Design of a Bus Shelter Based on Green Energy Technologies for Extreme Weather Conditions in Astana: 5th International Conference on Nanomaterials and Advanced Energy Storage Systems (INESS-2017)

Nowadays the contribution of renewable energy sources to the worldwide energy demand is already significant and the trend is expected to be accentuated. The reasons are the numerous benefits such as reduction in greenhouse gas emission and dependence on fossil fuels. The Republic of Kazakhstan is also concerned with the development of the renewable energy sector. Moreover, green energy technologies in combination with conventional technologies can result in more economic solutions for various applications. The transportation segment has recently experienced rapid development in Astana and one of the popular projects in the city is the construction of “warm” bus shelters. Nevertheless, there are several problems with current bus shelters such as insufficient space for passengers and the use of grid electricity, which is mostly generated in heavily polluting coal-fired power plants. Thus, this paper proposes the modernization of the shelter at “Cardiac Surgery Center” bus stop by using an optimal combination of clean and conventional energy sources. The technical and financial viability analyses were performed using RETScreen 4 and HOMER LEGACY state-of-the-art software platforms, which permit to model complex energetic systems and determine the technical viability, while evaluating the cash flow life cycle cost performance within given financial and market conditions. Once our source-technology-demand-supply energy model was created, the simulations demonstrated that including a geothermal heat pump unit in the system would be a profitable solution with relatively short payback period. However, possible combinations of grid electricity with wind and solar energy technologies resulted in higher net present cost than the conventional only-grid connected system.