioned energy sources emit greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane, which are responsible for global warming and ozone layer depletion. The only feasible answer to this problem is to reduce the use of the conventional energy sources and focus more on other energy sources. The renewable energy sources (solar, wind and hydro) have been present in nature, but the technology to harvest these energies have always been relatively expensive until recently. The biggest advantage of using renewable energy sources is the fact that these energy sources will never run out and they also do not pollute the environment as their more conventional counterparts. With more research being conducted into better ways of storing the power trapped from the renewable energy sources and the relative difficulty of obtaining the ever-depleting conventional energy sources, the future for renewable energy sources definitely looks better than at any time in the past

The use of renewable energy sources in EU member states is expected to increase, leading to a more sustainable energy mix, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and a lower dependency from fossil fuels. Promoting the production of renewable energy is a topic that nowadays tops the agenda of many national and regional governments, due to three main reasons: environmental, energy security and regional development reasons, whereby the environmental reasons can be considered the driving force. The Thesis aims at distilling lessons learned from a comparative study of the policies practices in three large Member States and it analyses the relevance of the policy context for the development of the renewable energy (RE) sector. This study examines the national policies of EU member states towards the development of renewable energy, and the rationale for government intervention in this area. It analyses the different supporting instruments adopted by the three Member States and the impact that have on the development of the RE sector.

Diusion of renewable energy technologies(RETs) is an important challengeof the current century. Much of the existing research has put a focus on understandingthe diusion of RETs through the perspective of systems of innovation. However, two recent studies highlight the importance of the actors in the process- those who adopt the RETs. With the current study we continue thisactor perspective by focusing on the adoption process as the driver of the massdiusion. We bring together the two streams of diusion of innovation and innovationintermediaries in a thesis that aims to show how comprehending thesingle adoption process and providing support to the adopters at every singlephase of it can facilitate diusion. Our focus is fully on public intermediaries. We show that public innovationintermediaries known in research for their support for the innovation systemhave an unexplored facet i.e. that of supporters at the adopter level. The thesiscontributes to previous literature showing that public intermediaries are thesupporters of adopters of RETs at the very beginning of the process which wascurrently unexplored. Moreover, we demonstrate that public intermediaries arepresent in the later phases of the adoption process as well being their impartialitya main advantage in comparison to private intermediaries. The study revealstwo key roles of public intermediaries in the pre-adoption phase of the processand four roles in the implementation phase. To complete the research we use qualitative methods and particularly groundedtheory methodology for data collection and analysis. Data is collected throughface-to-face long interviews with six public and/or non-prot intermediaries locatedin the Swedish county, Ostergotland. The study brings about the recognitionof public intermediaries as direct supporters of adopters of RETs in practice,oers ways of rethinking the existing policies in order to speed up diusion ofRETs and expands the arena for further research with focus on the interactionbetween intermediaries and adopters.

The reliable supply of hydrogen to a vehicle re-fuelling station has been tackled in this thesis. A currently operational system based on supplying energy from a bio-generator, fuelled from biogas generated by organic matter in an Anaerobic Digester, formed the basis of an expanded renewable energy system. The criterion for the new design was the supply of energy to an electrolyser/compressor/storage system at minimum cost and minimum interruption to supply. By separating hydrogen production from energy generation, the operating parameters of the electrolyser and compressor were optimized, leading to an energy load profile that guaranteed a reliable supply of hydrogen sufficient to fuel the daily needs of up to two hydrogen fuelled vehicles. Based on the energy load profile, a renewable energy system was designed around the existing bio-generator. A multi-objective optimization by Genetic Algorithm was employed to design a hybrid renewable energy system that minimized lifetime costs and unmet load. The resulting design consisted of a mixture of wind turbines, batteries, inverters/rectifiers, as well as the bio-generator. A control strategy that directed the interaction of all components was also produced. Multi-objective optimization by Genetic Algorithm was found to be a reliable, efficient method in designing a complex hybrid renewable energy system with non-linear characteristics. The results of modelling and simulation showed that an uninterrupted supply of energy could be produced, based on specific meteorological conditions, at a minimal cost. The research has shown that it is possible to develop a design that produces hydrogen reliably purely from renewable energy sources. The design is flexible enough to integrate other renewable energy sources and technologies as they develop.