Solar Energy Systems: Challenges, Opportunities and Advances

Dear Colleagues,

Energy, water resources, commodities production, scientific knowledge and technological expertise are the basis of the development of modern industrial and post-industrial societies. The recent economic developments implying large-scale industries and inducing large urban concentrations tend to require fairly concentrated energy supplies. Large interconnected systems have been successful in providing these supplies based on renewable energy generation, wherever there is potential for the latter. An often-referenced answer for the issue of expanding demands for energy and decreasing energy sources is to tap the energy from the Sun.

Solar energy systems like photovoltaic (PV) systems and concentrated solar power (CSP) advancements are some of the main renewable energy sources (RESs) that convert solar energy into power in a climate-friendly way and represent a free energy source. As of late, among all of the CSP system types, the central tower receiver (CTR) innovation draws broad consideration as a promising contender for enormous solar thermal plants in view of its high productivity coming about because of its high working temperature. The benefits and cost decrease of solar energy systems, particularly PV systems, has prompted rapid expansion in the combination of PV systems in recent years. Be that as it may, the high entrance level of solar PV systems affects the system's power quality because of the disparity between demand patterns and solar resources. These drawbacks limit the high infiltration levels of PV systems. Thusly, PV itself might present another challenge to the electrical framework rather than being a piece of the solution. Additionally, the planning and demonstration of solar energy systems, especially central tower receiver power plants (CTRPPs), have numerous troubles assuming all specialized boundaries are considered.

The development and rapid deployment of solar systems worldwide raise the question of materiality, climate resilience, water consumption and land use for producing, using, and decommissioning the technology. The whole technology chain requires materials and consumes energy to producerequiring special attention to avoid rearranging rather than solving the energy problem. The high penetration of solar systems, representing intermittent resources, calls for a better management of other more stable clean energy resources such as hydropower. The intermittency of solar will also be impacted by the future climate changes that will present broad variations depending on regions. This Special Issue is open to all contributions advancing the knowledge on the climate, land, energy, water, and material use (CLEWm) nexus.

The main subject areas include but are not limited to the following:

• Photovoltaic (PV)
• Materials for PV conversion;
• Solar cells, modules, and systems;
• Novel measurement, test, and characterization methods and systems;
• Processes and tools for industrialization;
• High-efficiency cells, multijunction;
• Concentrating PV, space applications;
• PV heating, cooling, and storage systems;
• Power electronics for PV;
• Large-area PV power plants;
• Grid integration;
• Stand-alone systems;
• Solar thermal systems
• Materials for solar thermal conversion;
• Flat panel collectors;
• Heating, cooling, and storage systems;
• Concentrating systems;
• Solar and hybrid power plants;
• Solar technologies and the nexus

• Climate change impact on solar production;
• Climate, land, energy, water, and material use (CLEWm) nexus;
• Environmental issues, recycling, lifetime analysis, degradation;

• Solar in the Arctic;
• Solar power in the energy system;
• Floating photovoltaics;
• Energy policy;
• Economy of solar conversion systems;
• Radiation measurement and prediction;
• Modelling, yield measurements, forecast, and predictions.

Dr. Epari Ritesh Patro
Prof. Dr. Sachin Mishra
Dr. Jean-Nicolas Louis
Dr. Javed Dhillon
Dr. Ali Torabi Haghighi
Dr. Antonio Caló
Guest Editors

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