A Planning Guide for Developing Zero Energy Communities (also called The ZEC Guide) helps developers, corporations, institutions, governments, utility companies, and communities create cities, campuses, and neighborhoods that, by design, conserve energy and incorporate electric vehiclecharging using renewable energy to power those buildings and vehicles. ZECs provide a net balance of the supply and demand for local energy based on the National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL) ZEC definition. The ZEC Guide addresses both Greenfield and Retrofit ZECs of various project sizes and complexities. The environmental impacts, regulatory issues, resistance, and economics are described. The ZEC Guide includes an extensive primer regarding renewable energy, control systems, energy storage, and hybridization of technologies. The guide provides a step-by-step process for evaluation and implementation and an explanation of how to create a ZEC program and align it with other sustainability and green building standards. Extensive references are provided for a multitude of relevant resources. The 202-page book includes forty-two photos and illustrations.

Executive Summary: A Guide for Developing Zero Energy Communities (also called the ZEC guide) helps developers, governments, utility companies, and communities create cities, campuses, and neighborhoods that, by design, conserve energy and incorporate electric vehicle charging using renewable energy to power those buildings and vehicles. ZECs provide a net-balance of the supply and demand for local energy based on the National Renewable Energy Laboratories' (NREL) ZEC definition. The ZEC guide addresses both Greenfield and Retrofit ZECs of various project sizes and complexities. The environmental impacts, regulatory issues, resistance, economics are described. The ZEC guide includes an extensive primer regarding renewable energy, control systems, energy storage, and hybridization of technologies. The guide provides a step-by-step process for evaluation and implementation and an explanation of how to create a ZEC program and align it with other sustainability and green building standards. Extensive references are provided for a multitude of relevant resources. The 10-page illustrated executive summary describes the 202-page book, which includes forty-two photos and illustrations.

This book focuses on solar energy conversion systems that can be implemented in the built environment, at building or at community level. The quest for developing a sustainable built environment asks for specific solutions to provide clean energy based on renewable sources, and solar energy is considered one of the cleanest available energy on Earth. The specific issues raised by the implementation location are discussed, including the climatic profile distorted by the buildings, the available surface on the buildings for implementation, etc. This book also discusses the seasonal and diurnal variability of the solar energy resource in parallel with the variability of the electrical and thermal energy demand in the built environment (particularly focusing on the residential buildings). Solutions are proposed to match these variabilities, including the development of energy mixes with other renewables (e.g. geothermal or biomass, for thermal energy production). Specific solutions, including case studies of systems implemented on buildings all over the world, are presented and analyzed for electrical and for thermal energy production and the main differences in the systems design are outlined. The conversion efficiency (thus the output) and the main causes of energy losses are considered in both cases. The architectural constraints are additionally considered and novel solar energy convertors with different shapes and colors are presented and discussed. The durability of the solar energy conversion systems is analyzed considering the specific issues that occur when these systems are implemented in the built environment; based on practical examples, general conclusions are formulated and specific aspects are discussed in relation to experimental results and literature data. With renewables implemented in the built environment likely to expand in the near future, this book represents welcome and timely material for all professionals and researchers that are aiming to provide efficient and feasible solutions for the sustainable built environment.

Accomplishments of the Department of Energy's seventeen national laboratories, including development of biofuels, solar power, fusion energy, the power grid, and nuclear deterrents.

Ongoing urbanization and ever-growing harmful environmental impacts from urban areas necessitate a sustainability transformation in cities. However, cities are also centers of wealth creation and consumption, which both drive environmental degradation. It is clear that cities need to re-establish themselves as low-energy/low-carbon systems, but the transformation is complex in many ways and time is running out. This Special Issue, “Energy Efficient Cities of Today and Tomorrow”, seeks to provide a more profound understanding of the future energy requirements of urban areas and low-energy and low-carbon cities. The published papers range from macro-level assessments of cities manifesting themselves as forerunners in their environmental work to micro-level studies of pro-environmental attitudes and their impacts on individual emissions, a carbon footprint impacts of sharing of goods and services.

"TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 751: Renewable Energy Guide for Highway Maintenance Facilities offers guidance for the application of renewable energy technologies to the heating and cooling, lighting, and electrical power requirements of highway maintenance facilities."--Publisher's description.