A Generalized Framework For The Design And Analysis Of Microgrid With A Perspective Of Sustainable Development

The alarming issue of global warming,energy poverty and the dependency on fossil fuels to meet the energy demand has motivated most of countries to use clean energy sources.Escalating energy demand can be seen especially in developing and fast-growing economies like China and India where conventional energy resources meet most of the energy demand.The energy access situation is worse in the remote locations of developing nations such as Sub-Saharan Africa and India.The affordability to access clean,modern energy fuels(for example LPG for cooking and heating,etc.)and electricity for the household purpose is also one of the significant challenges being faced in rural areas.The microgrid based on the locally available renewable energy sources can play a vital role in providing energy access(clean cooking and electricity)to the remote locations with a perspective of sustainable development.Nevertheless,even with technological advancement providing energy access to such areas is far from reality.Also,to achieve the inclusion of renewable energy technologies in the present power system a thoughtful consideration should be given covering not only technical and economic aspects but also social,environmental and institutional aspects as well.Moreover,the complexity in the design of sustainable microgrids based on renewable energy sources have increased recently due to the involvement of multiple performance indices,scenarios,and stakeholders.At disintegrated level such as rural villages in developing nations,the issue has become more severe concerning the involvement of social and cultural characteristics making the problem multi-dimensional with multiple objectives.Thus,a proper method which can simultaneously consider the various criteria’s and differing views of the multiple actors involved in varying scenarios is required.The primary aim of this thesis is to develop an innovative,comprehensive generalized methodological framework for the design of a reliable,robust and economic microgrid system based on locally available renewable energy sources with a perspective of sustainability for the rural communities in developing nations.Most of the work reported in the literature is based on either decision-making models or optimization models with no or little consideration towards the social,economic,technical,institutional as well as environmental aspects simultaneously during the planning process.However,the newly proposed framework in this thesis is based on an integrated approach enabling the use of multi-criteria decision making,system modeling and multi-objective optimization tool(HOMER PRO)for microgrid planning considering the various dimensions of sustainable development.The proposed microgrid design framework consists of three significant levels accommodating the subsequent objectives of this thesis work.During the first level of the design process,a novel method incorporating multi-criteria decision method(MCDM)is formulated which is capable of including multiple design scenarios considering several criteria’s for the preliminary evaluation of energy alternatives based on the various dimensions of sustainability.Majority of MCDM models used in sustainable evaluation reported in the published literature have not accommodated multiple design scenarios instead focused only on a single scenario considering a handful of performance indices.The energy alternatives are based on the combinations of locally available energy sources(such as solar,wind and hydro)with suitable storage systems(battery and pumped hydro storage)along with diesel generator as a backup in different architectures.The output of this level will act as input to the second level.At second level,a new scalable approach is proposed to carry out the feasibility assessment of the energy alternatives obtained from the first level for optimal microgrid design considering an annual load growth using a multiobjective optimization tool(HOMER PRO)which is not reported in the literature so far.Furthermore,two new system controllers are introduced for economic power dispatch and energy management for isolated and grid-connected systems in this stage.Apart from these,detailed mathematical modeling of various components of microgrids such as photovoltaics,grid,hydrokinetic turbine,battery storage,pump hydroelectric storage,etc.is also presented.Moreover,to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach,a comparative analysis is performed with well-established dispatch strategies namely load following with real case studies.A detailed system behavior analysis on a yearly basis considering the annual load growth to check the robustness of optimal microgrid solutions obtained from the proposed approach which has been completely ignored in literature is also illustrated.This stage provides many optimal microgrid solutions having different sizes and costs considering different architectures.However,in real scenarios,the primary goal is to obtain the best solution.For such purposes,the elimination of several solutions based on specific performance criteria is required.In the third level,a process utilizing the hybrid multi-criteria decision-making model is introduced to rank and select the best optimal microgrid solution.The results obtained from this level provides a robust,reliable,economical and environment-friendly optimal microgrid system meeting the criteria’s for sustainability.Finally,the whole design framework presented is implemented to design a microgrid for remote communities located in the hilly regions in India to illustrate its suitability,sustainability,and effectiveness.In order to prove the generality of the proposed comprehensive framework,two different geographical locations are utilized in this work.The notions outlined in this thesis put forth a detailed and straightforward roadmap for rural electrification using sustainable microgrids utilizing local energy resources.Moreover,the assessment illustrated in this work shows how scientific procedures can be employed to provide a real-time evaluation considering real situations in rural electrification designs in an efficient manner which can avoid energy project failures.