Doctoral Thesis
An optimized design of renewable-rich microgrids at the required reliability
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Murdoch University
2023
Abstract
Microgrids (MGs) are the emerging technology that support renewable energy (RE) integration in power systems. Due to the intermittent and uncertain nature of renewable energy resources, the reliability of renewable-rich MGs can be reduced. Therefore, more investment in renewable resources and energy storages are necessary to keep the reliability at the required level. This extra investment due to reliability will reduce the affordability of renewable-rich MGs. Therefore, the reliability of such MGs needs to be evaluated using a probabilistic approach, and then be improved. Reliability evaluation and calculating the associated costs have immense importance in MG system planning. This thesis focuses on the adequacy aspect of reliability, which concerns the availability of enough power generation to satisfy load demand.
The main contributions of this thesis include: a) proposing a holistic reliability evaluation method to evaluate the reliability level of a standalone renewable energy microgrid (SMG) system, by incorporating hourly equipment availability and hourly resource availability; b) evaluating the marginal cost of reliability of an SMG using an optimization approach; c) investigating the deviation in reliability levels due to modeling uncertainty, in a fully renewable energy integrated SMG system; d) evaluation of cost-effective reliability level of a SMG system using optimization approaches; e) investigating battery energy storage systems as a service between SMGs as a cost-effective solution to improve reliability; and f) allocation of incurred reliability improvement cost between various customer sectors in SMGs.
The research outcome and proposed algorithms are useful tools for MG power producers to find: a) the present reliability level; b) the cost-effective methods for improving reliability; and c) the cost-effective reliability level. The numerical studies proved the accuracy of the proposed method. Simulation results with various sensitivity analyses illustrate the appropriateness of the proposed approaches.
Details
- Title
- An optimized design of renewable-rich microgrids at the required reliability
- Authors/Creators
- Sakthivelnathan Nallainathan
- Contributors
- Ali Arefi (Supervisor) - Murdoch University, Centre for Water, Energy and WasteChristopher Lund (Supervisor)A. Mehrizi-Sani (Supervisor) - Virginia Tech
- Awarding Institution
- Murdoch University; Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Identifiers
- 991005599968307891
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Engineering and Energy
- Resource Type
- Doctoral Thesis
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