A realistic approach to assessing intermittent energy sources in a Power System Study.

Abstract

This report contains the work done on the project about a realistic approach to use in assessing intermittent energy sources in a power system study. First and foremost, an intermittent energy source is one whose power output is not constant but varies with time due to changes in the natural factors that determine its power output. Examples include solar energy and wind energy. A power system is an interconnection of various equipment designed to generate power from one location, transmit and finally distribute it to other areas for utilization. The work begins with choosing an intermittent energy source for study. Under this, wind speed and solar irradiance data for three case study locations is analyzed using statistical methods in order to determine the more variable one. The analysis yielded wind as the more variable energy source and for that matter, it is the intermittent energy source of attention studied in this entire report.

The introduction describes the background of this project where a detailed description of wind energy is given. Here, I explain the factors that influence the power got from wind such as wind speed being the major one, wind direction, rotor area and turbine characteristics among others. From there I discuss the challenges with integrating wind energy in a power system and also the deterministic approach of assessing it in a power system. On the other hand, in this section I propose a probabilistic method as the realistic approach of assessing wind energy. I clearly explain what it is, what it entails and how to perform it. The project objectives are also given in this section.

The literature review explores relevant work that has been done before in relation to wind energy assessment. It discusses the best contributions and also identifies gaps and areas of improvement in the field of wind energy studies. This section is followed by the implementation or methodology section where I go into details of how exactly the project work was carried out in line with each of the specific project objectives. The focus is on the deterministic and probabilistic approaches of assessing wind power in a load flow study of a power system. A detailed explanation of the statistical analysis of wind data as well as the software simulation of both deterministic and probabilistic approaches are given in this section.

The report concludes with an analysis and discussion of results of the two approaches that shows the problems of using the deterministic approach and how the probabilistic approach solves them and gives a more realistic assessment.