Pressure Retarded Osmosis Power Units Modelling for Power Flow Analysis of Electric Distribution Networks

Abstract

Pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) power units, which produce electrical energy from salinity gradient sources located at coastlines, are a technology still in the process of maturation; however, there is an expectation that this technology will need to be integrated into electrical distribution networks. Such integration will drive changes in the electric response of the distribution systems which may lead to harmful operating conditions. Power flow analysis is a tool used to reveal the steady-state operating condition of distribution systems and which could be extended to study and address the integration of PRO power units. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, such extension of power flow analysis has not yet been addressed in the literature. Accordingly, this paper comprehensively provides a model to evaluate the electric current and complex power produced by PRO power units. This model is directly embedded in the forward-backward sweep (FBS) method, extending the power flow analysis of electric distribution systems in this way so as to consider the integration of PRO power units. The resulting approach permits revealing of the steady-state operating response of distribution systems and the effects that may be driven by the integration of PRO power units, as corroborated through numerical results on a 14-node test distribution system.