Professional Documents
Culture Documents
clients
B. Huyck*, J Cappelle, K. Stul, K. Duerloo, J. Debaenst and C. Van Laere
*KaHo St-Lieven, Gebr. Desmetstraat 1, B-9000 Gent, (Belgium)
Index Terms--Energy management, Wind power generation, A consequence of this way of working is that batteries
Photovoltaic power systems. are deep or completely discharged, with negative effects
on the lifetime [1]. A higher DOD means a lower number
I. NOMENCLATURE of cycles the battery survives.
• EMS: energy management system
• UPS: uninterruptible power supply
• DOD: depth of discharge
II. INTRODUCTION
Due to several short time grid failures, the idea grew to
make an energy management system (EMS) for houses
and small and medium enterprises (SME). To counter
grid failures of a few minutes to two hours, an
uninterruptible power supply (UPS) can be bought. For
this purpose only UPS systems with lead-acid batteries
are considered. A UPS is a device that hopefully must not
work or will only have to work a short period in a year.
When you do not take in account the economical loss of a Fig. 2. A higher DOD means a smaller lifetime for lead-acid batteries.
grid failure, a UPS is a device that only costs money. To In this case data of Genesis Purelead batteries of Enersys is plotted.
recover (a part) of the cost of a UPS system, we tried to
realise a UPS that works daily. The basic idea is to store To increase the lifetime of a daily used EMS, the DOD
the cheaper electrical energy at night in an energy buffer must be low. Due to legal regulation, an environmental
and to use this stored energy during the day. permit is needed for a battery bank of more than 10 kVAh
For a daily working UPS, some properties of these [2]. A permit for such a battery bank in an urban
systems should be changed. When the grid fails, a UPS environment will almost certain be rejected. Therefore
has to supply all electrical consumers until the energy the working principle of the EMS was adapted.
buffer is empty or the grid is back online. When the grid The battery buffer will be maximum 10 kVAh. This
is online after a grid failure, the battery buffer is charged means that daily only a limited amount of energy can be
for future grid failures. used. To make this usefull, the electrical applications are
split up in ‘critical’ and ‘non-critical’ consumers. Critical
consumers are for example a fridge and some strategic
The research project “electrical energy management for low-voltage lights for a residential applications. For small businesses
clients” was supported by the IWT-Tetra fund of the Flemish a critical application is for example a cash desk.
Community.
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there is still a risk for battery failure in case of grid second one, is a Air-X400 with a maximum generator
failure. At that moment it is not possible to replace the power of 400W.
batteries. The batteries in this EMS are used daily. These 2 small turbines are tested during one month to
Battery failures can be detected daily what diminishes the monitor the profit during that month.
risk of UPS-failure.
E. Conclusion
With the current state of the art of battery technology,
even the most optimal working point still gives a small
economical loss. A small decrease of battery price or a
small increase in efficiency, can turn this EMS into a
profitable UPS. The advantage of the EMS towards a
UPS, is that it uses its batteries daily, what makes it
possible to have a better idea of the condition of the
batteries.
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Fig 6: A foto of the 2 strings of 5 SQ160-PC solar modules.
B. Measurements
A measurement of the monthly profit is done. For one
year, all measurements are plotted in figure 7.
6,00
fig : The solar invertor is attached to the EMS between the critical
Energyproduction [kWh]
4,00 In this case the solar invertor can work in case of grid
3,00 failure.
2,00 B. How it should work
1,00 The EMS should work like mentioned higher. With the
0,00 solar cells connected behind the EMS, some extra
Jan Feb Mar Apr Mai Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec working conditions are added:
Month • Solar cells generate electricity and critical application
Fig 7: A year profile of the mean generated power every month of the consume more energy than can be delivered by the
solar installation, from June 2005 until May 2006. cells: the invertor/charger delivers the missing part.
C. Profit • Solar cells generate electricity and critical application
consume less energy than the solar cells deliver: the
The Flemish government grants a subsidy for invertor/charger charges the batteries.
installations. For installations of max 3kWp, it pays back
• In case of grid failure, the invertor/charger works in
10% of the investment and grants green power
UPS mode, but solar cells can continue delivering
Certificates of 450 euro for the next 20 years for solar
energy to the critical consumers.
energy installations [5]. This makes that the pay-back
time for such an installation is between 10 to 12 years, C. Problems
which is interesting for a private person. Two different invertors in the same circuit can
D. Conclusion interfere. Therefore some tests are done. First a normal
operation with different electrical consumers is tried.
Solar cells are an interesting investment. If the price of
With different electrical consumers, several grid
electrical energy increases in the future, a part of this
impedances are made. In almost all cases, the impedance
increase can be countered. For environmental aware
behind the invertor was higher than 2. A Sunmaster
people it’s a reassuring thought that they are making a
QS1200 shuts down when grid impedance is higher than
small step to a less polluting world.
2 . This restriction could be changed to a higher value
with the help of the manufacturer, although this is illegal
VI. FROM SOLAR TEST SETUP TO EMS
in Belgium, France, Germany and Greece. This
When the solar test setup can be adapted so that grid impedance measurement is done to check if the grid is
failures can be countered, our goal of the EMS is available following DIN-Norm VDE 0126 to ensure a
achieved. Although the EMS without renewable energy disconnection from the grid in case of grid failure. The
works with small losses, it might be interesting to couple grid impedance is now set to 4 . With this settings, the
the EMS to the solar invertor. A solar invertor has to solar invertor works well behind the invertor/charger. As
switch off in case of grid failure for reasons of safety. If the solar invertor is not connected directy to the grid
the solar invertor is placed behind the invertor/charger itself, but only after the invertor/charger, there is no
this disconnection isn't necessary anymore. danger that energy would be injected into the grid, when
A. Test setup it is off-line.
In case of grid failure, the time to switch from grid to
In the lab, a test setup is build. Schematic UPS mode, which is less than 10ms, can be easily
representation is given in the figure below. bridged by most critical applications, but will be detected
by the solar invertor. This device will switch off and start
up again. The grid resistance in UPS mode is higher
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(about 3,5 - 4 ohm) than when the grid is on (0,5 – 2
). Due to the fact that the Sunmaster QS1200 shuts
down at an impedance of 4 , restart of the Sunmaster is
not guaranteed.
D. Conclusion
If we want that the solar invertor works in case of grid
failure, we have to change the settings. Further research is
necessary to ensure restarting the solar invertor in case of
grid failure. But if this is possible, we can seriously
extend the autonomy of our UPS.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
An energy management system that pays back itself is
still not possible. Due to the bad efficiency and still high
cost of the energy buffer, the EMS still losses (little)
money. Coupling the EMS with a solar invertor can
enlarge autonomy of the system, but due to the protection
unpredictable shutdowns are possible.
Due to the low wind speed and legal obstructions,
electrical energy generation with small wind turbines is
not useful in Flanders.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research work was carried out at the laboratory of
the electrical engineering at the faculty industrial
engineering of the KaHo Sint - Lieven in Ghent,
Belgium, in the frame of IWT research project nr. 40217.
REFERENCES
[1] Genesis purelead application manual, sixth edition
Publication No: EN-GPL-AM-002 - July 2005, p5
[2] BELGISCH STAATSBLAD - 04.02.2000 - MONITEUR
BELGE, p3533
[3] Van Klemp, A.; Burdin, B.: Application of supercon-
ductors in traction drives. Proc. of SPEEDAM ’92
Symposium - Taormina (Italy), June 1994, pp. 150-155.
[4] Y. Cabooter, L Dewilde, M Langie: Een windplan voor
vlaanderen.
[5] ODE Vlaanderen - Photovoltaïsche zonne-energie voor
particulieren – overzicht subsidies 2006
http://www.ode.be/images/stories/Subsidies/zpv_subs2006
_particulier_061010.pdf
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