Abstract
Stand-alone hybrid power plants based on renewable energy sources are becoming a more and more interesting alternative. However, their management is a complex task because there are many variables, requirements and restrictions as well as a wide variety of possible scenarios. Though a proper sizing of the power plant is necessary to obtain a competitive cost of the energy, smart management is key to guarantee the power supply at a minimum cost. In this work, a novel hybrid power plant control strategy is designed, implemented and simulated under a wide variety of scenarios. Thereby, the proposed control algorithm aims to achieve maximum integration of renewable energy, reducing the usage of non-renewable generators as much as possible and guaranteeing the stability of the microgrid. Different scenarios and case studies have been analyzed by dynamic simulation to verify the proper operation of the power plant controller. The main novelties of this work are: (i) the stand-alone hybrid power plant management regarding a battery energy storage system as a part of the spinning reserve, (ii) the characterization of the largest loads as non-priority loads, (iii) the minimization of the needed spinning reserve and fuel consumption from diesel generators.
Highlights
Stand-alone hybrid power plants based on renewable energy are emerging as interesting solutions to produce electricity because they are a clean and inexhaustible source of energy and able to guarantee stable prices [1]
Results of the Power Plant with battery energy storage systems (BESSs) Performing as spinning reserve (SR)
The SR is assigned to the synchronous generators, and the interest in and popularity of the battery energy storage system (BESS) is because it can17 of 27
Summary
Stand-alone hybrid power plants based on renewable energy are emerging as interesting solutions to produce electricity because they are a clean and inexhaustible source of energy and able to guarantee stable prices [1]. In [35], a combination of BESS and an electrolyzer-fuel cell system allowed to design some complex power management strategies, minimizing the operational cost of the stand-alone power plant Within this framework, a novel hybrid power plant control strategy was designed and implemented in the present work, capable of working in both isolated and grid-tied modes, Electronics 2021, 10, 796 and changing between them. In stand-alone operation mode, the purpose of the power plant control is to guarantee the continuity and quality of the electrical power supply by coordinating the generation of all power sources and minimizing the LCoE for the required load demand. In a first study case, different renewable generation scenarios were considered as well as an abrupt loss of generation due to a cloud transient event In this case, the central control was tested operating in a conventional way, with SGs as the only contributor to SR. Appendix A lists abbreviations and Appendix B the main parameters used in the power plant model
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