The climate changes that are becoming visible today are a challenge for the global research community. The stationary applications sector is one of the most important energy consumers. Harnessing the potential of renewable energy worldwide is currently being considered to find alternatives for obtaining energy by using technologies that offer maximum efficiency and minimum pollution. In this context, new energy generation technologies are needed to both generate low carbon emissions, as well as identifying, planning and implementing the directions for harnessing the potential of renewable energy sources. Hydrogen fuel cell technology represents one of the alternative solutions for future clean energy systems. This article reviews the specific characteristics of hydrogen energy, which recommends it as a clean energy to power stationary applications. The aim of review was to provide an overview of the sustainability elements and the potential of using hydrogen as an alternative energy source for stationary applications, and for identifying the possibilities of increasing the share of hydrogen energy in stationary applications, respectively. As a study method was applied a SWOT analysis, following which a series of strategies that could be adopted in order to increase the degree of use of hydrogen energy as an alternative to the classical energy for stationary applications were recommended. The SWOT analysis conducted in the present study highlights that the implementation of the hydrogen economy depends decisively on the following main factors: legislative framework, energy decision makers, information and interest from the end beneficiaries, potential investors, and existence of specialists in this field.

The Metaverse allows the integration of physical and digital versions of users, processes, and environments where entities communicate, transact, and socialize. With the shift towards Extended Reality (XR) technologies, the Metaverse is envisioned to support a wide range of applicative verticals. It will support a seamless mix of physical and virtual worlds (realities) and, thus, will be a game changer for the Future Internet, built on the Semantic Web framework. The Metaverse will be ably assisted by the convergence of emerging wireless communication networks (such as Fifth-Generation and Beyond networks) or Sixth-Generation (6G) networks, Blockchain (BC), Web 3.0, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). It has the potential for convergence in diverse industrial applications such as digital twins, telehealth care, connected vehicles, virtual education, social networks, and financial applications. Recent studies on the Metaverse have focused on explaining its key components, but a systematic study of the Metaverse in terms of industrial applications has not yet been performed. Owing to this gap, this survey presents the salient features and assistive Metaverse technologies. We discuss a high-level and generic Metaverse framework for modern industrial cyberspace and discuss the potential challenges and future directions of the Metaverse’s realization. A case study on Metaverse-assisted Real Estate Management (REM) is presented, where the Metaverse governs a Buyer–Broker–Seller (BBS) architecture for land registrations. We discuss the performance evaluation of the current land registration ecosystem in terms of cost evaluation, trust probability, and mining cost on the BC network. The obtained results show the viability of the Metaverse in REM setups.

Nowadays, the demand for soft-biometric-based devices is increasing rapidly because of the huge use of electronics items such as mobiles, laptops and electronic gadgets in daily life. Recently, the healthcare department also emerged with soft-biometric technology, i.e., face biometrics, because the entire data, i.e., (gender, age, face expression and spoofing) of patients, doctors and other staff in hospitals is managed and forwarded through digital systems to reduce paperwork. This concept makes the relation friendlier between the patient and doctors and makes access to medical reports and treatments easier, anywhere and at any moment of life. In this paper, we proposed a new soft-biometric-based methodology for a secure biometric system because medical information plays an essential role in our life. In the proposed model, 5-layer U-Net-based architecture is used for face detection and Alex-Net-based architecture is used for classification of facial information i.e., age, gender, facial expression and face spoofing, etc. The proposed model outperforms the other state of art methodologies. The proposed methodology is evaluated and verified on six benchmark datasets i.e., NUAA Photograph Imposter Database, CASIA, Adience, The Images of Groups Dataset (IOG), The Extended Cohn-Kanade Dataset CK+ and The Japanese Female Facial Expression (JAFFE) Dataset. The proposed model achieved an accuracy of 94.17% for spoofing, 83.26% for age, 95.31% for gender and 96.9% for facial expression. Overall, the modification made in the proposed model has given better results and it will go a long way in the future to support soft-biometric based applications.

In Smart Grid (SG), Transactive Energy Management (TEM) is one of the most promising approaches to boost consumer participation in energy generation, energy management, and establishing decentralized energy market models using Peer-to-Peer (P2P). In P2P, a prosumer produces electric energy at their place using Renewable Energy Resources (RES) such as solar energy, wind energy, etc. Then, this generated energy is traded with consumers (who need the energy) in a nearby locality. P2P facilitates energy exchange in localized micro-energy markets of the TEM system. Such decentralized P2P energy management could cater to diverse prosumers and utility business models. However, the existing P2P approaches suffer from several issues such as single-point-of-failure, network bandwidth, scalability, trust, and security issues. To handle the aforementioned issues, this paper proposes a Decentralized and Transparent P2P Energy Trading (DT-P2PET) scheme using blockchain. The proposed DT-P2PET scheme aims to reduce the grid’s energy generation and management burden while also increasing profit for both consumers and prosumers through a dynamic pricing mechanism. The DT-P2PET scheme uses Ethereum-blockchain-based Smart Contracts (SCs) and InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) for the P2P energy trading. Furthermore, a recommender mechanism is also introduced in this study to increase the number of prosumers. The Ethereum SCs are designed and deployed to perform P2P in real time in the proposed DT-P2PET scheme. The DT-P2PET scheme is evaluated based on the various parameters such as profit generation (for prosumer and consumer both), data storage cost, network bandwidth, and data transfer rate in contrast to the existing approaches.

Nowadays, the evolution of solar energy use has turned into a profound issue because of the implications of many points of view, such as technical, social, economic and environmental that impose major constraints for policy-makers in optimizing solar energy alternatives. The topographical constraints regarding the availability of inexhaustible solar energy is driving field development and highlights the need for increasingly more complex solar power systems. The solar energy is an inexhaustible source of CO₂ emission-free energy at a global level. Solar thermal technologies may produce electric power when they are associated with thermal energy storage, and this may be used as a disposable source of limitless energy. Furthermore, it can also be used in industrial processes. Using these high-tech systems in a large area of practice emboldens progress at the performance level. This work compiles the latest literature in order to provide a timely review of the evolution and worldwide implementation of Concentrated Solar Power—CSP—mechanization. The objective of this analysis is to provide thematic documentation as a basis for approaching the concept of a polygeneration solar system and the implementation possibilities. It also aims to highlight the role of the CSP in the current and future world energy system.