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Recent advancements in green building technologies (GBTs) have grown substantially, as an outcome of the environmental, economic and societal benefits. It has the potential to move toward sustainable development, specifically related to climate change. In GBTs, the main objective is to use energy, water and other resources in a balanced way, without using them extensively. This will improve the environmental conditions. Green buildings (GBs) are beneficial when it comes to energy consumption and emissions; low maintenance and operation costs; boosting health and productivity; etc. There is a lack of a critical review of the past or present research work in the area of the Green Building Technology (GBT) sector to identify the future roadmap for sustainable green building technologies. A critical review, with the help of proper research methodology, was identified. The scope of this study is to analyze the existing work on different issues, and find different key issues in green building research, which has minimal use of natural resources, is cost-effective and is designed and constructed for a longer duration, considering future prospects. This paper examines the state of green building construction today and makes recommendations for further study and development which will be necessary for a sustainable future. In order to encourage research, this study also identified a few possible future research directions in sustainable development.

Electricity is one of the most widely used forms of energy. Being a renewable source of energy small hydropower is considered as an environment—friendly and cheap source of electricity. The installation cost of the small hydropower project depends mainly on two parts—civil works and electromechanical equipment. One of the most important element on the recovery of a small hydro-power plant is the electromechanical equipment (turbine-alternator). The present paper intends to develop a correlation to determine the cost based on the cost influencing parameters as power and head using three different methods, namely; sigma plot method, linest method and logest method. An attempt has also been made to identify the best correlation among the three models closer to the actual cost of electro-mechanical equipment as collected from recently developed projects

SUMMARY Small hydropower (SHP) projects are considered by the developers as these provide renewable source of energy and are environment friendly. The basic cost components of SHP scheme are broadly classified as civil works and electromechanical equipment. The most important components under the electromechanical equipment are turbine and generator. In the present paper, an attempt has been made to review the different types of technological models and transfer function developed to evaluate the performance of the electromechanical equipment of SHP projects. A review on the different types of control strategies developed by earlier investigators has also been presented. The present review attempts to cover the different types of design and analysis made on different types of turbines, generator and control equipment of SHP. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Summary The environmental threat and rising fuel prices are the two major challenges faced by the utility to provide clean and affordable electricity to the consumers. The change in government policies provides assistance for large‐scale deployment of Distributed Energy Resource (DER) like rooftop solar PV, but at the same time, the intermittent nature of this renewable‐based DER produce adverse effects on utility stability and its economic viability. The concept of virtual power plant (VPP) can be a possible solution for these issues through coordination and scheduling of DER, storage, and flexible load, which results in secure operation with high penetration of DER and utility peak‐load reduction. In this paper, the Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER‐CAM) is utilized, which is a Mixed Integer Linear Programming‐based decision‐making tool. For determining the potential of VPP and its implications, a case study of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), a state power utility, is studied. The main objectives of the paper are cost minimization, peak‐load reduction, and reliability enhancement. The DER‐CAM model simulates different load profiles, and the optimal investment solution is determined, which ensures monetary benefits for both consumer and utility.

This paper presents the design and development of a bio-inspired flapping wing type Micro Air Vehicle (MAV). Bio-inspiration is implicated to design a flapping wing aerodynamic ornithopter, controlled using a micro scale integrated on-board electronic circuits and communication device. The study of flapping flight from an experimental standpoint brought insight into the liftgenerating mechanisms produced during flapping. These vehicles are meant to address a large number of civilian and military applications including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. A First Person View (FPV) approach is utilized to wirelessly pilot the vehicle and for surveillance. The integrated system concludes to present a multidimensional approach to design, develop and control a micro scale aerial vehicle for deployment.

Hydropower, large and small, remains by far the most important of the renewable sources for electrical power generation worldwide, providing 19% of the planet's electricity. Small hydro is one of the cost-effective and environmentally benign energy technologies to be considered for rural electrification in less developed countries. The installation cost of the small hydropower project is mainly divided into two parts -Civil works and electromechanical equipment. One of the most important element on the recovery of a small hydro-power plant is the electromechanical equipment (turbine-alternator). The cost of the equipment means a high percentage of the total budget of the plant. The present paper intends to develop a correlation to determine the cost based on the influencing parameters such as power and head. An attempt has been made to develop the trend of the cost of electromechanical equipment with the increase in head of the hydropower plant.

This paper proposes an effective approach to solve renewable distributed generators (RDGs) and electric vehicle charging station (EVCS) allocation problems in the distribution system (DS) to reduce power loss (PLoss) and enhance voltage profile. The RDGs considered for this work are solar, wind and fuel cell. The uncertainties related to RDGs are modelled using probability distribution functions (PDF). These sources’ best locations and sizes are identified by the voltage stability index (VSI) and political optimization algorithm (POA). Furthermore, EV charging strategies such as the conventional charging method (CCM) and optimized charging method (OCM) are considered to study the method’s efficacy. The developed approach is studied on Indian 28 bus DS. Different cases are considered, such as a single DG, multiple DGs and a combination of DGs and EVs. This placement of multiple DGs along with EVs, considering proper scheduling patterns, minimizes PLoss and considerably improves the voltage profile. Finally, the proposed method is compared with other algorithms, and simulated results show that the POA method produces better results in all aspects.