Table Of ContentI
Renewable Energy
Renewable Energy
Edited by
T J Hammons
In-Tech
intechweb.org
Published by In-Teh
In-Teh
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© 2009 In-teh
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First published December 2009
Printed in India
Technical Editor: Zeljko Debeljuh
Renewable Energy,
Edited by T J Hammons
p. cm.
ISBN 978-953-7619-52-7
V
Preface
Our goal in preparing this book was to discuss and publish new discoveries and improvements,
innovative ideas and concepts, as well as novel and further applications and business models
which are related to the field of Renewable Energy.
Renewable Energy is energy generated from natural resources—such as sunlight, wind, rain,
tides and geothermal heat—which are naturally replenished. In 2008, about 18% of global
final energy consumption came from renewables, with 13% coming from traditional biomass,
such as wood burning. Hydroelectricity was the next largest renewable source, providing 3%
(15% of global electricity generation), followed by solar hot water/heating, which contributed
1.3%. Modern technologies, such as geothermal energy, wind power, solar power, and ocean
energy together provided some 0.8% of final energy consumption.
Alternative energy includes all sources and technologies that minimize environmental
impacts relative to conventional hydrocarbon resources and economic issues related to fossil
fuel resources. Fuel cells and natural gas might be alternatives to coal or nuclear power.
Throughout the book, the fundamentals of the technologies related to integration of such
alternative and renewable energy sources are reviewed and described with authority, skill,
and from critical engineering aspects for the end user of energy. Climate change concerns
coupled with oil prices with its uncertainty and increasing government support is driving
increasing renewable energy legislation, incentives and commercialization. Investment capital
flowing into renewable energy climbed from $80 billion (US) in 2005 to $100 billion in 2006.
The book provides the forum for dissemination and exchange of up-to-date scientific
information on theoretical, generic and applied areas of knowledge.
The topics deal with new devices and circuits for energy systems, photovoltaic and solar
thermal, wind energy systems, tidal and wave energy, fuel cell systems, bio energy and geo-
energy, sustainable energy resources and systems, energy storage systems, energy market
management and economics, off-grid isolated energy systems, energy in transportation
systems, energy resources for portable electronics, intelligent energy power transmission,
distribution and inter-connectors, energy efficient utilization, environmental issues, energy
harvesting, nanotechnology in energy, policy issues on renewable energy, building design,
power electronics in energy conversion, new materials for energy resources, and RF and
magnetic field energy devices.
Open Access is a new direction in academic publishing where all chapters are available for full
free access online. The book is published as open access fully searchable by anyone anywhere.
VI
We believe that immediate, worldwide, barrier-free, open access to the full text of research
articles is in the best interests of the scientific community.
Free online availability substantially increases an article’s impact. The mean number of
citations to offline articles has been shown to be 2.5~3.0 % smaller. The book is also available
in printed edition (hardcopy} and has been distributed to major university and learned
societies libraries, etc. free worldwide.
The timely initiatives taken by the authors in this book to cover closely renewable energy
is applauded. I am confident that this work will contribute to our better understanding of
how to integrate renewable energy sources into our electricity grids for commercial, domestic
and industrial applications. I strongly recommend this work to a wide audience, including
environments, engineering educators, students, industrialists, consultants, and those
concerned in reducing greenhouse emissions that is affecting our planet.
December 2009
T J Hammons
University of Glasgow, UK
VII
Contents
Preface V
1. A Model for Greener Power Generation for North-east Sri Lanka based on
Stand-alone Renewable Energy Systems 001
Reggie Davidrajuh
2. Automatic Sun-Tracker System for Photo-Voltaic Plants 017
Joao M. G. Figueiredo
3. Development of Space-Based Solar Power 027
Lyle M. Jenkins
4. Increasing the energy yield of generation from new and renewable energy
resources 037
Samuel C. E. Jupe, Andrea Michiorri and Philip C. Taylor
5. Embedded Energy Storage Systems in the Power Grid for Renewable Energy
Sources Integration 063
Sérgio Faias, Jorge Sousa and Rui Castro
6. Single-Phase Grid Connected Converters for Photovoltaic Plants 089
Emilio Lorenzani, Giovanni Franceschini, Alberto Bellini and Carla Tassoni
7. Grid Integration of Renewable Energy Systems 109
Athula Rajapakse, Dharshana Muthumuni and Nuwan Perera
8. Hardware in the loop simulation of renewable distributed generation systems 133
Marco Mauri
9. Harmonics Reduction Techniques in Renewable Energy Interfacing Converters 153
Ali M. Eltamaly, Ph.D
10. Hybrid Control of DC-DC Power Converters 173
Ilse Cervantes, Francisco J. Perez-Pinal and Angelica Mendoza-Torres
11. Interaction of Renewable Energy Source and Power Supply Network 197
Branislav Dobrucký, Michal Pokorný and Mariana Beňová
12. Marine Tidal Current Electric Power Generation: State of Art and Current Status 211
Yun Seng. Lim and Siong Lee. Koh
VIII
13. Modelling and Simulation of an Induction Drive with Application to a Small Wind
Turbine Generator 227
Levente TAMAS and Zoltan SZEKELY
14. Photovoltaic/Wind Energy System with Hydrogen Storage 249
Mamadou Lamine Doumbia and Kodjo Agbossou
15. Multilevel Converters in Renewable Energy Systems 271
Alireza Nami and Firuz Zare
16. Isolated hybrid solar-wind-hydro renewable energy systems 297
Dorin Bică, Cristian Dragoş Dumitru, Adrian Gligor, Adrian-Vasile Duka
17. Planning of Distributed Energy Systems with Parallel Infrastructures: A Case study 317
Bjorn H. Bakken
18. Power Electronics Control of Wind Energy in Distributed Power Systems 333
Florin Iov and Frede Blaabjerg
19. Renewable Energy in Lebanon 365
Nazih Moubayed, Ali El-Ali and Rachid Outbib
20. RenH – A Stand-Alone Sustainable Renewable Energy System 375
2
João Martins, Carmen M. Rangel, António Joyce, João Sotomayor, Armando Pires, Rui Castro
21. Solar Power Source for autonomous sensors 401
José Pelegrí-Sebastiá, Rafael Lajara Vizcaíno & Jorge Alberola Lluch
22. The Temperature Dependant Efficiency of Photovoltaic Modules - a long term
evaluation of experimental measurements 415
Jan Machacek, Zdenek Prochazka and Jiri Drapela
23. The use of Switched Reluctance Generator in Wind Energy Applications 447
Eleonora Darie, Costin Cepişcă and Emanuel Darie
24. Tidal Energy Technologies: Currents, Wave and Offshore Wind Power in the
United Kingdom, Europe and North America 463
T. J. Hammons
25. Wind Energy Technology 505
R. Mesquita Brandão, J. Beleza Carvalho & F. P. Maciel Barbosa
26. Wind Generation Modelling for the Management of Electrical Transmission
Systems 531
François Vallée
27. Variable speed pumped storage hydropower plants for integration of wind power
in isolated power systems 553
Jon Are Suul
A Model for Greener Power Generation for North-east
Sri Lanka based on Stand-alone Renewable Energy Systems 1
A Model for Greener Power Generation for North-east Sri Lanka based
1
X on Stand-alone Renewable Energy Systems
Reggie Davidrajuh
A Model for Greener Power Generation for
North-east Sri Lanka based on Stand-alone
Renewable Energy Systems
Reggie Davidrajuh
University of Stavanger
Norway
1. Introduction
In Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka (NE-SL), electricity is not available in most of the places
due to the civil war. There is practically no electricity production and distribution system
available or planned. Since Sri Lanka, as a whole, is suffering from power-shortage, it will
be not possible for her to supply electricity to NE-SL, by the time the civil war comes to an
end. An alternative generation and distribution system should, therefore, be designed to
supply electricity to NE-SL.
The need for electric power may be analyzed by a fairly intensive and deep study, which
invariably requires life cycle analysis of the society in terms of energy use and conservation,
industrial and household development, population and industry distribution, export and
import of electricity, etc. In contemporary NE-SL, however, the very basics in a societal
infrastructure such as industry, highways and education system, are either non-existent or
in primitive form. And due to the on-going war in this region, important data for electricity
power sector decision-making (such as income and purchasing power of the population,
planned transportation and highway infrastructure, environmentally sensitive areas,
meteorological data, etc.) are either not available or inadequate.
The objective of this chapter is to demonstrate that to achieve a sustainable electricity
generation for NE-SL, in addition to utilizing the abundant intermittent resources NE-SL
has, namely solar and wind, biomass production must be given utmost priority. The scope
of this chapter is limited to design of a mixture of power plants in the cogeneration system,
not involving the other aspects of electricity sector such as transmission and distribution.
Limitation of this work: due to the ongoing civil war in the region, there is no recent data
available about energy production and consumption in this region; the data used in this
chapter is from 1994 to 1996.
2 Renewable Energy
2. Needs and Requirements for Sustainable Power Supply In case of intermittent primary energy source is used, energy back-up shall be
provided by the system
The long-term life cycle scenarios for energy to the planet Earth points to massive utilization
Existing technology for energy conversion shall be utilized to a degree, which is the
of solar power, or its derivatives as hydro-, wind- or biomass power (Weinberg, 1990).
most feasible economically
Power from tidal waves, geothermal and ocean thermal power is insignificant as far as NE-
The economy of scale shall be utilized optimally in terms of size and capacity of
SL is concerned. Each type of energy has its own economy, life cycle and complications.
units, modularization and standardization, distribution and centralization
Direct solar power and wind power is complicated by its diluted form and its variation with
time and location. However, some of these variations are predictable and may be used in
optimal predictive control of power cogeneration systems (Asbjornsen, 1984). Example of 3. System Integration
such cogeneration system is a combination of solar, wind and biomass power. The power
Some thoughts are given below on integrating generators into the electric grid, by
generating systems interconnected by the power grid is an existing technology. But
considering the technology's social and environmental effects.
incorporating intermittent power supplies (like solar, wind) to the grid requires careful
planning. Nuclear power or hydropower systems acting as the base-load supplier of the
utilities, try to even out any fluctuations or failures in the intermittent power supplies, if the 3.1 System Response to Customers’ Power Requirements
intermittent power supplies are connected to the grid. With absence of fossil fuels, Changes in customers’ power requirements will automatically be taken care of by the
hydropower or nuclear power, a sustainable cogeneration system for NE-SL has to use demand management system through control of the turbines in the power generation
biomass as buffer in incorporating intermittent power supplies. The other option is to systems. The optimal strategy will be to let the solar power generation run at its maximum
include energy storage in the cogeneration system. The energy storage will store energy capacity at any time. This capacity will change during the day and go to zero when the sun
when the generated electricity from intermittent supply is in excess and it will contribute sets. It is also optimal to let the wind power run at its maximum capacity, which will also
electricity to the grid when demand exceeds supply. However, studies show that energy change with the intensity of the wind. The remaining power requirement will be taken care
storage systems are generally expensive (Friberg, 1993). of by the biomass and fossil fuel power generation systems. As long as the system is
designed to tackle all possible situations, as described, the customer will see the power
generation system as totally reliable. The key issue in the whole system is to match
2.1 Basic Needs Analysis
capacities of the total cogeneration system to the customers’ power requirements and to the
The total system needs may be formulated as a combined need for electric power by the
availability of the energy sources, solar radiation, and wind speed.
society and a need for global environmental protection, formulated as follows:
There is a need for electric power, fairly distributed, to the society population
Because of the intermittent nature of solar and wind power, when incorporating these
There is a need to replace fossil fuel as energy source for industrial and domestic generators into the grid, the total plant capacity must always exceed the maximum expected
electric power generation on economic and environmental perspective. demand by a large margin (penalty for intermittence), in-order to increase system reliability.
In NE-SL, where wind and solar power will be contributing most of the time, thermal plants
that have higher operating fuel costs but cheaper to build become more attractive (such as
2.2 Basic Requirements Definition
The system needs lead to requirements, which are consequences partly of the needs, partly natural gas plant), because the reduced operating time will make fuel costs less important.
of the customer and user situation, and partly of conceptual solutions. The definition of There is a limitation on the extent to which the intermittent sources like solar and wind
system requirements is an iterative process, which expands in detail, as the system baseline contribute to the total power generation. As the percentage of power generation of wind and
concept is designed. At the present level of details, and the present system analysis, a set of solar increases, there is steady decline in value, because adding intermittent sources reduce
requirements may be defined fairly simply: the reliability. Contribution from wind energy ranging from 0% to 50% of overall installed
The cost of electric power generation and distribution in NE-SL shall be within the capacity is feasible before operational losses become prohibitive (Grubb and Meyer, 1994).
price range for customers and users in the rest Sri Lanka
Compared to the rest of Sri Lanka, the power generation system designed for NE- 3.2 Smaller the Better
SL shall have the same or better, reliability, availability and fair distribution of For a developing country like NE-SL, which does not have any large-scale hydrologic
electric power. Cogeneration system should also meet the customers’ power resource for electricity generation, the selection of optimum power plant mix should be
requirement at any time based on small, affordable power generators. Reliability of the power generation and
The power generation system shall have none or minimal harmful pollution effects, distribution system will be increased if large number of small generators, scattered
on the air, soil or water environment, or on the social environment. throughout the nation, is used rather than few large plants. By using a large number of
smaller plants, the potential danger of over building or commissioning less cost effective
There are some other requirements too, due to the varying nature of the intermittent energy
large plants could be avoided. Small plants can be added quickly as they are needed and
sources, and due to the economic requirement on conversion technology:
