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Forest biomass harvesting guidelines help ensure the ecological sustainability of forest residue harvesting for bioenergy and bioproducts, and hence contribute to social license for a growing bioeconomy. Guidelines, typically voluntary, provide a means to achieve outcomes often required by legislation, and must address needs related to local or regional context, jurisdictional compatibility with regulations, issues of temporal and spatial scale, and incorporation of appropriate scientific information. Given this complexity, comprehensive reviews of existing guidelines can aid in development of new guidelines or revision of existing ones. We reviewed 32 guidelines covering 43 jurisdictions in the USA, Canada, Europe and East Asia to expand upon information evaluated and recommendations provided in previous guideline reviews, and compiled a searchable spreadsheet of direct quotations from documents as a foundation for our review. Guidelines were considered in the context of sustainable forest management (SFM), focusing on guideline scope and objectives, environmental sustainability concerns (soils, site productivity, biodiversity, water and carbon) and social concerns (visual aesthetics, recreation, and preservation of cultural, historical and archaeological sites). We discuss the role of guidelines within the context of other governance mechanisms such as SFM policies, trade regulations and non-state market-driven (NSMD) standards, including certification systems. The review provides a comprehensive resource for those developing guidelines, or defining sustainability standards for market access or compliance with public regulations, and/or concerned about the sustainability of forest biomass harvesting. We recommend that those developing or updating guidelines consider (i) the importance of well-defined and understood terminology, consistent where possible with guidelines in other jurisdictions or regions; (ii) guidance based on locally relevant research, and periodically updated to incorporate current knowledge and operational experience; (iii) use of indicators of sensitive soils, sites, and stands which are relevant to ecological processes and can be applied operationally; and (iv) incorporation of climate impacts, long-term soil carbon storage, and general carbon balance considerations when defining sustainable forest biomass availability. Successful implementation of guidelines depends both on the relevance of the information and on the process used to develop and communicate it; hence, appropriate stakeholders should be involved early in guideline development.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology has developed rapidly in the past decades and is essential in electricity generation. In this study, we demonstrate the relationship between PV incentive policies, technology innovation and market development in China, Germany, Japan and the United States of America (USA) by conducting a statistical data survey and systematic literature review. This article investigates the key policies affecting the development of PV technology from the perspective of solar PV Research and Development (R&D), industry, and market development. Our study highlights how these different kinds of policies drive the countries to change their role on the global stage. The results show the performance of supply-push policies and demand-pull policies during different periods and their significant impact on PV development, while it presenting future challenges and recommendations for PV development. Our study contributes to improve the understanding of PV technology innovation, its market development, and policy evolution through a multiple-perspective analysis of PV development processes.

There is a need to clarify the coupling characteristics of terrain‐induced wind fields and wind turbine‐induced wake in wind farm micrositing. However, research investigating the effect of hill shape on this interaction is lacking. In addition, during the optimization of the layout of the turbines over topographies, the flow behind the turbines should be predicted in a fast way. After obtaining the wake flow of the turbine mounted on flat terrain and the flow over the topographies, there are mainly two superposition methods to predict the turbine wake flow over the topographies. One is to add the wind deficit following the location with a vertical distance of the hub height (D‐line). The other is to add the wind deficit following the streamline starting from the turbine center (B‐line). It remains unknown to what extent these two superposition methods can be adopted. Therefore, the effects of hill shape, wind turbine size, and turbine location are investigated. When the wind deficit, obtained from modeling the wake flow of the turbine mounted on flat terrain, is superposed following B‐line, the results are overall better than those when following D‐line.

Demand for sustainably produced biomass is expected to increase with the need to provide renewable commodities, improve resource security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with COP26 commitments. Studies have demonstrated additional environmental benefits of using perennial biomass crops (PBCs), when produced appropriately, as a feedstock for the growing bioeconomy, including utilisation for bioenergy (with or without carbon capture and storage). PBCs can potentially contribute to Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (2023–27) objectives provided they are carefully integrated into farming systems and landscapes. Despite significant research and development (R&D) investment over decades in herbaceous and coppiced woody PBCs, deployment has largely stagnated due to social, economic and policy uncertainties. This paper identifies the challenges in creating policies that are acceptable to all actors. Development will need to be informed by measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of greenhouse gas emissions reductions and other environmental, economic and social metrics. It discusses interlinked issues that must be considered in the expansion of PBC production: (i) available land; (ii) yield potential; (iii) integration into farming systems; (iv) R&D requirements; (v) utilisation options; and (vi) market systems and the socio‐economic environment. It makes policy recommendations that would enable greater PBC deployment: (1) incentivise farmers and land managers through specific policy measures, including carbon pricing, to allocate their less productive and less profitable land for uses which deliver demonstrable greenhouse gas reductions; (2) enable greenhouse gas mitigation markets to develop and offer secure contracts for commercial developers of verifiable low‐carbon bioenergy and bioproducts; (3) support innovation in biomass utilisation value chains; and (4) continue long‐term, strategic R&D and education for positive environmental, economic and social sustainability impacts. Perennial biomass crops (PBCs) can potentially contribute to Common Agricultural Policy (2023–27) objectives provided they are carefully integrated into farming systems and landscapes. Despite significant research and development (R&D) investment over decades in herbaceous and coppiced woody PBCs, deployment has largely stagnated due to social, economic and policy uncertainties. This paper identifies the challenges in creating policies that are acceptable to all actors and discusses the interlinked issues: (i) available land; (ii) yield potential; (iii) integration into farming systems; (iv) R&D requirements; (v) utilisation options; and (vi) market systems and the socio‐economic environment.

The use of a turbo‐sail airfoil to improve the power generation of a Darrieus wind turbine was examined. The turbo‐sail airfoil comprises a symmetric blade from which a high‐speed tangential jet is produced to suppress flow separation. For a steady angle of attack, we experimentally confirmed an anti‐stall function of the airfoil at an angle of attack up to and exceeding 30°. Considering the case of the rotation of a single blade of a Darrieus wind turbine, the flow field was replaced with a non‐separated stream around the airfoil particularly even at a tip‐speed ratio lower than 3. The pressure field and local lift‐to‐drag ratio measured by particle image velocimetry quantitatively supported the expected anti‐stall function. Improvements in the torque and power coefficient were estimated from measurements considering the external power consumed in supplying the jet.

Energy efficiency is crucial for achieving a balance between economic growth and sustainable development. As carbon-neutral targets continue to gain momentum, green investments are becoming increasingly important. Therefore, it is critical to investigate the relationship between green investment and energy efficiency. This paper aims to fill a gap in the macroeconomic literature by using a generalized method of moments (GMM) technique based on panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2006 to 2019. The econometric results indicate that green investment is positively associated with energy efficiency. Additionally, green investment indirectly promotes energy efficiency by fostering technology innovation and research and development (R&D) intensity. The results also suggest that more advanced digital development is linked to improvements in energy efficiency. Furthermore, regions characterized by higher levels of digital economy exhibit a more pronounced contribution of green investment to energy efficiency. Based on these findings, this paper provides valuable insights for Chinese policymakers on green investment and low-carbon development.

Ramp phenomena caused by abrupt changes in wind speed may confound the stable operation of correlated electrical power supply systems, yet accurate numerical predictions are challenging, as the wind is affected by complex interactions between large‐scale weather patterns and local geographical conditions. Further, optimal numerical weather prediction (NWP) methods and physics schemes vary as a function of weather patterns. The present study proposed a new real‐time wind power ramp forecast framework based on the flexible selection of optimal NWP models, which were derived via principal component analysis (PCA). The novelty of this analysis lies in that statistical methods were employed for NWP optimization, compared with their more conventional use during an NWP postprocessing. Here, a weather pattern was classified by PCA using outcomes from the global‐scale prediction models, and the optimum regional NWP system settings were acquired according to the weather patterns for further wind field dynamical downscaling. The performance of the developed prediction system was verified with wind power at wind turbine hub‐heights for three areas in eastern Japan, and the Critical Success Index (CSI) indicated an improvement of prediction accuracy over benchmark predictions by ≤0.184 for ramp‐up events and ≤0.127 for ramp‐down events (both observed in Tohoku area). Higher CSI values were consistently seen in three wind farm areas, indicative of the improvement in detection probability for actual ramp events compared with benchmark.