Contents


Preface

The idea to prepare this book came from the intention to collect some of the experiences and solutions that are emerging in one of the timely areas of development of the energy systems – green energy. Nowadays there is more attention on the use of technologies and solutions that have low carbon emissions and reduce the presence of hazardous pollutants in the global and local environments. Green energy is a term widely used to group together all these technologies and solutions. A general definition of this term is a sustainable energy source that has zero or minimal environmental and economic impact, and can be obtained from solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass, and other renewable energy sources. Green energy is considered as an important matter for technological, social, and industrial development, as well as to the global energy security. Green energy minimizes the negative effects of global emissions from electricity production and fossil energy resources, reduces the greenhouse effect, thereby offering a great opportunity for satisfying clean energy requirements in residential, industrial, agricultural, and commercial

Significant impacts occur at the local system level, as well as for energy integration in network-based solutions. Remarkable aspects include the evolution of the buildings in to more energy efficient solutions, considering individual or grouped zero-energy buildings supplied by green energy. The increase of green energy use in the future has a positive influence on the economic increase and sustainable evolution of the society. In this case, a key element for the link between society and nature is the sustainability of green energy development and supply. Another important element to raise the life standard of people in a country is the use of low-cost green energy to support technological growth and industrial production. For this reason, researchers all over the world are involved in analysing different global stability scenarios and green energy strategies to promote and intensify the use of green energy sources and their impacts on

The essential features of the green energy sources include their compatibility with the environment, which makes these sources attractive for widespread utilisation in the context of sustainable development, while also avoiding the growth in carbon emissions and deforestation. A further main reason for wider adoption of green energy sources and technologies with great influence on sustainable development is the flexibility of their utilisation, which can be achieved in combination with appropriate storage solutions in order to mitigate the effects of the green energy source uncertainty. From the social point of view, the utilisation of local resources offers advantageous solutions and benefits to small remote areas that are not connected to the grid. In this way, the traditional paradigm of electrification coming from wide network structures can be revisited by providing electrification from local energy systems supplied with green energy, which can evolve to grid-

connected systems through their integration into micro-grids.

applications.

energy security.
