Explore the vast range of titles available.

Cyprus launched its Competitive Electricity Market on 1 October 2025, marking a historic transition from monopolistic to liberalized electricity trading. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the market’s first month of operation, evaluating technical performance, price dynamics, market structure, and identifying critical barriers to achieving competitive benefits. Analysis reveals technically successful operation of clearing mechanisms and settlement processes, but economically constrained performance driven by persistent structural limitations. The market exhibits extreme price volatility characteristic of isolated systems, ranging from zero to 500 EUR/MWh, with pronounced diurnal patterns reflecting solar generation dynamics. The monthly wholesale price averaged at 167.78 EUR/MWh. The market remains highly concentrated with only 17 participants, shallow liquidity, and heavy reliance on conventional generation (86%) despite installed renewable capacity exceeding 1000 MW. Critical infrastructure deficits including absent natural gas infrastructure, lack of utility-scale storage, electrical isolation, and incomplete smart metering deployment represent fundamental barriers to achieving EU Target Model objectives. Based on infrastructure deployment scenarios and international benchmarking, we suggest potential reductions in the wholesale price of 12.5% (base scenario) to 15% (optimistic scenario) by the end of 2027, dependent on timely natural gas commissioning, storage deployment, and regulatory reform. Policy recommendations address immediate regulatory actions, medium-term market development priorities, and critical infrastructure investments essential for transitioning from technically operational to economically beneficial market operation. This analysis contributes to understanding the challenges that small, isolated electricity markets face when implementing EU liberalization frameworks while highlighting policy interventions required for successful market maturation.

As new sources of energy and advanced technologies are used, there is a continuous evolution in energy supply, demand, and distribution. Advanced nuclear reactors and clean hydrogen have the opportunity to scale together and diversify the hydrogen production market away from fossil fuel-based production. Nevertheless, the technical uncertainties surrounding nuclear hydrogen processes necessitate thorough research and a solid development effort. This paper aims to position pink hydrogen for nuclear hydrogen production at the forefront of sustainable energy-related solutions by offering a comprehensive review of recent advancements in nuclear hydrogen production, covering both research endeavors and industrial applications. It delves into various pink hydrogen generation methodologies, elucidating their respective merits and challenges. Furthermore, this paper analyzes the evolving landscape of pink hydrogen in terms of its levelized cost by comparatively assessing different production pathways. By synthesizing insights from academic research and industrial practices, this paper provides valuable perspectives for stakeholders involved in shaping the future of nuclear hydrogen production.

The long-term global target of facilitating energy security and optimizing resource utilization while supporting the transition to sustainable energy systems has led the pathway towards regional cooperation in the context of energy infrastructures and trading. Recent trends highlight the development of transnational energy grids, pipelines, and renewable energy projects, facilitating efficient distribution of electricity, gas, and other energy forms. These advancements offer benefits such as increased reliability of energy supply, cost savings through shared resources, and strengthened relationships between countries. However, challenges persist, including regulatory differences, geopolitical tensions, alignment of market rules as well as substantial investment requirements in infrastructure and technology. Addressing these challenges necessitates harmonized policies, robust legal frameworks, and cooperative international governance, which are crucial for effective cross-border energy trading. The aim of the work is to present the current landscape as well as analyze the latest trends and developments in the dynamic field of electricity interconnectors, providing insights into its trajectory and implications for the European internal energy market.

The global climate crisis necessitates the urgent implementation of sustainable practices and carbon emission reduction strategies across all sectors. Transport, as a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, requires transitional technologies to bridge the gap between fossil fuel dependency and renewable energy systems. Natural gas, recognised as the cleanest fossil-derived fuel with approximately half the CO2 emissions of coal and 75% of oil, presents a potential transitional solution through Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs). This manuscript presents several distinctive contributions that advance the understanding of Natural Gas Vehicles within the contemporary energy transition landscape while synthesising updated emission performance data. Specifically, the feasibility and sustainability of NGVs are investigated within the energy transition framework by systematically incorporating recent technological developments and environmental, economic, and infrastructure considerations in comparison to conventional vehicles (diesel and petrol) and unconventional alternatives (electric and hydrogen-fuelled). The analysis reveals that NGVs can reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 25% compared to petrol vehicles on a well-to-wheel basis, with significant reductions in NOx and particulate matter. However, these environmental benefits depend heavily on the source and type of natural gas used (CNG or LNG), while economic viability hinges largely on governmental policies and infrastructure development. The findings suggest that NGVs can serve as an effective transitional technology in the transport sector’s sustainability pathway, particularly in regions with established natural gas infrastructure, but require supportive policy frameworks to overcome implementation barriers.

The transition to low-carbon energy systems demands robust strategies that leverage existing fossil resources while integrating renewable technologies. In this work, a single-cycle Gaussian-based producibility model is developed to forecast natural gas production profiles, domestic consumption, export potential, hydrogen production and revenues, adaptive for untapped natural gas discoveries. Annual natural gas production is represented by a bell curve defined by peak year and maximum capacity, allowing flexible adaptation to different reserve sizes. The model integrates renewable energy adoption and steam–methane reforming to produce hydrogen, while tracking revenue streams from domestic sales, exports and hydrogen markets alongside carbon taxation. Applicability is demonstrated through a case study of Eastern Mediterranean gas discoveries, where combined reserves of 2399 bcm generate a production peak of 100 bcm/year in 2035 and deliver 40.71 billion kg of hydrogen by 2050, leaving 411.87 bcm of reserves. A focused Cyprus scenario with 411 bcm of reserves peaks at 10 bcm/year, produces 4.07 billion kg of hydrogen and retains 212.29 bcm of reserves. Cumulative revenues span from USD 84.37 billion under low hydrogen pricing to USD 247.29 billion regionally, while the Cyprus-focused case yields USD 1.79 billion to USD 18.08 billion. These results validate the model’s versatility for energy transition planning, enabling strategic insights into infrastructure deployment, market dynamics and resource management in gas-rich regions.

In this work a comprehensive analysis of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) as a pivotal technology for addressing global energy challenges while minimizing carbon emissions is presented. The study examines SMRs’ technical characteristics, economic considerations, and technological maturity, with particular emphasis on their potential as polygeneration systems. SMRs, representing evolutionary advancements of nuclear fission technology, offer near-term deployability, enhanced safety features, and modular economic benefits through factory fabrication and standardized production. The analysis specifically focuses on the competitiveness of SMRs in electricity, hydrogen and large-scale water desalination production. Through parametric optimization using complementary algorithms, the study rigorously quantifies SMR competitiveness by calculating the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE), Levelized Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH), and Levelized Cost of Water (LCOW) across varying capacity ranges (50–600 MWe) and capital costs (3000–8000 US $/kW). The results demonstrate that capital cost minimization is the primary factor for achieving cost-competitiveness, with economies of scale providing secondary benefits. The findings indicate that SMRs can achieve competitive LCOE values within the 40–100 US$ /MWh range for electricity markets, while hydrogen production costs range from 3.33 to 11.68 US $/kg and desalination costs from 0.40 to 0.98 US$ /m3, positioning SMRs as economically viable solutions for integrated energy–water–hydrogen systems.

The energy transition of Cyprus presents a distinctive case study influenced by its geographic isolation, regulatory evolution, and the imperative to integrate renewable energy sources (RESs). This paper critically examines the chronological progression of Cyprus’ energy transition, beginning with the formulation of a liberalized electricity market aligned with the European Union’s Target Model. The analysis explores key drivers underpinning increased RES investments, while addressing the transformative impacts of global disruptions on energy security and policy priorities. Furthermore, it assesses pivotal regulatory reforms and the advancement of enabling infrastructure, such as advanced metering systems and cross–border interconnections, which underpin the island’s energy modernization efforts. Finally, this paper identifies opportunities for Cyprus to position itself as a regional smart energy hub, offering valuable insights into the challenges and prospects faced by isolated energy systems within the context of the European energy transition.

The variability and uncertainty caused by the increased penetrations of renewable energy sources must be properly considered in day-ahead unit commitment, optimal power flow, and even real-time economic dispatch problems. Besides achieving minimum cost, modern generation schedules must satisfy a larger set of different complex constraints. These account for the generation constraints in the presence of renewable generation, network constraints affected by the distributed energy resources, bilateral contracts enclosing independent capacity provision, ancillary power auctions, net-metering and feed-in-tariff prosumers, and corrective security actions in sudden load variations or outage circumstances. In this work, a new method is presented to appropriately enhance the integration of distributed energy resources in low-inertia power grids. Based on optimal unit commitment schedules derived from priority-based dynamic programming, the potential of increasing the renewable capacity was examined, performing simulations for different scenarios. To ameliorate the expensive requirement of computational complexity, this approach aimed at eliminating the increased exploration-exploitation efforts. On the contrary, its promising solution relies on the evolutionary commitment of the next optimum configuration based on priority-list schemes to accommodate the intermittent generation progressively. This is achieved via the collection of mappings that transform many-valued clausal forms into satisfiability equivalent Boolean expressions.

Electrical energy storage (EES) constitutes a potential candidate capable of regulating the power generation to match the loads via time-shifting. Optimally planned, EES facilities can meet the increasing requirement of reserves to manage the variability and uncertainty of renewable energy sources (RES) whilst improving the system operation efficiency and economics. In this work, the impact of intermittent RES on total production cost (TPC) is evaluated in the presence and absence of storage, using annual data regarding the non-interconnected power system of the island of Cyprus. Performing weekly simulations for the entire year of 2017, TPC is computed by solving the unit commitment based on a constrained Lagrange Relaxation method. Seven selected EES technologies are modeled and evaluated via a life-cycle cost analysis, based on the most realistic technical and cost data found in the literature. The results derived from the uncertainty analysis performed, show that zinc-air (Zn-air) battery offers the highest net present value (NPV). Lead-acid (Pb-acid) and sodium-sulfur (Na-S) are considered viable solutions in terms of mean NPV and investment risk. Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery exhibits a particularly expensive choice. Dominated by its increased capital cost which still governs its overall cost performance Li-ion achieves a negative mean NPV far below zero. However, to strengthen the benefits derived from EES integration, further research and development is needed improving the performance and costs of storage. The uncertainty governing the majority of EES technologies, in turn, will be reduced, increasing their participation and RES contribution in autonomous power system operations.

The accelerated growth of the energy economy is still highly dependent on finite fossil fuel reserves. Modern power systems could not exist without the many forms of electricity storage that can be integrated at different levels of the power chain. This work contains a review of the most important applications in which storage provides electricity-market opportunities along with other benefits such as arbitrage, balancing and reserve power sources, voltage and frequency control, investment deferral, cost management and load shaping and levelling. Using a 5 function normalization technique a comparative assessment of 19 electrical energy storage (EES) technologies, based on their technical and operational characteristics, is carried out and the technology-application pairs identified across the power chain are presented. In terms of safety and simplicity, Pbacid and Li-ion systems are viable options for small-scale residential applications, while advanced Pb-acid and molten-salt batteries are suited to medium-to-large scale applications including commercial and industrial consumers. In addition to their expected use in the transportation sector in the coming years, regenerative fuel cells and flow batteries have intriguing potential to offer in stationary applications once they are mature for commercialization. For large-scale/energy-management applications, pumped hydro is the most reliable energy storage option (over compressed-air alternatives) whereas flywheels, supercapacitors and superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) are still focused on power-based applications. As different parts in the power system involve different stakeholders and services, each technology with its own benefits and weaknesses requires research and development in order to emerge over others and contribute to more effective energy production in the future.