Solar Power Integration on the Seychelles Islands

The Seychelles aim to cover 5% of electricity with renewables by 2020 and 15% by 2030. The local power system operator commissioned a Grid Absorption Study to determine the technical limits for reaching these targets. The study focussed on how much photovoltaic (PV) generation the grid can absorb. As result, the primary bottleneck was found to be the maintenance of backup generation reserves to compensate for fast down-ramping of PV generation

Solar Power Integration on the Seychelles Islands

The Seychelles aim to cover 5% of electricity with renewables by 2020 and 15% by 2030. The local power system operator commissioned a Grid Absorption Study to determine the technical limits for reaching these targets. The study focussed on how much photovoltaic (PV) generation the grid can absorb. As result, the primary bottleneck was found to be the maintenance of backup generation reserves to compensate for fast down-ramping of PV generation

Novel hybrid design For microgrid control

This paper proposes a new hybrid control system for an AC microgrid. The system uses both centralised and decentralised strategies to optimize the microgrid energy control while addressing the challenges introduced by current technologies and applied systems in real microgrid infrastructures. The well-known 3-level control (tertiary, secondary, primary) is employed with an enhanced hierarchical design using intelligent agent-based components in order to improve efficiency, diversity, modularity, and scalability. The main contribution of this paper is dual. During normal operation, the microgrid central controller (MGCC) is designed to undertake the management of the microgrid, while providing the local agents with the appropriate constraints for optimal power flow. During MGCC fault, a peer-to-peer communication is enabled between neighbouring agents in order to make their optimal decision locally. The initial design of the control structure and the detailed analysis of the different operating scenarios along with their requirements have shown the applicability of the new system in real microgrid environments

Microgrid Environmental Impact

Power plants have bad impacts on the environment. One of these impacts is Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emission resulted from power plants that depend on fossil fuel, oil and natural gas. Renewable energy is considered as an important solution for this problem since it is classified as clean and environmentally friendly source of energy and helps reducing the dependency on conventional power plants. High renewable energy penetration into power systems is a big challenge that can be solved by deploying the concept of smart Micro-Grids. This paper presents a study on how much reduction of CO2 emission can be resulted from deploying smart micro-grid concept on a university campus, German Jordanian University (GJU) campus was taken as a pilot. The micro-grid is meant to operate according to an optimum resource scheduling framework that guarantee a minimum operational cost while achieving high local power availability

Optimal Energy Management and Scheduling of a Microgrid in Grid-Connected and Islanded Modes

Microgrids are becoming one of the main components of future smart grids. Ensuring their optimal and stable operation is of crucial importance and can be a challenging task. In this paper, two optimization algorithms are implemented for scheduling the microgrid operation in grid-connected and islanded modes, according to the priorities and objectives in each mode. For achieving an optimal operation at each mode, the proposed scheme is able to shed loads, define the generation level of the photovoltaics and regulate the charging/discharging level of the Energy Storage System (ESS). The effectiveness of the proposed scheduling is demonstrated through an analytical real-time simulation, where various transitions between the grid-connected and islanded modes are considered. The results indicate that the proposed scheme is able to regulate successfully the energy flows of the microgrid even under various transitions

Framework Design for Smart Micro-Grids

The 3DMicroGrid project is developing a hybrid control architecture for AC microgrids, incorporating both centralized and decentralized principles in a multi-agent scheme. Software components are being developed and tested using models based on real-world pilot sites under different topologies, locations and sizes. To assess the results from both the simulation models and the control paradigms created, various key performance indicators (KPls) have been defined, encompassing economic and technical terms such as assets costs, environmental aspects, quality of supply, voltage and frequency control performance in island operation. The microgrid system of the German Jordanian University (GJU) is used as a pilot site in the simulations. The evaluation of selected indicators for certain simulation scenarios are presented to reveal the site and modelling constraints. The results, will later also be used to benchmark the 3DMicroGrid control framework. Integration of the envisioned control software with the simulation environment will allow further real-timne performance evaluation in preparation of potential on-site deployment