Renewable power integration: Experimental and simulation study to investigate the ability of integrating wave, solar and wind energies

Abstract

Energy systems are one of the most important infrastructures of the modern society. To realize a sustainable, reliable and affordable energy supply, a new energy revolution is now ongoing globally. In this energy revolution, energy systems integration is considered to be one of the biggest challenges and also opportunities. The main reason for this challenge is the difference between energy sources in terms of the types, environmental conditions and the changing factors of renewable energy production. In this paper, a dynamic modeling and control of PV/Wind/Wave energy hybrid system have been presented. The wave energy, photovoltaic and wind energy conversion systems have been integrated into the main DC bus-bar in order to increase the renewable energy system effectiveness. The wave energy and PV system have been equipped with DC-DC converter and the wind energy conversion system has been equipped with AC-DC converter. Then the whole hybrid system is connected to the buck boost converter and microcontroller system for obtaining constant DC bus-bar voltage. Finally, the output voltage of the hybrid system is connected to the required load or batteries. Experimental test-bed is established for these three different types of renewable energies to study how to integrate them and unify their energy production. Wave energy has been investigated by including a clear challenge to the variation of the output of this energy due to the changes in the strength, direction and height of the waves. The challenge has been raised about how to transfer this energy to the electrical energy. Wind and solar energy are also being studied considering different environmental conditions such as changes of solar irradiation and wind speed. So, the integration of the wind and solar energy with wave energy represents a huge challenge. The analysis and simulation modeling of the hybrid energy system are implemented using MATLAB/Simulink environment. The concept of Buck-boost circuit is presented and investigated in the design of the integrated circuit. The effectiveness of the simulated model is found to be practical, and the model is proven to be used in the integration of the three proposed energies.