Florida Energy Systems Consortium – IESES
To meet Florida’s renewable energy and greenhouse gas targets, there must be an aggressive sustainable energy plan. A microgrid strategy can provide a solution for meeting Florida’s sustainable energy needs. Microgrids are an amalgam of: loads; distributed generation such as: photovoltaic, wind, fuel cells and other renewable energy sources; distributed energy storage devices which include: stationary (flywheels, ultracapacitors, and batteries) and non-stationary entities such as plug-in hybrid electric and electric vehicles. Key reasons why Microgrids should be pursued are:
1. Reduce the number of system-wide power outages by providing islanding capabilities allowing grids to separate from each other, providing for a more stable and reliable power delivery infrastructure.
2. Provide a framework in which non-traditional, low-carbon footprint, energy sources such as: wind, solar, and fuel cells can be easily integrated into the existing power system.
3. Provide for intelligent energy management and increased efficiency via high-penetration levels of power electronics and control strategies.
4. Provide for streamlined integration of both stationary and non-stationary energy storage devices as well as future energy conversion resources such as: ocean current and tidal.
5. Directly address greenhouse gas targets.
The microgrids project a variety of needs via advanced research initiatives in the following areas:
1. Advanced Energy Storage: New technologies that provide greater energy density in storage devices are necessary to ensure efficient and reliable operation of the power system. Such items may include integrated fuel-cell/batteries as well as technologies and methods to produce higher energy density ultracapacitors.
2. Power Electronics and Energy Conversion: Develop high efficiency and high power density utility-interactive hybrid inverters for use in fuel cells and energy storage, which have lower EMI, improve power quality and provide for greater grid stability. New and efficient power electronic topologies that provide bi-directional power flow capability are necessary in order to capitalize on distributed energy generation/storage and modern control techniques. Converter and control development and fault analysis for high and low speed permanent magnet machines present in distributed generation and storage. Development and investigation of waste heat recovery for application in combined heat and power systems and its effect on microgrid strategies.
3. Controls, Communications and Metering: New and intelligent methodologies are required in order to efficiently and effectively manage distribution of storage and resources as well as grid islanding in the advent of faults and outages. Additionally, communication protocols will need to be developed in order to provide feedback between locally controlled loads, storage devices and generation and centralized grid control. Investigation into metering strategies, how that can be used to monitor and provide feedback to assist in power quality issues, and how they may be utilized in applications such as plug-in hybrid vehicles which may act as both a distributed energy source or storage device.
Florida Energy Systems Consortium – IESES
The objectives of this proposal are to provide technological advances to aid in creating a sustainable energy future for Florida in:
1. Power electronic converter topologies for energy management, conversion, and control from distributed energy sources and storage.
2. Intelligent control methodologies/strategies for both local distributed device control and overall centralized grid coordination.
3. Energy density of storage and generation devices such as: ultracapacitors, flywheels, and batteries.
4. Improvements in modeling and characterization of large – scale power systems with a high-penetration of distributed energy resources.
The general purpose of these efforts is to address the research and development needs set forth by the Florida Energy Systems Consortium (FESC). The primary focus of this particular research is on Modeling, Integration, and Characterization of PHEVs and PVs in a Microgrid Structure. This effort addresses the continued development of microgrids models; PHEV energy system models; PV integration strategies and impact studies; and development of HIL for usage in studying controls, models and impact analysis. The main points of the research in the aforementioned areas is:
1. Provide a fundamental and flexible set of models that can be utilized for a wide variety of microgrids studies where the microgrid models will be primarily targeted at heavily residential and commercial areas and will be based on electrical characteristics of present and developing grid-tied green communities as well as intermittently grid-tied structures.
2. Provide models of PHEVs by enhancement of existing HEV models to incorporate bidirectional power flow where these models will be utilized to study the effect/impact of PHEVs as mobile distributed energy storage units.
3. Provide models of distribution systems that have been penetrated by PV/PHEVs and investigate the usage and impact of these sources for voltage regulation and system stability.