Abstract
Photovoltaic (PV) generators suffer from fluctuating output power due to the highly fluctuating primary energy source. With significant PV penetration, these fluctuations can lead to power system instability and power quality problems. The use of energy storage systems as fluctuation compensators has been proposed as means to mitigate these problems. In this paper, the behavior of PV power fluctuations in Northern European climatic conditions and requirements for sizing the energy storage systems to compensate them have been investigated and compared to similar studies done in Southern European climate. These investigations have been performed through simulations that utilize measurements from the Tampere University of Technology solar PV power station research plant in Finland. An enhanced energy storage charging control strategy has been developed and tested. Energy storage capacity, power, and cycling requirements have been derived for different PV generator sizes and power ramp rate requirements. The developed control strategy leads to lesser performance requirements for the energy storage systems compared to the methods presented earlier. Further, some differences on the operation of PV generators in Northern and Southern European climates have been detected.
Highlights
Solar radiation fluctuates in annual, daily, and down-tosecond timescale
The results demonstrate that the introduced Energy storage systems (ESS) control strategy performs better than the earlier applied strategies [9,10,11], and some geographical dependency of PV power fluctuations as well as optimal ESS sizing appears
The study utilized irradiance and PV module back plate temperature measurements performed by the Tampere University of Technology solar PV power research plant located in Tampere, Finland
Summary
Solar radiation fluctuates in annual, daily, and down-tosecond timescale. Fast fluctuations are dominantly due to shading caused by moving clouds. Essential technical sizing variables are the required energy capacity, maximum power output, and the charge-discharge-cycling induced degradation Minimization of these variables reduces the added economic burden for the PV power producer. The model relies on the idea that with proper control the maximum energy surplus or deficiency would be dictated by PVG power fluctuations with the worst possible characteristics These characteristics were selected to be a fast transition from 100 to 10% of the nominal PVG output power, or vice versa, while the fall or rise of the compensated grid feedin power would be uninterrupted.
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