A Guidebook on Grid Interconnection and Islanded Operation of Mini-Grid Power Systems Up to 200 kW is intended to help meet the widespread need for guidance, standards, and procedures for interconnecting mini-grids with the central electric grid as rural electrification advances in developing countries, bringing these once separate power systems together. The guidebook aims to help owners and operators of renewable energy mini-grids understand the technical options available, safety and reliability issues, and engineering and administrative costs of different choices for grid interconnection. The guidebook is intentionally brief but includes a number of appendices that point the reader to additional resources for indepth information. Not included in the scope of the guidebook are policy concerns about "who pays for what," how tariffs should be set, or other financial issues that are also paramount when "the little grid connects to the big grid."
The utility sector’s transition to renewable energy and the smart grid has already begun. The first step towards smart grid is microgrid, which is a smaller electricity grid with access to all the essential assets of a larger grid. This book provides a glimpse into an actual microgrid project. It supplies a system-level approach to the design of smart Microgrids, covering the entire design process—from roadmap to realization. Detailing lessons learned and pitfalls to avoid in Microgrid technology, the book provides an interdisciplinary approach to design and problem solving for smart microgrids.
This book analyses energy transitions and the opportunities and challenges for building sustainable energy systems to improve human capabilities while protecting the environment. Sufficient and secure energy supply is critical to human thriving and socioeconomic development. Yet energy systems are also implicated in the most pressing socio-environmental challenges of our time - climate change, air pollution, and water and land use. This book examines what is arguably the most ambitious vision for a renewable energy based system worldwide. This vision, often called Desertec, is for a regional electricity system supplying North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East with sustainable and affordable power. The behemoth plan would entail building dozens of large-scale solar and wind power plants mostly in North Africa, interconnecting the fragmented transmission infrastructure of 38 Mediterranean countries, and linking North Africa to the European Union (EU) through undersea transmission cables. Within the Mediterranean, the book focuses on Morocco, which is one of the most advanced developing countries in renewable energy scale-up, to understand its motivations for building renewable energy and the effects on sustainable development. The book therefore takes a unique multi-scalar approach to understanding the social and political aspects of energy transitions, weaving together the views of villagers living near Morocco’s first solar energy zone with the perspectives of national decision-makers in Morocco with the views of European policymakers and major transnational energy companies in the Mediterranean region. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and policymakers interested in energy transitions, sustainable and renewable energy, Mediterranean politics, sustainable development and environment and sustainability more generally.
Microgrids are the most innovative area in the electric power industry today. Future microgrids could exist as energy-balanced cells within existing power distribution grids or stand-alone power networks within small communities. A definitive presentation on all aspects of microgrids, this text examines the operation of microgrids – their control concepts and advanced architectures including multi-microgrids. It takes a logical approach to overview the purpose and the technical aspects of microgrids, discussing the social, economic and environmental benefits to power system operation. The book also presents microgrid design and control issues, including protection and explaining how to implement centralized and decentralized control strategies. Key features: original, state-of-the-art research material written by internationally respected contributors unique case studies demonstrating success stories from real-world pilot sites from Europe, the Americas, Japan and China examines market and regulatory settings for microgrids, and provides evaluation results under standard test conditions a look to the future – technical solutions to maximize the value of distributed energy along with the principles and criteria for developing commercial and regulatory frameworks for microgrids Offering broad yet balanced coverage, this volume is an entry point to this very topical area of power delivery for electric power engineers familiar with medium and low voltage distribution systems, utility operators in microgrids, power systems researchers and academics. It is also a useful reference for system planners and operators, manufacturers and network operators, government regulators, and postgraduate power systems students. CONTRIBUTORS Thomas Degner Aris Dimeas Alfred Engler Nuno Gil Asier Gil de Muro Guillermo Jiménez-Estévez George Kariniotakis George Korres André Madureira Meiqin Mao Chris Marnay Jose Miguel Yarza Satoshi Morozumi Alexander Oudalov Frank van Overbeeke Rodrigo Palma Behnke Joao Abel Pecas Lopes Fernanda Resende John Romankiewicz Christine Schwaegerl Nikos Soultanis Liang Tao Antonis Tsikalakis
Microgrid technology is an emerging area, and it has numerous advantages over the conventional power grid. A microgrid is defined as Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and interconnected loads with clearly defined electrical boundaries that act as a single controllable entity concerning the grid. Microgrid technology enables the connection and disconnection of the system from the grid. That is, the microgrid can operate both in grid-connected and islanded modes of operation. Microgrid technologies are an important part of the evolving landscape of energy and power systems. Many aspects of microgrids are discussed in this volume, including, in the early chapters of the book, the various types of energy storage systems, power and energy management for microgrids, power electronics interface for AC & DC microgrids, battery management systems for microgrid applications, power system analysis for microgrids, and many others. The middle section of the book presents the power quality problems in microgrid systems and its mitigations, gives an overview of various power quality problems and its solutions, describes the PSO algorithm based UPQC controller for power quality enhancement, describes the power quality enhancement and grid support through a solar energy conversion system, presents the fuzzy logic-based power quality assessments, and covers various power quality indices. The final chapters in the book present the recent advancements in the microgrids, applications of Internet of Things (IoT) for microgrids, the application of artificial intelligent techniques, modeling of green energy smart meter for microgrids, communication networks for microgrids, and other aspects of microgrid technologies. Valuable as a learning tool for beginners in this area as well as a daily reference for engineers and scientists working in the area of microgrids, this is a must-have for any library.
MICROGRIDS for COMMERCIAL SYSTEMS This distinct volume provides detailed information on the concepts and applications of the emerging field of microgrids for commercial applications, offering solutions in the design, installation, and operation of this new, cutting-edge technology. The microgrid is defined as Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and interconnected loads with clearly defined electrical boundaries that act as a single controllable entity concerning the grid as per IEEE standard 2030.7-2017. It provides an uninterrupted power supply to end-user loads with high reliability. Commercial systems like IT/ITES, shopping complexes, malls, the banking sector, hospitals, etc., need an uninterrupted input power supply with high reliability. Microgrids are more suitable for commercial systems to service their clients with no service discontinuity. The microgrid enables both connection and disconnection from the grid. That is, the microgrid can operate both in grid-connected and islanded modes of operation. The microgrid controller plays an important role in microgrid systems. It shall have an energy management system and real-time control functions that operate in the following conditions: both grid-connected and islanded modes of operation, automatic transfer from grid-connected mode to islanding mode, reconnection and re-synchronization from islanded mode to grid-connected mode, optimization of both real and reactive power generation and consumption by the energy management system, grid support, ancillary services, etc. Whenever a microgrid is in islanded mode, it will work as an autonomous system without a distribution grid power supply. In this mode of operation, fault in the transmission or distribution grid will not propagate into the microgrid. Whenever a microgrid operates in grid-connected mode, power flows bi-directionally between the distribution grid and microgrid at the point of interconnection. Hence, microgrids ensure the interrupted power supply to the end-user loads with high reliability. This book aims to bring together the design, installation, operation, and new research that has been carried out in the field of microgrid applications for commercial power systems.
Microgrids are poised to play a big role in the electricity ecosystem of the future—with decarbonization, digitalization, decentralization, and non-wires solutions being key attributes. This handbook serves as a guide to evaluate the feasibility of microgrid systems in enhancing power supply quality and connectivity. It includes information about on-grid microgrids for urban and industrial applications, prevailing business models, and emerging trends that could shape the future of this sector.
In recognition of the fact that billions of people in the developing world do not have access to clean energies, the United Nations launched the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative to achieve universal energy access by 2030. Although electricity grid extension remains the most prevalent way of providing access, it is now recognized that the central grid is unlikely to reach many remote areas in the near future. At the same time, individual solutions like solar home systems tend to provide very limited services to consumers. Mini-grids offer an alternative by combining the benefits of a grid-based solution with the potential for harnessing renewable energies at the local level. The purpose of this book is to provide in-depth coverage of the use of mini-grids for rural electrification in developing countries, taking into account the technical, economic, environmental and governance dimensions and presenting case studies from South Asia. This book reports on research carried out by a consortium of British and Indian researchers on off-grid electrification in South Asia. It provides state-of-the art technical knowledge on mini-grids and micro-grids including renewable energy integration (or green mini-grids), smart systems for integration with the central grid, and standardization of systems. It also presents essential analytical frameworks and approaches that can be used to analyze the mini-grids comprehensively including their techno-economic aspects, financial viability and regulatory issues. The case studies drawn from South Asia demonstrate the application of the framework and showcase various successful efforts to promote mini-grids in the region. It also reports on the design and implementation of a demonstration project carried out by the team in a cluster of villages in Odisha (India). The book’s multi-disciplinary approach facilitates understanding of the relevant practical dimensions of mini-grid systems, such as demand creation (through interventions in livelihood generation and value chain development), financing, regulation, and smart system design. Its state-of-the art knowledge, integrated methodological framework, simulation exercises and real-life case analysis will allow the reader to analyze and appreciate the mini-grid-related activities in their entirety. The book will be of interest to researchers, graduate students, practitioners and policy makers working in the area of rural electrification in developing countries.
This book is based on the authors’ research and microgrid projects since 2009, and is the most up-to-date resource on the development of microgrid technologies. In addition to basic facility and network design concepts, it covers related subjects including power supply programming and energy optimization, which means it can serve as a single volume reference to the complete microgrid system implementation. Provides a systematic introduction to the basic concepts, key technologies, and practical design methods of microgrids Covers the theoretical design and implementation of microgrid facilities, including practical operational issues, monitoring and control. The balance of theoretical and applied content will be of real value to engineers who are specifying and design systems in regions with limited experience of microgrid systems Includes real-life examples and projects to help implement the content effectively
This book discusses relevant microgrid technologies in the context of integrating renewable energy and also addresses challenging issues. The authors summarize long term academic and research outcomes and contributions. In addition, this book is influenced by the authors’ practical experiences on microgrids (MGs), electric network monitoring, and control and power electronic systems. A thorough discussion of the basic principles of the MG modeling and operating issues is provided. The MG structure, types, operating modes, modelling, dynamics, and control levels are covered. Recent advances in DC microgrids, virtual synchronousgenerators, MG planning and energy management are examined. The physical constraints and engineering aspects of the MGs are covered, and developed robust and intelligent control strategies are discussed using real time simulations and experimental studies.
