An IoT-Based Services Infrastructure for Utility-Scale Distributed Solar Farms

Internet of Things (IoT) provides large-scale solutions for efficient resource monitoring and management. As such, the technology has been heavily integrated into domains such as manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and utilities, which led to the emergence of sustainable smart cities. The success of smart cities depends on the availability of data, as well as the quality of the data management infrastructure. IoT introduced numerous new software, hardware, and networking technologies designed for efficient and low-cost data transport, storage, and processing. However, proper selection and integration of the correct technologies is crucial to ensuring a positive return on investment for such systems. This paper presents a novel end-to-end infrastructure for solar energy analysis and prediction via edge-based analytics.

Short term load forecasting using LSTM ensembled network on utility scale load demand.

This work entails producing load forecasting through lstm and lstm ensembled networks and put up a comparative picture between the two. Our work establishes that lstm ensemble learning can produce a better prediction compared to single lstm networks. We tried to quantify the improvement and assess the economic impact that it can have on the utility companies.

Techno-Economic Analysis of Utility-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Plus Battery Power Plant

Decarbonizing the global power sector is a key requirement to fight climate change. Consequently, the deployment of renewable energy (RE) technologies, notably solar photovoltaic (PV), is proceeding rapidly in many regions. However, in many of these regions, the evening peak is predominantly being served by fossil-fired generators. Furthermore, as the evening peak is projected to increase in the coming years, there are plans to install more fossil-fired peaking generators. A cleaner alternative is to enable solar PV plants to provide clean power after sunset by pairing them with large-scale lithium-ion batteries to provide evening peak generation. In this work, we performed a techno-economic analysis of a solar PV plus battery (PVB) power plant using the island of Mauritius as a case study. We assessed the impacts of the battery size, inverter loading ratio (ILR), tracking type, and curtailment on the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). The main results show that the LCOE of utility-scale PVB systems are comparable to that of fossil-fired peaking generators for this case study. Tracking was shown to exacerbate the clipping loss problem and its benefits on LCOE reduction decrease as the ILR increases. The availability of the PVB system to serve the evening peak was found to be high. The curtailment analysis also showed that planners must not rely solely on storage, but rather should also improve grid flexibility to keep PVB integration affordable. Overall, the practical insights generated will be useful to utility planners in charting their generation expansion strategy.

Large-eddy simulation of airborne wind energy farms

The future utility-scale deployment of airborne wind energy technologies requires the development of large-scale multi-megawatt systems. This study aims at quantifying the interaction between the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) and large-scale airborne wind energy systems operating in a farm. To that end, we present a virtual flight simulator combining large-eddy simulations to simulate turbulent flow conditions and optimal control techniques for flight-path generation and tracking. The two-way coupling between flow and system dynamics is achieved by implementing an actuator sector method that we pair to a model predictive controller. In this study, we consider ground-based power generation pumping-mode AWE systems (lift-mode AWES) and on-board power generation AWE systems (drag-mode AWES). For the lift-mode AWES, we additionally investigate different reel-out strategies to reduce the interaction between the tethered wing and its own wake. Further, we investigate AWE parks consisting of 25 systems organized in 5 rows of 5 systems. For both lift- and drag-mode archetypes, we consider a moderate park layout with a power density of 10 MW km−2 achieved at a rated wind speed of 12 m s−1. For the drag-mode AWES, an additional park with denser layout and power density of 28 MW km−2 is also considered. The model predictive controller achieves very satisfactory flight-path tracking despite the AWE systems operating in fully waked, turbulent flow conditions. Furthermore, we observe significant wake effects for the utility-scale AWE systems considered in the study. Wake-induced performance losses increase gradually through the downstream rows of systems and reach in the last row of the parks up to 17 % for the lift-mode AWE park and up to 25 % and 45 % for the moderate and dense drag-mode AWE parks, respectively. For an operation period of 60 minutes at a below-rated reference wind speed of 10 m s−1, the lift-mode AWE park generates about 84.4 MW of power, corresponding to 82.5 % of the power yield expected when AWE systems operate ideally and interaction with the ABL is negligible. For the drag-mode AWE parks, the moderate and dense layouts generate about 86.0 MW and 72.9 MW of power, respectively, corresponding to 89.2 % and 75.6 % of the ideal power yield.

Pumped Hydroelectricity and Utility-Scale Batteries for Reserve Electricity Generation in New Zealand

<p>Non-pumped hydroelectricity-based energy storage in New Zealand has only limited potential to expand to meet projected growth in electricity demand. Seasonal variations of hydro inflows have also led to several 'dry-year' events over the last decade and dedicated fast-start 'peaker' capacity may also be required to support wind power as it approaches a 20% generation share. In this research, the New Zealand electricity industry has been surveyed in regard to the feasibility of reducing CO2-e emissions through the introduction of pumped hydroelectricity and utility-scale batteries by 2025. A desk-based review of the economic costs of these technologies has also been performed and their drivers and barriers critically assessed. Most respondents to the survey projected that peak power demand will continue to increase and this will result in new-build centralised (~150 MW) thermal reserve power sources. In New Zealand, the costs of pumped hydro and batteries are seen to be prohibitive to their introduction, even though they are almost universally assumed to be technically capable of providing renewables support and peak power adequacy. The perception of the poor economic viability of pumped hydro may, in part, be due to the relatively high capital cost estimate associated with the Manorburn-Onslow proposal (~NZ$3 billion). This research has shown, however, that smaller, 'more-internationally-representative' pumped hydro schemes, if available in NZ with low associated environmental impact, are cost-competitive with thermal peakers, especially diesel peakers. Conversely, utility-scale batteries have very high storage costs per kWh and are most likely to be used only for very high value applications where there is a strong technical advantage, such as the six-second fast instantaneous reserve.</p>

Pumped Hydroelectricity and Utility-Scale Batteries for Reserve Electricity Generation in New Zealand

<p>Non-pumped hydroelectricity-based energy storage in New Zealand has only limited potential to expand to meet projected growth in electricity demand. Seasonal variations of hydro inflows have also led to several 'dry-year' events over the last decade and dedicated fast-start 'peaker' capacity may also be required to support wind power as it approaches a 20% generation share. In this research, the New Zealand electricity industry has been surveyed in regard to the feasibility of reducing CO2-e emissions through the introduction of pumped hydroelectricity and utility-scale batteries by 2025. A desk-based review of the economic costs of these technologies has also been performed and their drivers and barriers critically assessed. Most respondents to the survey projected that peak power demand will continue to increase and this will result in new-build centralised (~150 MW) thermal reserve power sources. In New Zealand, the costs of pumped hydro and batteries are seen to be prohibitive to their introduction, even though they are almost universally assumed to be technically capable of providing renewables support and peak power adequacy. The perception of the poor economic viability of pumped hydro may, in part, be due to the relatively high capital cost estimate associated with the Manorburn-Onslow proposal (~NZ$3 billion). This research has shown, however, that smaller, 'more-internationally-representative' pumped hydro schemes, if available in NZ with low associated environmental impact, are cost-competitive with thermal peakers, especially diesel peakers. Conversely, utility-scale batteries have very high storage costs per kWh and are most likely to be used only for very high value applications where there is a strong technical advantage, such as the six-second fast instantaneous reserve.</p>