Masters Thesis

Optimization of Hybrid Microgrid

The opportunities for use of renewable energy sources to drive power systems at various levels has increased due to increase in fuel prices, climate change and local environmental constraints. In order to use these sources efficiently, integration of various renewable sources is a necessity. To integrate the renewable sources a concept of microgrid is required. A type of renewable energy sources, distributed energy resources (DER) has started dominating in recent years but many challenges are faced due the integration of renewable energy resources in operation of microgrid. With use of wind biomass or solar, it is easy to produce energy on small scale but not sufficient to supply to the grid. Therefore, in order to tackle the problem of global warming, alternative methods are required so as to efficiently utilize the renewable energy. However, it is tough to monitor the energy consumption at any day as these renewable resources depends on weather and thus provides irregularity in power supply. Due to all the reasons mentioned above, there are discrepancies and system overloading in DG’s. As the technology is advancing, DC microgrids can be effectively used to harness DC power. Thus combination of AC systems with DC system is proposed in order to use this DC power efficiently into AC system, therefore know as Hybrid AC-DC microgrid. The problems existing in power industry are tremendous and hybrid concept of microgrid offer the best available solution by minimizing the energy losses to a large extent. Thus in this report the following topics are addressed; optimal sizing, reliability and economic efficiency and operation strategies available. This paper provides an overview to Hybrid AC/DC microgrid, the advantages over existing systems, the problems faced during modelling such system, the issued that needs to be addressed and methods to overcome with simulations. In this project a hybrid microgrid system is proposed. This system tries to combine AC system and DC system with inverter to form a hybrid type of microgrid system. The AC system the possible connections are Wind Turbines, Diesel Gen Sets and grid connection. The possible connections are the PV and battery storage systems. For simulation purpose firstly, the data is gathered in order to understand the variations in wind speed, Solar radiation and clearance index, temperature variations, fuel cost and emissions. This data is relative to the location to be considered for implementing the microgrid and with respect to all the data collected dynamic programming is carried out using HOMER Software. This helps in understanding the forecasted parameters such as cash flow analysis, total power and energy consumption, Net present cost, cost of fuel over a period of time. Most importantly all the above forecasted analysis is performed for the various configurations from the list of resources (i.e. PV, Wind Turbine, Diesel Gen Set, battery storage system and GRID) available and for various capacities for each one of them. The load profile considered for this system has scaled annual average of 13,940 KWh/d and peak load of 1830 KW. The simulation results obtained provides a broad idea in understanding the resources that fits the designated location and capacity requirement taking into consideration the economics and the effect on climate variations.

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