Unit 44 Industrial Power, Electronics and Storage - Higher National Diploma in Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Control and integration of renewable energy sources

Learning Outcome 1: Evaluate the energy demand to determine the technology and methods of energy production

Learning Outcome 2: Discuss current energy efficiency measures, technologies and policies specific to the building and transportation sectors.

Learning Outcome 3: Analyse the control techniques of power electronics for renewable energy systems.

Learning Outcome 4: Investigate the impacts of renewable resources to the grid and the various issues associated with integrating such resources to the grid.

Scenario:

The world we live in uses a lot of energy. There are several different energy sources that could be used. The global demand for energy is continually increasing. Our population is growing and we already have more people on the planet than ever before. As well as this, modern lifestyles demand transport and communications technology, which also require more energy. This raises issues about the availability of energy sources and the environmental effects of using them. A lot of research is being undertaken to develop sustainable sources of energy such as Hydroelectric, solar, wind and tidal power. This brings the role of electricity storage, and in particular battery systems, to centre stage. The power electronics plays a great role in energy conservation, renewable energy systems (wind and PV), bulk storage of energy and electric/hybrid vehicles. This assignment introduces the student to the important field of renewable energy systems and the technological concepts behind providing a sustainable electrical supply for the future - energy storage requirements and intelligent control for power management and smart home, etc. Student are also required to investigate the use of solar and wind power in rural areas and the savings this entail no transmission lines are required to these areas.

LO1 Evaluate the energy demand to determine the technology and methods of energy production

Task 1.0

Question 1- Investigate the current day demand of energy sources including both renewable and non-renewable. Also investigate their impact on the environment and the benefits and effectiveness of renewable energy systems for short- and long-term energy demand. Students should also investigate the contribution of renewable energy particularly solar and wind power and why these two types are leading in renewable energy sectors.

Question 2- Examine the benefits of the use of renewable energy sources including solar, wind, tidal and geothermal sources and how effective is the use and contribution of these sources in the global market of energy. Also examine the rate of the increase and effectiveness of these sources reasons behind the speed of these rates.

Question 3- Investigate the costs of all sources of renewable energy production and technologies and whether these costs make these sources viable in the future. Students should also investigate how fast are these technological advancements developing and what are the obstacles in these paths.

Question 4- Determine and assess the use of all available energy sources and their global impact on the global energy demand. Students should report on the contribution of both renewable and non-renewable energies and the share of each in responding to the increasing demand energy by the world.

Question 5- Evaluate the effectiveness of the most available renewable energy sources in the market in responding to the increase of energy demand. Students should also evaluate the drawback that keep these sources from fulfilling the demand of the global market for more supply of sources of energy. Advantages and disadvantages of these sources should also be discussed.

Question 6- Evaluate critically the performance of a renewable energy system and the technologies used in energy efficiency improvement. Students should also HNC/HND Engineering 4 investigate the reasons behind the slow improvement of renewable energy technologies and their efficiencies and what are the prospects of these sources in these areas in the future.

LO2 Discuss current energy efficiency measures, technologies and policies specific to the building and transportation sectors.

Task 2.0

Question 1- Discuss the measures which are currently being taken in order to improve the efficiency energy sources as well as, the main factors that affect energy use and efficiency in a building and the reasons behind these factors.

Question 2- Discuss the technologies that could be used to support more sustainable transport. Also discuss the increase demand of energy for the transport sector and whether renewable energy could fulfil this increasing demand in the future.

Question 3- Use Matlab/Simulink or another suitable software to model and simulate energy management in a residential building or electric vehicle and the effectiveness of using these simulations. Also discuss the advantages of the use of these tools and any areas for further improvements in order to manage energy sources more effectively.

Question 4- Evaluate the selection of suitable technologies to improve energy efficiency in a residential building or electric vehicle including the reasons behind the suitability of these technologies. Students should also discuss what could be done in order to improve these the efficiency of these technologies further.

Question 5- Critically evaluate the performance of the main renewable energy systems and how the efficiency can be improved, and the role played in this increase by new advances in power electronics technologies.

Question 6- Analyse the dynamic performance of a power electronic converter for solar and wind power renewable energy sources and calculate the energy and cost savings against conventional power sources, including consideration for development and installation costs.

LO3 Analyse the control techniques of power electronics for renewable energy systems.

Task 3.0

Question 1- Analyse the applications of power electronics in renewable energy applications. Also discuss the impact of the fast advancement of power electronics and the rapid response in the use of these developments in the use of renewable energy in particular solar and wind power.

Question 2- Determine the industrial applications of power electronic converters and why these applications were adopted. Also determine the fast response of the use of AC-AC, AC-DC, DC-AC and DC-DC converters application by employing these advancements of these converters.

Question 3- Analyse the topologies of the AC-AC and DC-DC power electronic converters and their principles of operation. A comparison of efficiency should be included as well as the suitability of the applications of these types of converters.

Question 4- Use Matlab / simulate or another suitable software to simulate a simple power converter for a typical renewable energy system. The converter can be an AC or DC Converter. Critically analyse the use of the power converter selected above for a renewable energy application of your choice employing either solar or wind power. 5- Critically evaluate the dynamic performance of integrating renewable energy sources to the smart-grid network using a standard industrial based software, such as Matlab/Simulink software or another suitable software.

LO4 Investigate the impacts of renewable resources to the grid and the various issues associated with integrating such resources to the grid.

Task 4.0

Question 1- Investigate the safe operation of smart power systems. Also discuss how advancement of power electronic has helped in adopting safer power systems internationally and how countries benefited from using such transmission systems of power.

Question 2- Investigate the operation of standalone and grid connected renewable energy systems. Also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such systems and how to enhance and improve connected renewable energy systems.

Question 3- Discuss fully the features of a smart-grid network and the importance of power electronics in smart grid and energy storage. You need to discuss the different parts of smart grids and the use of the new advances in power electronics and the effect this had on increasing the efficiency of smart grids and on the storage of energy.

Question 4- Determine how power electronic are used in smart-grid networks and evaluate the issues associated with integrating renewable energy sources to the grid and how to increase the ability of energy storage using these developments.

Question 5- Analyse how power electronic converters are used in smart-grid networks. Discuss the main types of converters used in smart grids including both AC-DC and DC-DC converters. Also discuss the new benefits obtained from using these new developments. Also evaluate the issues in relation to integrating renewable energy sources to smart grids and the role the new developments in power electronics has played in mitigating these issues.

Question 6- Using Matlab/ Simulink or any other suitable software, critically analyse the impact of solar and wind renewable energy sources and their integration into the grid and the benefits and the advantages obtained when using these industrial softwares.

Note: Need only pass (P1-P13)