Nowadays, fossil energy continues to dominate China’s energy usage; its inefficient use and large crude emissions of coal and fuel oil in its end-consumption have brought about great pressure to reduce emissions. Electrical power substitution as a development strategy is an important step toward achieving sustainable development, the transformation of the end-use energy consumption structure, and double carbon goals. To better guide the broad promotion of electrical power substitution, and to offer theoretical support for its development, this paper quantifies the amount of electrical power substitution and the influencing factors that affect the potential of electrical energy substitution. This paper proposes a hybrid model, combining Tent chaos mapping (Tent), chicken swarm optimization (CSO), Cauchy–Gaussian mutation (CG), the sparrow search algorithm (SSA), and a support vector machine (SVM), as a Tent-CSO-CG-SSA-SVM model, which first uses the method of Tent chaos mapping to initialize the sparrow population in order to increase population diversity and improve the search ability of the algorithm. Then, the CSO is introduced to update the positions of sparrows, and the CG method is introduced to make the algorithm jump out of the local optimum, in order to improve the global search ability of the SSA. Finally, the final electrical power substitution potential prediction model is obtained by optimizing the SVM through a multi-algorithm combination approach. To verify the validity of the model, two regions in China were used as case studies for the prediction analysis of electrical energy substitution potential, and the prediction results were compared with multiple models. The results of the study show that Tent-CSO-CG-SSA-SVM offers a good improvement in prediction accuracy, and that Tent-CSO-CG-SSA-SVM is a promising method for the prediction of electrical power substitution potential.

Accurate and stable load forecasting has great significance to ensure the safe operation of distributed energy system. For the purpose of improving the accuracy and stability of distributed energy system load forecasting, a forecasting model in view of kernel principal component analysis (KPCA), kernel extreme learning machine (KELM) and fireworks algorithm (FWA) is proposed. First, KPCA modal is used to reduce the dimension of the feature, thus redundant input samples are merged. Next, FWA is employed to optimize the parameters C and σ of KELM. Lastly, the load forecasting modal of KPCA-FWA-KELM is established. The relevant data of a distributed energy system in Beijing, China, is selected for training test to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results show that the new hybrid KPCA-FWA-KELM method has superior performance, robustness and versatility in load prediction of distributed energy systems.

Nickel ore sand and its concentrate are the main sources of raw nickel materials in various countries. Due to its uneven distribution throughout the world, the international trade of nickel ore sand is also unstable. Looking for potential links in the changing international nickel ore trade can help governments find potential partners, make strategic preparations in advance, and quickly find new partners when original trade relationships break down. In this paper, we build an international nickel ore trade network using a link prediction method to find potential trade relations between countries. The results show that China and Italy, China and Denmark, China and Indonesia, and China and India are most likely to establish trade relations within five years. Finally, according to the research results, suggestions regarding the international nickel ore trade are proposed.

Sustainability evaluation of regional microgrid interconnection system is conducive to a profound and comprehensive understanding of the impact of interconnection system projects. In order to realize the comprehensive and scientific intelligent evaluation of the system, this paper proposes an evaluation model based on combination entropy weight rank order-technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) and Niche Immune Lion Algorithm-Extreme Learning Machine with Kernel (NILA-KELM). Firstly, the sustainability evaluation indicator system of the regional microgrid interconnection system is constructed from four aspects of economic, environmental, social, and technical characteristics, and the evaluation indicators are explained. Then, the classical evaluation model based on TOPSIS is constructed, and the entropy weight method and rank order method (RO) are coupled to obtain the indicator weight. The niche immune algorithm is used to improve the lion algorithm, and the improved lion algorithm is used to optimize the parameters of KELM, and the intelligent evaluation model based on NILA-KELM is obtained to realize fast real-time calculation. Finally, the scientificity and accuracy of the model proposed in this paper are verified. The model proposed in this paper has the lowest RMSE, MAE and RE values, indicating that its intelligent evaluation results are the most accurate. This study is conducive to the horizontal comparison of the overall performance of regional microgrid interconnection system projects, helps investors to choose the most promising project scheme, and helps the government to find feasible project.

In recent years, with the rapid development of the lithium-ion battery industry, the massive upstream consumption of mineral raw materials has led to great crises and challenges in balancing global supply and demand. A diversity of trading partners can effectively alleviate the pressure of supply and demand for raw materials; so, it is particularly important for trading countries to find suitable trading partners. This study takes nine important minerals contained in the main element raw materials of lithium-ion batteries as the research object, and the international trade data range from 2011 to 2020. The study combines complex networks and motifs and links prediction methods to predict the potential international trade relations of the nine minerals based on the actual network topology. We summarize three trade link rules as follows. (1) The predicted links have a timeliness requirement, and they generally turn into actual trade links within 3 years. (2) When looking for trading partners, trading countries tend to establish long-term and stable trade relations. (3) The existing trade relations will promote the establishment of predicted trade relations. In addition, we find that successfully predicted links will promote the formation of important motifs in the network. This study can provide a theoretical basis for trading countries to find suitable trading partners and can strengthen the safety of trading countries in the trade of the main element minerals for lithium-ion batteries.