Designing Renewable Energy Systems within Planetary Boundaries: A Textbook for Energy Engineers

by Mika Järvinen (Editor), Hanna Paulomäki (Editor)

Overview

This open access book explores interdisciplinary sustainability for energy engineering students. Future generations of engineers need to be game changers. The book is designed to help future engineers redesign the world, avoid harmful lockdowns, and prevent the creation of new problems while transforming energy systems in economically profitable and ecologically sustainable ways. It explains the principles of planetary boundaries, addressing the most relevant ones throughout. The book's focus is on the primary methods for producing renewable power and heating. It discusses the fundamental technical and economic design principles involved. The book also covers key energy storage solutions and includes an overview of the impacts of renewable energy production on ecosystems. The book also serves as a useful guide for engineers working on renewable energy projects.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783031698552
Publisher:	Springer Nature Switzerland
Publication date:	05/16/2025
Series:	Green Energy and Technology
Edition description:	2025
Pages:	709
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mika Järvinen, Doctor of Science (Tech.), is working as a Professor at Aalto University in the School of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering. He currently works as the Head of Energy Conversion and Systems research group, and as the Director of Aalto University’s H2 Innovation Center. He received the doctoral degree from the Helsinki University of Technology 2002. After working 10 years as a post-doc researcher, he was accepted into the Professor’s Tenure-Track system at Aalto 2012. He has published 92 peer-reviewed journal articles (H-Index 21, Scopus) and more than 40 conference papers. He has one patent on mineral carbonation of CO2 (granted 2021). He has also supervised more than 130 Master’s theses, supervised 11 doctoral dissertations, and one licentiate thesis at Aalto. He has acted 13 times as an Opponent in doctoral defense and as a Pre-examiner. His current research work is related to Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) by different methods, sustainable renewable energy technologies, P2X applications and utilization of waste-based materials.

Hanna Paulomäki is an ecologist (MSc), trained facilitator and an experienced project lead who has worked with biodiversity and sustainability questions for over twenty years as an expert and in leadership positions in international organizations including HELCOM, Oceana and Greenpeace Norden. She has also worked in the Finnish Nature Panel that is an independent panel of scientific experts that supports nature and biodiversity policy planning and decision-making in Finland. She has discussed sustainability challenges in various reports, assessments, and book chapters, as well as developed virtual learning materials for energy engineers. At current she is working as a PhD-researcher in Energy and society research group at LUT University, Finland studying socio-ecological impacts of energy transition resulting from land use changes.

Table of Contents

Introduction.- Principles and Challenges of Energy Systems Relying on Renewable Energy.- Solar Energy.- Wind Power.- Bioenergy and Waste.- Energy Storage Systems.- Renewable Heat - Heat Pumps.- Summary and Future Directions.