Green Energy Applications in the Era of Fourth Industrial Revolution
Prof. Mahmoud Nasr
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) is accompanied by the widespread application of cyber-physical systems to generate energy from natural resources. Computational intelligence techniques have been employed for simulation, mass balance estimation, operation optimization, and minimization of the total capital, operational, and maintenance cost in energy engineering studies. Big Data techniques have been used to predict the process performance of biomass conversion (pathways and technologies) and the associated biofuel properties in the energy sector. The Internet of Things (IoT) provides connectivity between physical devices (e.g., sensors, actuators, and communication tools) to enhance energy efficiency, increase the share of renewable energy, and reduce the environmental impacts of energy use, generating more bioenergy with lower resource utilization and greenhouse gas emissions. Computer science, and automated and robotic techniques can create efficient energy production systems with reduced costs by integrating machining technology, microcontrollers, and software. This special issue collects articles relevant to the applications of these cloud computing, IoT, big data analytics, blockchain, and computational intelligence for enhancing bioenergy production, with minimizing time, resource, and cost utilizations. It accepts original research papers, review articles, case studies, and short communications on the theory and practice of Industry 4.0 in the bioenergy sector. This special issue provides energy policy-makers, energy economists, and managers with an overview of the role of Industry 4.0 in the optimization of various energy systems.