The vigorous expansion of renewable energy as a substitute for fossil energy is the predominant route of action to achieve worldwide carbon neutrality. However, clean energy supplies in multi-energy building districts are still at the preliminary stages for energy paradigm transitions. In particular, technologies and methodologies for large-scale renewable energy integrations are still not sufficiently sophisticated, in terms of intelligent control management. Artificial intelligent (AI) techniques powered renewable energy systems can learn from bio-inspired lessons and provide power systems with intelligence. However, there are few in-depth dissections and deliberations on the roles of AI techniques for large-scale integrations of renewable energy and decarbonisation in multi-energy systems. This study summarizes the commonly used AI-related approaches and discusses their functional advantages when being applied in various renewable energy sectors, as well as their functional contribution to optimizing the operational control modalities of renewable energy and improving the overall operational effectiveness. This study also presents practical applications of various AI techniques in large-scale renewable energy integration systems, and analyzes their effectiveness through theoretical explanations and diverse case studies. In addition, this study introduces limitations and challenges associated with the large-scale renewable energy integrations for carbon neutrality transition using relevant AI techniques, and proposes further promising research perspectives and recommendations. This comprehensive review ignites advanced AI techniques for large-scale renewable integrations and provides valuable informational instructions and guidelines to different stakeholders (e.g., engineers, designers and scientists) for carbon neutrality transition.

Spatiotemporal energy interaction and sharing are promising solutions to penetrate renewable energy, enhance grid power stability, and improve regional energy flexibility. However, the current literature is restrained in a small-scale neighborhood level, without considering inter-city energy migration through spatiotemporal complementarity between renewable-abundant regions (like suburb or countryside areas) and demand-shortage regions (like city centers). In this study, the energy interaction boundary is extended from a neighborhood scale to an inter-city scale, to maximize the renewable energy penetration, demand coverage, and reduce regional energy imbalance. This study firstly proposes a holistic framework on inter-city transportation-based energy migration, consisting of a residential community with rooftop photovoltaic systems and electrical batteries, an office building, hydrogen vehicles (HVs), a hydrogen (H₂) station, and local power grids, for the energy transmission between building groups in spatially different regions through the daily commuting of HVs. Optimal grid-regulation strategies are thereafter proposed and adopted to stabilize the grid power and reduce energy costs. Parametric analysis on energy trading strategies and prices has been conducted, to improve the participation motivations of different stakeholders. Results indicate that, compared to the reference case with isolated buildings and vehicles, the transportation-based energy migration framework covers 23.2 % of the office energy demand and elevates the community's renewable self-use ratio from 72.7 % to 98.6 %. Meanwhile, the maximum grid-export power in the renewable-abundant region (suburb residential community) and the annual grid-import power in the demand-shortage region (city-center office) are reduced by up to 86.9 % (from 155.7 to 20.4 kW) and 29.4 % (from 49.0 to 34.6 kW), respectively. Moreover, even considering the fuel cell degradation cost of HVs, the transportation-based energy migration framework reduces the operating costs of the office building and HVs (the H₂ cost and the fuel cell degradation cost) by 16.4 % (from $52791.3 to $44154.7) and 1.7 % (from $27172.5 to $26707.4), respectively. Afterward, compared to the reference case, the peak-shaving and load-shaping grid-regulation strategies can decrease the peak grid-export power of the community by about 71.6 % (from 155.7 to 44.2 kW), and the maximum grid-import power of the office by 23.7 % (from 49.0 to 37.4 kW), respectively. Furthermore, the transportation-based energy migration framework is economically feasible, only when the renewable export price for H₂ production is 0.07 $/kWh, the onsite-renewable-generated H₂ lower than 6.5 $/kg for the HV owners, and the vehicle-to-building electricity lower than 0.3 $/kWh for the office building. This study provides a novel inter-city energy migration framework with hydrogen networks to enhance district energy sharing, improve regional energy balance and reduce carbon emission, together with frontier guidelines on energy trading prices to promote participation motivations from different stakeholders.

Shallow subterranean ventilation of earth-to-air heat exchanger (EAHE) system can improve renewable utilisation, decrease CO ₂ emission and promote carbon-neutral transition. However, the conventional EAHE system has drawbacks, e.g., large occupied land area, low energy-usage efficiency, small falling gradient for buried pipe and fluctuated outlet air temperature. This study proposes a vertical EAHE integrated with annular PCM with advantages, including less occupied floor space, higher energy efficiency, better centralised discharge of air condensate water and more stable outlet air temperature. An experimental test-rig was established for online testing and the real-time monitored data was for modelling calibration to characterise the sophisticated heat transfer in phase change process. Afterwards, multivariant analysis on thermo-physical PCM parameters was conducted on cooling capacity and outlet air temperature fluctuation. A dimensionality reduction approach from redundant experiments was adopted for multivariant optimization and sensitivity analysis. Results show that PCM fusion temperature and latent heat of PCM dominate the cooling capacity with percentage contribution of 37.61% and 28.91%, respectively. PCM thickness and melting temperature dominate the temperature fluctuation with percentage contribution of 31.27% and 26.18%, respectively. This study provides benchmark and guidelines on PCM thermo-physical parameters’ selection with an efficient dimensionality reduction approach, paving path for application of the vertical EAHE integrated with PCMs in buildings.

Hydrogen-based (H₂-based) interactive energy networks for buildings and transportations provide novel solutions for carbon-neutrality transition, regional energy flexibility and independence on fossil fuel consumption, where vehicle fuel cells are key components for H₂-electricity conversion and clean power supply. However, due to the complexity in thermodynamic working environments and frequent on/off operations, the proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) suffer from performance degradation, depending on cabin heat balance and power requirements, and the ignorance of the degradation may lead to the performance overestimation. In order to quantify fuel cell degradation in both daily cruise and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) interactions, this study firstly proposes a two-space cabin thermal model to quantify the ambient temperature of vehicle PEMFCs and the power supply from PEMFCs to vehicle HVAC systems. Afterwards, a stack voltage model is proposed to quantify the fuel cell degradation for multiple purposes, such as daily transportation and V2G interactions. Afterwards, the two models are coupled in a community-level based building-vehicle energy network, consisting of twenty single residential buildings, rooftop PV systems, four hydrogen vehicles (HVs), a H₂ station, community-served micro power grid, local main power grid, and local H₂ pipelines, located in California, U.S.A. Comparative analysis with and without fuel cell degradation is conducted to study the impact of dynamic fuel cell degradation on the energy flexibility and operating cost. Furthermore, a parametrical analysis is conducted on the integrated HV quantity and the grid feed-in tariff to reach trade-off strategies between associated fuel cell degradation costs and grid import cost savings. The results indicate that, in the proposed hydrogen-based building-vehicle energy network, the total fuel cell degradation is 3.16% per vehicle within one year, where 2.50% and 0.66% are caused by daily transportation and V2G interactions, respectively. Furthermore, in the H₂-based residential community, the total fuel cell degradation cost is US$6945.2, accounting for 33.4% of the total operating cost at $20770.61. The sensitivity analysis results showed that, when the HV quantity increases to twenty, the fuel cell degradation of each HV decreases to 2.50%, whereas the total fuel cell degradation cost increases to 42.8% of the total operating cost. Last but not the least, the cost saving by V2G interactions can compensate the fuel cell degradation cost when the grid feed-in tariff is reduced by 40%. Research results can provide basic modelling tools on dynamic fuel cell degradation, in respect to vehicle power supply, vehicle HVAC and V2G interactions, together with techno-economic feasibility analysis, paving path for the development of hydrogen energy for the carbon-neutrality transition.

Geothermal energy with abundance and large quantity can partially cover building heating/cooling loads and promote the carbon-neutrality transitions. Shallow geothermal ventilation (SGV) system, with a little initial investment cost, is one of promising technologies to partly replace the conventional air-conditioning system for air pre-cooling/pre-heating. This paper reviews applications of SGV system for improving thermal performance over latest two decades, which mainly includes the reclassification of SGV system, coupling with other advanced energy-saving technologies, application potentials for building cooling/heating under various weather conditions. Heat transfer mechanism and mathematical modelling techniques have been reviewed, together with in-depth analysis on current research trends, existing limitations, and recommendations of SGV system. Phase change materials, with considerable latent energy density, can stabilize the thermal performance with high reliability. The review identifies that optimization designs and advanced approaches need to be investigated to address the existing urgent issues of SGV system (e.g., large land occupation, difficulty in centralized collection of condensate water timely for horizontal buried pipe, bacteria growth, polluted supply air, and high construction cost for vertical buried pipe). A plenty of studies show that the SGV system could greatly expand the application scope and improve system energy efficiency by combining with other energy-saving technologies. This paper will provide some guidelines for the scientific researchers and engineers to keep track on recent advancements and research trends of SGV system for the building thermal performance enhancement and pave path for future research works.

Cleaner power production, distributed renewable generation, building-vehicle integration, hydrogen storage and associated infrastructures are promising for transformation towards a carbon–neutral community, whereas the academia provides limited information through integrated solutions, like intermittent renewable integration, hydrogen sharing network, smart operation on electrolyzer and fuel cell, seasonal hydrogen storage and advanced heat recovery. This study proposes a hybrid electricity-hydrogen sharing system in California, United States, with synergistic electric, thermal and hydrogen interactions, including low-rise houses, rooftop photovoltaic panels, hydrogen vehicles, a hydrogen station, micro and utility power grid and hydrogen pipelines. Advanced energy management strategies were proposed to enhance energy flexibility and grid stability. Besides, simulation-based optimizations on smart power flows of vehicle-to-grid interaction and electrolyzer are conducted for further seasonal grid stability and annual cost saving. The obtained results indicate that, the green renewable-to-hydrogen can effectively reduce reliance on pipelines delivered hydrogen, and the hydrogen station is effective to address security concerns of high-pressure hydrogen and improve participators’ acceptance. Microgrid peer-to-peer sharing can improve hydrogen system efficiency under idling modes. Furthermore, the integrated system can reduce the annual net hydrogen consumption in transportation from 127.0 to 1.2 kg/vehicle. The smart operation (minimum input power of electrolyzer and fuel cell at 65 and 80 kW) can reduce the maximum mean hourly grid power to 78.2 kW by 24.2% and the annual energy cost to 1228.5 $/household by 38.9%. The proposed district hydrogen-based community framework can provide cutting-edge techno-economic guidelines for carbon-neutral transition with district peer-to-peer energy sharing, zero-energy buildings, hydrogen-based transportations together with smart strategies for high energy flexibility.