Abstract
The foremost issues of the twenty-first century are the ever-increasing challenging demand of electrical energy and controlling the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG). Along with these issues and with limited energy resources, it is imperative to look for non-conventional methods of power generation like from renewable energy resources. Microgrid has emerged as a new field that can meet the energy demand with a special emphasis on good power quality, reliability, and security. A major concern with the use of renewable energy resources is their intermittent nature which makes their integration and operation a challengeable task. Energy storage devices like batteries can be used to overcome the problem of intermittent nature of renewable energy resources. This chapter focusses on different aspects of renewable energy resources in detail. It analyzes the effectiveness of the proposed topology of the microgrid for health clinic load profile with the help of PVSYST software.
TopIntroduction
The exponential rise in demand for electrical energy and hazardous gas emissions due to conventional methods of power generation has provided an impetus to switch from conventional to non-conventional methods of power generation. Rapid depletion of fossil fuels, insecurity and uncertainty in power supply, inefficient and uneconomical methods of power generation are some other undesirable factors of conventional power plants that aid and motivate power engineers to shift their focus from conventional to non-conventional methods of power generation. Also, sometimes power supply from the traditional grid is not possible in some remote and rural areas. This may be due to lack of transmission infrastructure, unfavorable terrestrial condition, uneconomical condition etc. All these problems can be sorted out by the use of renewable energy resources. Renewable energy resources are available in-plenty in nature, free of cost and environmental friendly and can be used to generate electrical power either in a standalone or in hybrid form. These sources can be connected near or far from the load depending upon the availability and production from these renewable energy resources. Microgrids, nowadays an emerging technology can be used to connect different types of renewable energy resources in hybrid fashion and cater all the required load demand. Microgrids have the capability to operate either in a grid connected and standalone mode. This feature of microgrid helps in improving the performance, peak shaving, reliability and security of the entire system along with huge environmental benefits. The same type of renewable energy resource can be connected on large scale far from the load center for large scale production like in solar farms, wind farms etc.
Sensitive loads like schools, colleges, central jails, health clinics, hospitals, etc. where the electrical power supply is very essential are available here and there. Such types of loads can also be present in remote and rural areas where power supply from the conventional grid is not possible due to various above-mentioned factors. But these areas may be rich in certain type of renewable energy resources. So, in such locations available renewable energy resource can be used to produce electricity for essential and sensitive loads without depending on conventional grid power supply. Energy storage devices play a very important role in such cases to cater intermittent nature of renewable energy resources and to maintain voltage and frequency profile of the network.
In this chapter, the importance of renewable energy resource and the sensitive load is reflected and how these renewable energy resources can be optimally placed together to cater the load demand of sensitive load is demonstrated with the help of PVSYST software. PVSYST is a software package for study, sizing, simulation and data analysis for a complete PV system. It mainly consists of four basic parts, preliminary design, project design, databases and tools. Preliminary design provides a quick evaluation of the potential of a project designed in a situation under predefined constraints. Project design is the main part where all designing of a project is done. Various types of project are associated with PV system such as Standalone PV system, grid connected PV system, etc. Databases consist of two basic parts one is associated with metrological data of monthly along with weekly information for a specific location and another part of the database is the information of the components available in the software. Also, some tools are available which helps in quickly estimating the behavior of the solar based system. The results obtained from this software should reflect how optimal and economical is the size of the considered configuration, how much this configuration is environmental friendly and how much this configuration is reliable. First, the size of the test system is analyzed, then its location, the availability of renewable energy resource at this particular location, then the optimal size of the source to cater overall load demand, then the best optimal configuration and at last the findings and results of this configuration are provided.
This chapter is based on the use of microgrid for monitoring the load of a health clinic. It is sub-divided into following subsections: the background is followed by the overview of PVSYST software in which simulation is carried out. Next section is dedicated to the understanding of microgrid. This section is followed by implementation of microgrid based topology to meet the load demand of health clinic in Jodhpur city. Results section provides the simulation results and costs analysis of proposed topology. Conclusion section summarizes the proposed system and findings.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Microgrid: A microgrid can be defined as a small grid that interconnects local loads, distributed generation sources, and energy storage devices.
PVSYST: PVSYST is an energy modelling tool that helps in analyzing how much solar energy can be harvested into an electrical energy from a particular site or location.
Distributed Generation: Distributed generation also known as distributed energy or on-site generation can be defined as power generation near to the point of consumer load.
Renewable Energy Sources: These are the energy sources which are naturally and continuously replenished such as wind, sunlight, water, etc.
Solar PV System: A solar photo voltaic (PV) system is a power system that converts sunlight or solar energy into an electrical energy by means of solar cells.
Energy Storage Devices: Energy storage devices are the devices that have the ability of storing and releasing of electrical energy when needed.