Abstract
Demand-side management has the potential to reduce the cost of solar based community micro-grids and solar home systems for electricity access. This paper presents a methodology for optimal least-cost sizing of generation assets while meeting explicit reliability constraints in micro-grids that are capable of active demand management. The battery management model considers kinetic constraints on battery operation and represents dispatch in the field to regulate the depth of discharge. The model allows consideration of the trade-off between depth of discharge, cycle life, and calendar lifetime in lead-acid batteries. Separate reliability targets for disaggregated, residential load profiles at hourly timesteps are considered to evaluate the performance and cost reduction potential of demand-side management capabilities — with economic results and sensitivity analyses around key input assumptions subsequently presented. We find that demand-side management can reduce the number and cost of requisite solar panels and batteries with the integration of real-time management and controls – a key result for justifying next generation micro-grids for electricity access.
Highlights
Over one billion people mostly in developing countries live without electricity access, and many who have grid-connections are subject to low levels of reliability and poor quality of service
The maximum depth of discharge (MDOD) factor is a key input to the model, with the cycle life of a battery dictated by the choice of MDOD; the sensitivity to this input parameter is discussed in more detail subsequently, but the default value for the purposes of the use-case shared assumes an MDOD of 60%, corresponding to a rounded value of 1400 cycles per exponential fit described in Equation (1)
The feasible set is determined by the set of i and j indices that meet both critical and total load profile reliability thresholds, and the final step of the algorithm chooses the least cost combination of the solar panel and battery asset; note that each of values in each of the cells is calculated based on the objective function that relies on an exponential relationship of the per unit costs of batteries and solar panels
Summary
Over one billion people mostly in developing countries live without electricity access, and many who have grid-connections are subject to low levels of reliability and poor quality of service. These results are extrapolated to the cost and financial analysis of the modeled micro-grid, with Section 9 subjecting key input assumptions of the model to sensitivity analysis for deeper insight. Operational simulation of power systems is an active field of research, and numerous software programs and commercial packages have been introduced in recent years that translate detailed engineering models to system design and overall economics These software platforms, such as ‘Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources’ (HOMER) and ‘Distributed Energy Resources d Consumer Adoption Model’ (DER-CAM), can be used to assess the sizing and model the performance of distributed energy technologies (such as fuel cells, diesel generators, photovoltaics, batteries, etc.) over a period of time in a specified geographic area. A version of the MATLAB code developed can be found in Ref. [24]
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