SYSTEM DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF A RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE POWERED MICROGRID
Postgraduate
ABSTRACT
Today there is a great need for alternative new energy sources at cheaper development prices than those required from a traditional power plants. The renewable generation technologies are and will become both cheaper and more beneficial for our environment than other traditional means of productions. As
Renewable Energy Generation technologies advance, it is important that Power
Systems Engineers investigate carefully the Smart Grid and specially the Islanded Microgrid. Microgrid System Design Solutions that seek zero Emissions are more important as pollutants from traditional plants contribute to the contamination of the environment. In this thesis we use a Systems Engineering approach to design and analyze a typical Islanded Microgrid in order to seek zero emission Microgrids at the lowest possible cost. This study designs the Microgrid as a Smart Grid; we use and follow the design by considering engineering Standards from NIST and IEEE. Then we develop initial Microgrid System design and architecture. The System then is
Analyzed and simulated in HOMER. Finally, a
Tradeoff analysis is performed to search design variations and their effect on
system cost as well as on environmental emissions.
The Future Forward Towards
Smart Grids and Microgrids Traditional
Means of Energy Production are typically centralized. Many of these are the in
the form of Coal power plants, and nuclear plants. This way of generating power
has served well the humanity during the last century. However, they are mostly
inefficient and pollutant. To generate power, those systems use mainly fossil
fuels, which are heavy environmental pollutants and also are available in
reduced quantities year by year. 50% to 70% of the fuel used to produce power
is lost as heat waste and around 8% of the generated power is lost in
transmission lines. The infrastructure has large maintenance costs and its
complexity makes the whole system vulnerable and prone to failures and
black-outs. New enterprises in this market are difficult due to regulations and
the large initial capital needed. [21]. As
Renewable Energy Generation technology advances, it is important that Power
Systems Engineers investigate carefully the Smart Grid and especially the
Islanded mode Microgrid. The renewable generations technologies are and will
become both cheaper and more beneficial for our environment than other
traditional means of energy production. And attempts to design Microgrid System
Solutions that allow for zero Emissions are becoming more important as
pollutants from traditional plants will effectively contribute to the
contamination of the environment and the need for new energy sources at cheaper
starting prices than those required from a traditional power plant. Introduction
What is a Microgrid? The
Department of Energy defines a microgrid as “A group of interconnected loads
and distributed energy resources (DER) with clearly defined electrical
boundaries that acts as a single controllable entity with respect to the grid
[and can] connect and disconnect from the grid to enable it to operate in both
grid connected or island mode.” The Importance Microgrids
are becoming much cheaper to deploy and their increasingly cheaper generation
capabilities for communities will help both consumers and places where energy
is hard to reach, be able to afford and enjoy much needed clean energy. Our Objective: A Systems
Engineering Approach for The Microgrid The
main objective of this study is to use Systems Engineering towards the design
and operation of a typical Microgrid in order to find both an appropriate
System Architecture and Economics involved in the microgrid that will allow the
system designer to find and study Microgrids variations with the goal of comparing
and searching for zero emission Microgrids at the lowest cost. The
design of a Microgrid with a systems engineering approach involves several
aspects of consideration. The design of a microgrid with the NIST Smart Grid
standard as the entry point for system requirements. The identification of the
system stakeholders. The behavior of the system. The architecture. And the
analysis of the system economical aspects as well as the tradeoff and
optimization of the system.