Shiv Kumar
16th November 2014, 16:39
Hello everyone,
As a part of my research I am emulating a microgrid with renewable energy sources and storage in the form of supercapacitors. So I was thinking of commercializing the concept. If this post is inappropriate, please let me know and I'll delete it.
Emulation of a renewable source like wind or solar involves building a power electronic converter that will produce voltage and currents (dc or ac) that resemble the behavior of the source. Emulators already exist both for PV and wind as in programmable dc and ac sources and are commercially available.
My approach to emulation has two aspects:
1. To examine how much power can be produced by a renewable source in a particular location.
2. To design the system with respect to sizing of sources and storage.
1. Quite often the first question that is asked is of what capacity of a source (PV or wind) should be installed at a location. Emulation can be performed by measuring the input energy (pyranometer for solar and anemometer for wind) and using a power converter with a dc source to produce a voltage and current that corresponds to the I-V characteristics of the source. This could be installed at any location for a period of a few months and feed a dump load to examine how much power can actually be produced without spending all the money in installing the PV panel or wind turbine.
2. When it has already been decided that a wind/PV system will be installed at a location, the next question is how do you design the capacity of the sources and how much storage would really improve the performance. In this case, the entire process could be two fold - first the step above to design the capacity of the sources and next to design the control and energy management to maintain power quality and best serve loads. In this case, the loads will be emulated by power electronic converters that will be programmed with load profiles over days/weeks or maybe a month.
So finally my question: do any vendors provide such a service? If such a service is provided, would it improve the final design that customers end up installing?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers,
Shiv
As a part of my research I am emulating a microgrid with renewable energy sources and storage in the form of supercapacitors. So I was thinking of commercializing the concept. If this post is inappropriate, please let me know and I'll delete it.
Emulation of a renewable source like wind or solar involves building a power electronic converter that will produce voltage and currents (dc or ac) that resemble the behavior of the source. Emulators already exist both for PV and wind as in programmable dc and ac sources and are commercially available.
My approach to emulation has two aspects:
1. To examine how much power can be produced by a renewable source in a particular location.
2. To design the system with respect to sizing of sources and storage.
1. Quite often the first question that is asked is of what capacity of a source (PV or wind) should be installed at a location. Emulation can be performed by measuring the input energy (pyranometer for solar and anemometer for wind) and using a power converter with a dc source to produce a voltage and current that corresponds to the I-V characteristics of the source. This could be installed at any location for a period of a few months and feed a dump load to examine how much power can actually be produced without spending all the money in installing the PV panel or wind turbine.
2. When it has already been decided that a wind/PV system will be installed at a location, the next question is how do you design the capacity of the sources and how much storage would really improve the performance. In this case, the entire process could be two fold - first the step above to design the capacity of the sources and next to design the control and energy management to maintain power quality and best serve loads. In this case, the loads will be emulated by power electronic converters that will be programmed with load profiles over days/weeks or maybe a month.
So finally my question: do any vendors provide such a service? If such a service is provided, would it improve the final design that customers end up installing?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers,
Shiv