Community Wind 101: A Primer for Policymakers

Provides an overview of a model for wind power development based on local ownership. Reviews innovative examples, economic benefits for the community, benefits for clean energy development, obstacles, and state and federal policy options to address them

Microgrids & District Energy: Pathways To Sustainable Urban Development

A microgrid is an energy system specifically designed to meet some of the energy needs of a group of buildings, a campus, or an entire community. It can include local facilities that generate electricity, heating, and/or cooling; store energy; distribute the energy generated; and manage energy consumption intelligently and in real time. Microgrids enable economies of scale that facilitate local production of energy in ways that can advance cost reduction, sustainability, economic development, and resilience goals. As they often involve multiple stakeholders, and may encompass numerous distinct property boundaries, municipal involvement is often a key factor for successful implementation. This report provides an introduction to microgrid concepts, identifies the benefits and most common road blocks to implementation, and discusses proactive steps municipalities can take to advance economically viable and environmentally superior microgrids. It also offers advocacy suggestions for municipal leaders and officials to pursue at the state and regional level. The contents are targeted to municipal government staff but anyone looking for introductory material on microgrids should find it useful

What's Blocking the Sun?: Solar Photovoltaics for the U.S. Commercial Market

Provides an overview of installation trends and investment climate for solar photovoltaics in the U.S. commercial sector, including policy and economic obstacles. Recommends strategies for the solar industry, the commercial sector, and policy makers

Reliability analysis of single-phase photovoltaic inverters with reactive power support

Reactive power support is expected to be an emerging ancillary requirement for single-phase photovoltaic (PV) inverters. This work assesses related reliability issues and focuses on the second stage or inversion process in PV inverters. Three PV inverter topologies are analyzed and their reliability is determined on a component-by-component level. Limiting operating points are considered for each of these topologies. The capacitor in the dc link, the MOSFETs in the inverting bridge, and the output filter are the components affected. Studies show that varying power-factor operation with a constant real power output increases the energy storage requirement as well as the capacitance required in the dc link in order to produce the double-frequency power ripple. The overall current rating of the MOSFETs and output filter must also be sized to accommodate the current for the apparent power output. Modeling of the inverter verifies the conditions for each of the components under varying reactive power support commands. It is shown that the production of reactive power can significantly increase the capacitance requirement, but the limiting reliability issue comes from the increased output current rating of the MOSFETs

International White Book on DER Protection : Review and Testing Procedures

This white book provides an insight into the issues surrounding the impact of increasing levels of DER on the generator and network protection and the resulting necessary improvements in protection testing practices. Particular focus is placed on ever increasing inverter-interfaced DER installations and the challenges of utility network integration. This white book should also serve as a starting point for specifying DER protection testing requirements and procedures. A comprehensive review of international DER protection practices, standards and recommendations is presented. This is accompanied by the identifi cation of the main performance challenges related to these protection schemes under varied network operational conditions and the nature of DER generator and interface technologies. Emphasis is placed on the importance of dynamic testing that can only be delivered through laboratory-based platforms such as real-time simulators, integrated substation automation infrastructure and fl exible, inverter-equipped testing microgrids. To this end, the combination of fl exible network operation and new DER technologies underlines the importance of utilising the laboratory testing facilities available within the DERlab Network of Excellence. This not only informs the shaping of new protection testing and network integration practices by end users but also enables the process of de-risking new DER protection technologies. In order to support the issues discussed in the white paper, a comparative case study between UK and German DER protection and scheme testing practices is presented. This also highlights the level of complexity associated with standardisation and approval mechanisms adopted by different countries

Local Control of Reactive Power by Distributed Photovoltaic Generators

High penetration levels of distributed photovoltaic (PV) generation on an electrical distribution circuit may severely degrade power quality due to voltage sags and swells caused by rapidly varying PV generation during cloud transients coupled with the slow response of existing utility compensation and regulation equipment. Although not permitted under current standards for interconnection of distributed generation, fast-reacting, VAR-capable PV inverters may provide the necessary reactive power injection or consumption to maintain voltage regulation under difficult transient conditions. As side benefit, the control of reactive power injection at each PV inverter provides an opportunity and a new tool for distribution utilities to optimize the performance of distribution circuits, e.g. by minimizing thermal losses. We suggest a local control scheme that dispatches reactive power from each PV inverter based on local instantaneous measurements of the real and reactive components of the consumed power and the real power generated by the PVs. Using one adjustable parameter per circuit, we balance the requirements on power quality and desire to minimize thermal losses. Numerical analysis of two exemplary systems, with comparable total PV generation albeit a different spatial distribution, show how to adjust the optimization parameter depending on the goal. Overall, this local scheme shows excellent performance; it's capable of guaranteeing acceptable power quality and achieving significant saving in thermal losses in various situations even when the renewable generation in excess of the circuit own load, i.e. feeding power back to the higher-level system.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to IEEE SmartGridComm 201

System development issues concerning integration of wind generation in Great Britain

The European Union has committed itself to sourcing 20% of its energy from renewables by 2020. Britain's excellent wind resource is expected to make a significant contribution to this target, not least from Scotland and the north of England. However, exploitation of this resource requires appropriate and timely development of the GB electricity transmission system. This depends on appropriate market signals that communicate the need for transmission investment, something that many in the industry in Britain believe current arrangements do not adequately provide. This paper describes a number of proposals currently under discussion, outlines their interactions and highlights some of the key issues currently being debated

A simplified analytical approach for optimal planning of distributed generation in electrical distribution networks

DG-integrated distribution system planning is an imperative issue since the installing of distributed generations (DGs) has many effects on the network operation characteristics, which might cause significant impacts on the system performance. One of the most important characteristics that mostly varies because of the installation of DG units is the power losses. The parameters affecting the value of the power losses are number, location, capacity, and power factor of the DG units. In this paper, a new analytical approach is proposed for optimally installing DGs to minimize power loss in distribution networks. Different parameters of DG are considered and evaluated in order to achieve a high loss reduction in the electrical distribution networks. The algorithm of the proposed approach has been implemented using MATLAB software and has been tested and investigated on 12-bus, 33-bus, and 69-bus IEEE distribution test systems. The results show that the proposed approach can provide an accurate solution via simple algorithm without using exhaustive process of power flow computations