Despite the importance of buildings’ energy consumption as a significant contributor to carbon emissions, there is currently a lack of analysis on the impact of climate change on a building’s energy consumption using experimental data. This paper’s main goal and novelty are to determine whether, over 54 years from 1970 to 2023, the net energy demand of a building has changed and to what extent. Within this framework, this paper presents a dynamic analysis of a building located in Milan, northern Italy. The building is served by a multifunctional heat pump for heating, cooling, and domestic hot water production, supplemented by a photovoltaic panel system covering part of the overall electricity demand. The overview of experimental climate data for the considered site from approximately the past 50 years shows significant variations, setting the stage for anticipating future environmental challenges and preparing adaptive strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change. As a result, the electricity demand has increased on average over the years, specifically showing a significant decrease in energy required for heating and an increase in demand for cooling. The overall increase in electrical energy demand for buildings and systems is 2.3%, from 6310 kWh in 1970 to 6460 kWh in 2023. By considering the contribution of the PV, overall, the net energy demand of the building, coupled with the multifunctional heat pump and the extensive PV panel system, results in a 9.2% reduction in net electrical energy required from the electrical grid, from 2170 kWh in 1970 to 1990 kWh in 2023.

Electric private Vehicles (EVs) are one of the primary solutions to combating climate change in the transportation sector. However, countries’ fossil-based Electricity Generation Mix (EGM) has undermined the decarbonisation effort of EVs. As prior studies have analysed either cities or countries in isolation, this study proposes a new assessment framework to explore the trend of carbon emissions from Private Vehicles (PVs) under EGM reform and EV popularisation from 2012 to 2050 with a multi-scale analysis and comparison (country-scale, province-scale, and city-scale). The framework was first applied to understand the effectiveness of the EV popularisation in Mainland China. The results reveal that a significant spatial variability is found among the Chinese provinces, with a country total reduction of 2,301 kt CO₂e/year in 2035. The eastern provinces have substantially higher CO₂e emissions than the central and northern provinces, despite the central provinces having a higher carbon intensity in EGM. The vehicle population dominates the trend of province-based total emissions. In Mainland China, the aggressive popularisation of EVs with continued coal reliance for electricity generation has jeopardised the effort of carbon emission reduction. To further evaluate the patterns and trends of the effectiveness of EV popularisation from a global perspective, selected countries/cities, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Vermont, Oslo, and Luxembourg which have pledged to retire fossil-based vehicles, and India, Australia and Japan from literature, were adopted in the analysis. Overall, the status of per-vehicle emission ranking in 2035 is Oslo < Japan < Singapore < Luxembourg < Hong Kong < India < Australia < Vermont < Mainland China, with the lowest and highest values of 153 and 2289 CO₂e kg per PV, respectively. These five selected countries/cities are expecting to achieve significantly higher overall emission reductions (> 42% in 2035, >60% in 2050) than China (~ 15% in 2035), with Vermont having the greatest reduction from its aggressive carbon-free EGM reform and the 100% substitution of fossil-based vehicles with EVs.

Wind energy, a green and sustainable clean energy source, has been rapidly developing worldwide. However, its complex impacts on ecosystems remain unclear. The timing of wind farm construction and the spatial scope of their effects on vegetation and microclimates are poorly understood. To address this gap, we conducted our study from a vegetation-climate coupling perspective. First, we introduced a change detection method based on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to identify the construction years of wind farms; second, we explored the ecological impacts by integrating vegetation index, albedo, land surface temperature (T_S), and evapotranspiration (ET) within multi-layer buffer zones. Representative wind farms in Hebei Province, China, were selected as a case study. Using Landsat imagery and a global wind power dataset, we quantified changes before and after construction. The results indicate that the number of wind farms increased continuously from 2001 to 2020, with peak construction years in 2006, 2008, and 2013 respectively. Wind farm construction led to a decline in vegetation greenness, reduced surface roughness, increased temperature, and decreased humidity, with these effects varying across buffer zones. The maximum changing ratio for the indices were − 21.73% of ΔNDVI, 6.59% of Δalbedo, 6.29% of ΔT_S and − 19.22% of ΔET, with the most significant impacts observed on vegetation and evapotranspiration. The thresholds of these impacts were concentrated within 300–400 m of the buffer zones, providing a basis for categorizing the impact levels of wind farm construction. These innovations address critical gaps in assessing wind energy’s ecological footprint. To summarize, this study makes three key advances: (1) proposing a sliding-window NDVI differencing method to detect construction timing without relying on official records; (2) integrating multi-dimensional indicators (NDVI, albedo, T_S, ET) to reveal coupled vegetation-microclimate impacts; and (3) quantifying nonlinear impact thresholds through spatial buffer analysis, offering actionable guidance for wind farm zoning. The findings offer valuable insights for balancing wind energy development with grassland ecosystem sustainability.

Integrating CO₂ capture into combined heat and power (CHP) plants reduces heat and electricity generation. Heat pumps (HPs) can be utilized to recover waste heat for solvent regeneration or district heating (DH). However, no study compares different ways of utilizing recovered heat. Therefore, this study evaluated the performance of a HP-integrated CHP plant with CO₂ capture. Four cases were considered, Case 1 (reference case 1): without CO₂ capture; Case 2 (reference case 2): with CO₂ capture and no HPs; Case 3: with CO₂ capture and using HPs to recover heat for DH; and Case 4: with CO₂ capture and using HPs to recover heat for solvent regeneration. Using real operating data from a waste-fired CHP plant (50 MW_e, 110 MW_th), results demonstrated that, in Case 2 (cf. Case 1), maximum 81.6% of CO₂ was captured at a cost of 62.6% reduction in net electricity generation. In Case 3, 45.3% of the DH demand was covered by HP recovered heat, amounting 375.8 GWh/year. In Case 4, 78.3% of the heat required for CO₂ capture was supplied by HP recovered heat, reaching 445.1 GWh/year. While 90% of CO₂ was captured in Cases 3 and 4, the annual net electricity generation was reduced by 64.5% and 37.1%, respectively. Additionally, given current carbon trading prices, CO₂ capture was not economically feasible and that system’s internal heat recovery by HPs is not economically feasible, either.

This work explores the integration of three-dimensionally (3D) structured rear electrode intended for perovskite solar cells to enhance light management and mechanical stability, addressing limitations as inner light distribution and durability that hinder the performance of these thin-film devices. The motivation for this research arises from the need for improved light trapping and robust electrode structures in flexible and wearable solar cell applications. 3D electrodes were fabricated using grayscale lithography, enabling precise control over surface topography and subsequent aluminum metallization to create a strongly reflective layer. The resulting electrodes were characterized for sheet resistance, reflectance of light with a peak emission wavelength of 700 nm and irradiance of up to 4 mW/cm², and mechanical stability at 10 000 bending cycles. Results demonstrate that the 3D structured electrodes exhibit enhanced reflectance compared to flat electrodes, which is a precondition for improved light trapping. Furthermore, they show improved electrical performance, as well as mechanical stability under bending, maintaining higher reflectance and lower sheet resistance increase compared to flat electrodes. These findings suggest that 3D structured rear electrodes fabricated by grayscale lithography offer a promising approach for improving the efficiency and durability of perovskite solar cells, particularly for flexible and wearable applications. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) increased from 17.7% for a flat electrode to 21.4% for a 3D patterned. Moreover, 3D patterned layers exhibited only 12.5% drop in their reflectance after multiple bending, while the flat electrodes exhibited a 19%.

With increasing population and urbanization, the demand for water has been rising worldwide. In parallel, the generation of wastewater contaminated with a surfeit of emerging chemicals is likely to increase. The conventional sewage treatment plants are insufficient to account for the presence of micropollutants, highlighting the need for eco-friendly, nature-based solutions with higher efficiency in wastewater treatment, degradation of complex emerging compounds, and resource recovery. The present study evaluates the efficiency of monoculture microalgae (Scenedesmus dimorphus; A), bacteria (Bacillus subtilis; B1 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa; B2), and filamentous fungi (Aspergillus niger; F1 and Penicillium crustosum; F2) and their consortium for the treatment of wastewater in ambient environmental conditions operated at a hydraulic retention time of 72 h. The wastewater was characterized by higher chemical and biological oxygen demands (COD: 1386.67 ± 73.2 mg/l; BOD₅: 225.8 ± 5.02 mg/l), nutrients (NO₃^--N: 4.86 ± 0.038 mg/l; PO₄^3--P: 1.71 ± 0.057 mg/l), and trace amounts of heavy metals. The potential of byproduct biomass for the application of clean energy was also explored. The treatment efficiency of consortium systems was higher than that of monoculture treatment. The algae-fungi consortium (F1A and F2A) showed a higher PO₄^3--P removal efficiency up to 97–98%. In contrast, the fungi consortium (F1F2) treatment showed significantly higher reduction in Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Pb, and NO₃^--N concentration from the wastewater. In the present study, the algae-fungi consortium biomass exhibited a higher heating value of 19.16 ± 0.46 MJ/kg and carbon content (48.3%), compared to the algae and algae-bacteria consortia. Elemental composition and GC-MS analysis of harvested biomass as a byproduct suggest that the algae-fungi consortium has potential for treatment of sewage and industrial wastewater along with large-scale biofuel production.