Development of an institutional-based community power pooling model for seamless renewable energy integration
Date
2023-10
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Federal University of Technology, Owerri
Abstract
In recent times, educational institutions were provided with sources of power, that were able to cater for their needs, cognizance of the low demand for knowledge economy was not high. As a result, the available energy was able to suffice for the limited schools, departments, and units within the university system that was available as at that time. As technology continues to improve, the quest for knowledge increases thereby giving needs for expansion in the educational institutions, which cut across creating of more administrative sections, departments and courses. This expansion came with the need for more energy consumption, which calls for a more robust technology with enabling energy integration. The universities were not taking into consideration using energy resources within their operating environments for optimal utilization. And even when there is any consideration to the use of renewable energy resources, standalone energy systems were readily attracted without consideration to network, and integration model, with a fear of un-seamless nature of renewable energy resources. To mitigate the aforementioned shortcoming, this project proposes an institutional-based community power pooling model with seamless renewable energy integration. This involves the formulation and development of an institutionalized local distribution network forming a mini – grid. Then appropriate dc and ac Load Flow (LF) model were applied to determine an optimal balance between locally available distributed energy resources (DERs) and co – located load centers with the referenced institution – in this case, FUTO. The model simulations reveal,that the system is capable of synchronizing the renewable energy resources within the university in a single network bus, alongside with public power supply and diesel generators. This could guarantee efficient and optimal utilization of the energy potentials within the university community, with excess energy of 8,603,334 KWh/yr. available for sales to the neighbouring energy users from the formulated model. This model could be utilized in other universities across the nation with the view of tailoring its architecture to suit each institutions special peculiarities in terms of energy resources and load demand.
Description
Doctoral thesis in electrical power system engineering.
Keywords
Institutional-based system, distribution energy network, seamless energy integration, power pool model, renewable energy system, electrical and electronic engineering
Citation
Opara, O. R. (2023). Development of an institutional-based community power pooling model for seamless renewable energy integration, (Unpublished Doctoral Thesis), Federal University of Technology, Owerri