Abstract
Mountain huts are stand-alone micro-grid systems that are not connected to a power grid. However, they impact the environment by generating electricity and through day-to-day operations. The installed generator needs to be flexible to cover fluctuations in the energy demand. Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources presents a challenge when it comes to balancing electricity generation and consumption. This paper presents an integration-and-optimization process for renewable energy sources in a mountain hut’s electricity generation system combined with a lifecycle assessment. A custom computational model was developed, validated with experimental data and integrated into a TRNSYS model. Five different electricity generation topologies were modelled to find the best configuration that matches the dynamics and meets the cumulative electricity demand. A lifecycle assessment methodology was used to evaluate the environmental impacts of all the topologies for one typical operating year. The carbon footprint could be reduced by 34% in the case of the actually implemented system upgrade, and by up to 47% in the case of 100% renewable electricity generation. An investment cost analysis shows that improving the battery charging strategy has a minor effect on the payback time, but it can significantly reduce the environmental impacts.
Highlights
Stand-alone micro-grid systems have been widely studied, discussed, demonstrated and even tested in residential applications, but they are rarely discussed and applied to mountain huts (MHs)
To show the benefits of increasing the capacity of the PV panels, a simulation was run with the configuration before the modifications, the state of play at the beginning (SOPB)
There are no experimental data for the SOPB, and we must use the TRANSYS model to calculate the energy balance
Summary
Stand-alone micro-grid systems have been widely studied, discussed, demonstrated and even tested in residential applications, but they are rarely discussed and applied to mountain huts (MHs). To generate sufficient electrical energy throughout the days, weeks, months and years, MH micro-grid systems in the past relied mostly on fossil-fuel-based technologies that are easy to operate are affordable [2,3], but these are far from optimal when considering the environmental impacts and target emissions such as NOx or particles [4,5]. Besides technical feasibility and environmental impacts, the economic aspects of energy systems should be considered. Mori et al [10] show that the optimal system might not be the best one considering any single criterion, but should instead be a reasonable balance among energy efficiency, environmental impacts and economic constraints
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