The impact of domestic plug-in hybrid electric vehicles on power distribution system loads

The market for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEVs) is expected to grow significantly over the next few years and a number of new products are soon to come onto the market, such as the Toyota Prius plug-in version, . The charging demand of wide-scale use of PHEVs may have a significant impact on domestic electricity loads and could risk of overloading the power system if appropriate charging strategies not applied to prevent this. A Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) model of domestic PHEV use and availability has been developed based on probabilistic characterisations obtained from UKTUS and quantifies charging demand of PHEVs as a function of time of day. The MCS model has been developed in order to simulate the impact on the electricity distribution system. This article also discusses the potential for responsive battery charging load from PHEVs

Accessing offshore wind turbines for maintenance : calculating access probabilities, expected delays and the associated costs using a probabilistic approach

There are ambitious plans in place for the expansion of offshore wind-power capacity in the EU and elsewhere. However, the cost of energy from offshore wind is much higher than that from land-based generation and anything between 15% and 30% of this cost is attributable to the cost of operation and maintenance (O&M). For exposed UK round three sites these costs could be higher still. The stochastic nature of the occurrence of faults, down-times due to adverse weather and sea-state and the associated losses in energy production, as well as vessel and personnel costs, all add to the potential risk to the finance of an offshore wind farm project. There is a clear need to estimate these effects and the risks associated with them when planning and financing a wind-farm. Key to all such calculations are the restrictions on safe access for maintenance associated with vessels and access methods and the consequent delays caused by adverse sea-state and weather. A computational approach has been developed at University of Strathclyde, based on an event tree and closed-form probabilistic calculations, enabling very fast estimates to be made of offshore access probabilities and expected delays using a simple spreadsheet. Examples are presented for calculations of accessibility. Turbine availability and loss of energy production are calculated based on given turbine component reliability data together with an agreed maintenance scheme. Direct maintenance cost and revenue lost due to down-time can also be calculated with suitable data on the costs of personnel, components, and vessel hire as well as electricity unit and ROC prices, and examples are given. Sensitivities to some of the key parameters are also presented

Estimating the cost of offshore maintenance and the benefit from condition monitoring

The EU generally, and the UK, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany specifically, have ambitious plans for the large scale installation of offshore wind-power capacity. However, the cost of energy from offshore wind is much higher than that from land-based generation and a substantial portion of that cost, anything between 15% and 30%, may be due to the cost of O&M alone, largely driven by delays in access and repair caused by adverse weather and sea-state, high vessel costs, higher wage costs, and lost revenue from extended down-time. As part of a condition monitoring project commissioned and funded by the ETI (Energy Technologies Institute), the authors have developed a simple tool to estimate the cost of O&M and associated lost revenue, and also to estimate the potential for condition monitoring to allow operators to reduce those costs and the loss in revenue through better maintenance scheduling. The tool builds on earlier work conducted at Strathclyde and presented at EOW 2009 on estimating offshore access delays and turbine availability using a closed form probabilistic method based on an event tree, but without extensive time-domain or Monte Carlo simulation. It currently uses wind and wave data, reliability data and component cost data mainly available in the public domain. Repairs and replacements of subsystems have been classified into a small range of different repair severities, each having their specific requirements for vessels, plant, personnel and time. Expected delays can be calculated directly for each type of repair and the overall effects are summed. Condition monitoring and other maintenance strategies are assumed to change the allocation of a particular subsystem's faults between repair categories and thereby affect its overall impact on down-time and other costs.Calculations are carried out in a spreadsheet that updates instantly when any parameter is changed. The advantage of the approach developed is that it is possible to explore the impact of changing access thresholds, reliabilities or site parameters quickly and easily without having to run a long series of simulations for each new situation

Network power flow analysis for a high penetration of distributed generation

Increasing numbers of very small generators are being connected to electricity distribution systems around the world. Examples include photovoltaics (PV) and gas-fired domestic-scale combined heat and power (micro-CHP) systems, with electrical outputs in the region of 1 to 2 kW. These generators are normally installed within consumers' premises and connected to the domestic electricity supply network (230 V single-phase in Europe, 120 V in North America). There is a growing need to understand and quantify the technical impact that high penetrations of such generators may have on the operation of distribution systems. This paper presents an approach to analyzing this impact together with results indicating that considerable penetrations of micro-generation can be accommodated in a typical distribution system

A cyclo-stationary complex multichannel wiener filter for the prediction of wind speed and direction

This paper develops a linear predictor for application to wind speed and direction forecasting in time and across different sites. The wind speed and direction are modelled via the magnitude and phase of a complex-valued time-series. A multichannel adaptive filter is set to predict this signal, based on its past values and the spatio-temporal correlation between wind signals measured at numerous geographical locations. The time-varying nature of the underlying system and the annual cycle of seasons motivates the development of a cyclo-stationary Wiener filter, which is tested on hourly mean wind speed and direction data from 13 weather stations across the UK, and shown to provide an improvement over both stationary Wiener filtering and a recent auto-regressive approach

Maximising revenue for non-firm distributed wind generation with energy storage in an active management scheme

The connection of high penetrations of renewable generation such as wind to distribution networks requires new active management techniques. Curtailing distributed generation during periods of network congestion allows for a higher penetration of distributed wind to connect, however, it reduces the potential revenue from these wind turbines. Energy storage can be used to alleviate this and the store can also be used to carry out other tasks such as trading on an electricity spot market, a mode of operation known as arbitrage. The combination of available revenue streams is crucial in the financial viability of energy storage. This study presents a heuristic algorithm for the optimisation of revenue generated by an energy storage unit working with two revenue streams: generation-curtailment reduction and arbitrage. The algorithm is used to demonstrate the ability of storage to generate revenue and to reduce generation curtailment for two case study networks. Studies carried out include a single wind farm and multiple wind farms connected under a 'last-in-first-out' principle of access. The results clearly show that storage using both operating modes increases revenue over either mode individually. Moreover, energy storage is shown to be effective at reducing curtailment while increasing the utilisation of circuits linking the distribution and transmission networks. Finally, renewable subsidies are considered as a potential third revenue stream. It is interesting to note that under current market agreements such subsidies have the potential to perversely encourage the installation of inefficient storage technologies, because of increased losses facilitating greater "utilisation" of renewable generation

Stabilization of grid frequency through dynamic demand control

Frequency stability in electricity networks is essential to the maintenance of supply quality and security. This paper investigates whether a degree of built-in frequency stability could be provided by incorporating dynamic demand control into certain consumer appliances. Such devices would monitor system frequency (a universally available indicator of supply-demand imbalance) and switch the appliance on or off accordingly, striking a compromise between the needs of the appliance and the grid. A simplified computer model of a power grid was created incorporating aggregate generator inertia, governor action and load-frequency dependence plus refrigerators with dynamic demand controllers. Simulation modelling studies were carried out to investigate the system's response to a sudden loss of generation, and to fluctuating wind power. The studies indicated a significant delay in frequency-fall and a reduced dependence on rapidly deployable backup generation

Stability impact on wake development in moderately complex terrain

This paper uses a year of SCADA data from Whitelee Wind Farm near Glasgow to investigate wind turbine wake development in moderately complex terrain. Atmospheric stability measurements in terms of Richardson number from a met mast at an adjoining site have been obtained and used to assess the impact of stability on wake development. Considerable filtering of these data has been undertaken to ensure that all turbines are working normally and are well aligned with the wind direction. A group of six wind turbines, more or less in a line, have been selected for analysis, and winds within a 2 degree direction sector about this line are used to ensure, as far as possible, that all the turbines investigated are fully immersed in the wake/s of the upstream turbine/s. Results show how the terrain effects combine with the wake effects, with both being of comparable importance for the site in question. Comparison has been made with results from two commercial CFD codes for neutral stability, and reasonable agreement is demonstrated. Richardson number has been plotted against wind shear and turbulence intensity at a met mast on the wind farm that for the selected wind direction is not in the wake of any turbines. Good correlations are found indicating that the Richardson numbers obtained are reliable. The filtered data used for wake analysis were split according to Richardson number into two groups representing slightly stable to neutral, and unstable conditions. Very little difference in wake development is apparent. A greater difference can be observed when the data are separated simply by turbulence intensity, suggesting that, although turbulence intensity is correlated with stability, of the two it is the parameter that most directly impacts on wake development through mixing of ambient and wake flows

Power system frequency management challenges - a probabilistic approach to assessing wind farm potential for aiding system frequency stability

With the increasing wind penetration level in power systems, transmission system operators have become concerned about frequency stability. The inertia of variable speed wind turbines are decoupled by power electronic converters from the power network and therefore do not intrinsically contribute to power system inertia. Besides, as wind plant displace conventional generation and their inertia, substantial reduction in power system inertia may occur. Variable speed wind turbines can be controlled to provide synthetic inertial response but have no direct contributions to power system inertia levels. A probabilistic approach to assessing wind farm potential for aiding frequency stability in power systems is proposed, and the method will be applied to the GB power system. The impact of the aggregate inertial response on arresting frequency fall is examined assuming a sudden generation loss of 1800 MW in the GB power system. The results show that inertial response from wind can reduce the maximum rate of fall of frequency and the minimum system frequency following the event (frequency nadir)

CFD modelling of double-skin facades with venetian blinds

This paper describes CFD modelling of Double Skin Façades (DSF) with venetian blinds inside the façade cavity. The 2-D modelling work investigates the coupled convective, conductive and radiative heat transfer through the DSF system. The angles of the venetian blind can be adjusted and a series of angles (0, 30, 45, 60 and 80 degrees) has been modelled. The modelling results are compared with the measurements from a section of façade tested within a solar simulator and with predictions from a component based nodal model. Agreement between the three methods is generally good. Discrepancies in the results are generally caused by the simplification of the CFD model resulting less turbulence mixing within the façade cavity. The CFD simulation output suggests that the presence of the venetian blinds has led up to 35 percent enhancement in natural ventilation flow for the façade cavity and 75 percent reduction in heat loads for the internal environment. It was also found that little changes of the convective heat transfer coefficients on the glazing surfaces have been caused by the venetian blinds with different angles