Abstract
Seasonal variability coupled with the intermittency of renewable energy sources makes reservoir hydroelectric plants an interesting option to consider in hybrid energy systems, especially in cases of dams that have not been completed or have been abandoned and which still have some potential for reuse. The Laranjeiras dam was completed in the 1960s and the original project for hydroelectric power generation was not completed, made impossible by economic changes during the construction years. A recent study proposed the implementation of a hydroelectric photovoltaic hybrid system with lower horsepower to allow the dam to be made useful again. This paper presents the results of the computational simulations with the software Homer, considering the operation of the hydroelectric component (of the proposed hybrid system) with reservoir, playing the role of energy storage device when the production exceeds the demand at a given moment, reducing the loss of energy due to unavailability of demand. The study suggested to implement a hydroelectric power plant with power house at the base of the dam that has a height of 20 m, operating at a minimum flow of 9171 L/s, with reservoir operating as a device for energy storage, operating with a photovoltaic system of 360 kW, and a power limit for the purchase of energy from the grid equal to 200 kW, providing consumer loads up to 40 MWh per day, with cost of energy equal to US$0.021 per kWh and a capital cost of US$3285.617.
Highlights
Renewable resources are an important alternative for obtaining energy supplies, both on a small scale and by considering the larger interconnected systems
The optimum solution obtained with Homer software for the repowering of the Laranjeiras dam [8] includes a 20-meter-high hydroelectric power plant with an average flow of 9171 liters per second generating 1497 kW installed at the base of the dam, operating in conjunction with photovoltaic panels of 180 kW, operating on floating structures on the reservoir surface
We present the results of the simulation of the hybrid system shown in Figure 1, which is basically the system simulated by Vasco et al [8], with the photovoltaic modules in the AC bus and the DC bus dedicated to the simulation of the hydroelectric power plant proposed by them and operated with the use of the energy storage capacity provided by the reservoir formed by the Laranjeiras dam
Summary
Renewable resources are an important alternative for obtaining energy supplies, both on a small scale and by considering the larger interconnected systems. This paper intends to contribute to studies involving the generation of energy in hybrid systems of micro and small size, eventually taking advantage of the complementarity between energy sources, in which the use of some energy storage device can result in reduction of the cost of energy. In this sense, this paper presents a case study in which clearly a reservoir used for energy storage contributes to improve the performance of a photovoltaic hydroelectric hybrid system.
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