An optimal mix of solar PV,wind and hydro power for a low-carbon electricity supply in Brazil

Brazil has to expand its power generation capacities due to significant projected growth of demand. The government aims at adding hydropower capacities in North–Brazil, additional to wind and thermal power generation. However, new hydropower may affect environmentally and socially sensitive areas in the Amazon region negatively while thermal power generation produces greenhouse gas emissions. We therefore assess how future greenhouse gas emissions from electricity production in Brazil can be minimized by optimizing the daily dispatch of photovoltaic (PV), wind, thermal, and hydropower plants. Using a simulation model, we additionally assess the risk of loss of load. Results indicate that at doubled demand in comparison to 2013, only 2% of power production has to be provided by thermal power. Existing reservoirs of hydropower are sufficient to balance variations in renewable electricity supply at an optimal mix of around 37% of PV, 9% of wind, and 50% of hydropower generation. In a hydro-thermal only scenario, the risk of deficit increases tenfold, and thermal power production four-fold. A sensitivity analysis shows that the choice of meteorological data sets used for simulating renewable production affects the choice of locations for PV and wind power plants, but does not significantly change the mix of technologies.     

Electric energy generation from small-scale solar and wind power in Brazil: The influence of location,area and shape

Power production from renewable sources is identified as one of the tools to attain sustainable development in economic and social terms in Brazil. Awareness of how to prioritize renewable energy sources and technologies becomes increasingly important. Solar and wind energy have been highlighted in this context as being clean, safe and also relatively mature technologies. In addition, they are also renowned for having great energy potential and allowing different mounting options for energy harvesting systems. This article seeks to contribute to the knowledge of the effects that the key attributes, location, area and shape, of a site can have on the potential of renewable generation. In order to incorporate these attributes into an integrated analysis, a comparison method is developed and subsequently applied in a case study for two Brazilian cities. Results indicate that the amount of energy obtained by a given power generation system can undergo large variations depending on the characteristics of attributes such as site location, area and shape. This variation may ultra-pass 200%, in some cases, which demonstrates the importance of a better understanding of the role of these attributes in determining energy production.     

A stochastic framework for uncertainty analysis in electric power transmission systems with wind generation

The purpose of this work is the analysis of the uncertainties affecting an electric transmission network with wind power generation and their impact on its reliability. A stochastic model was developed to simulate the operations and the line disconnection and reconnection events of the electric network due to overloads beyond the rated capacity. We represent and propagate the uncertainties related to consumption variability, ambient temperature variability, wind speed variability and wind power generation variability. The model is applied to a case study of literature. Conclusions are drawn on the impact that different sources of variability have on the reliability of the network and on the seamless electric power supply. Finally, the analysis enables identifying possible system states, in terms of power request and supply, that are critical for network vulnerability and may induce a cascade of line disconnections leading to massive network blackout.     

Characteristics of turbine spacing in a wind farm using an optimal design process

The characteristics of turbine spacing for optimal wind farm efficiency were investigated using combined numerical models. The effects of wakes from upstream turbines were predicted by a model capable of determining velocity distributions on a rotor plane, based on Ainslie's approach. The performance results of a wind farm showed good agreement with measurements. The blade element momentum theory, in combination with a dynamic wake model, was applied. Wake model used the results of aerodynamic analysis as input properties. The optimal distance between wind turbines was predicted using a genetic algorithm to maximize efficiency in a wind farm. The results showed that the spacing between the first and the second turbines had the importance to the entire farm's efficiency.     

风力发电机组安全保护技术分析评价

风力发电是目前应用最广可再生能源之一，其运行有很高的安全要求。介绍了风力发电机组安全保护系统，对目前使用的安全保护系统进行技术分析，提出优化措施，谨希望可以为风电行业安全系统设计提供借鉴。     

An improved reduced-order model of an electric pitch drive system for wind turbine control system design and simulation

To obtain satisfactory dynamic characteristics and enhance numerical simulation efficiency, an improved reduced-order transfer-function model of an electric pitch drive system (EPDS) for a wind turbine is proposed. First, a detailed transfer-function model of an EPDS is developed on the basis of its mathematical model. Thereafter, the improved reduced-order transfer-function model for an EPDS is derived from the detailed model by transfer-function approximation, sensitivity analysis, and block diagram reduction. The frequency-domain characteristics of the proposed model and their effects on the stability of the pitch angle control system are also analyzed and compared with that of a first-order transfer-function model. Finally, the dynamic characteristics of an EDPS using the improved model are analyzed and verified by a practical EPDS test platform. Furthermore, based on the FAST–MATLAB/Simulink co-simulation tool, simulation comparisons are performed on the loading characteristics of a wind turbine to further validate its availability in it. Results show that the improved model is superior to the first-order model for the performance analysis of a wind turbine pitch angle controller, and it also can meet the requirements of large-scale loading simulations for wind turbines both in terms of the precision and the time efficiency.     

Fault diagnosis for wind turbine planetary ring gear via a meshing resonance based filtering algorithm

Identifying the differences between the spectra or envelope spectra of a faulty signal and a healthy baseline signal is an efficient planetary gearbox local fault detection strategy. However, causes other than local faults can also generate the characteristic frequency of a ring gear fault; this may further affect the detection of a local fault. To address this issue, a new filtering algorithm based on the meshing resonance phenomenon is proposed. In detail, the raw signal is first decomposed into different frequency bands and levels. Then, a new meshing index and an MRgram are constructed to determine which bands belong to the meshing resonance frequency band. Furthermore, an optimal filter band is selected from this MRgram. Finally, the ring gear fault can be detected according to the envelope spectrum of the band-pass filtering result.     

Reliability and economic evaluation of demand side management programming in wind integrated power systems

In this paper, security constrained unit commitment (SCUC) is employed for simultaneous clearing of energy and reserve markets. Spinning reserve of generation units and interruptible loads (IL) are assumed as system operating reserves. In the proposed method, the unit commitment program is done with considering the wind power uncertainty. So, modeling the wind uncertainty has been done by a two-stage stochastic programming. Also, the economic evaluation of wind power uncertainty is discussed and the impacts of IL and wind farm locations have been studied on the system reliability. Expected energy not supplied (EENS) is considered as criterion for undesirable load shedding of power system. Finally, the proposed model is applied to the IEEE reliability test system (IEEE-RTS) to demonstrate its effectiveness.     

Buckling of cylindrical open-topped steel tanks under wind load

Vertical cylindrical welded steel tanks are typical thin-walled structures which are very susceptible to buckling under wind load. This paper investigates the buckling behavior of open-topped steel tanks under wind load by finite element simulation. The analyses cover six common practical tanks with volumes of 2×10³ m³ to 100×10³ m³ and height-to-diameter ratios H/D<1. The linear elastic bifurcation analyses are first carried out to examine the general buckling behavior of tanks under wind load, together with comparison to that of tanks under uniform pressure and windward positive pressure (only loaded by positive wind pressure in the windward region). The results show that for larger tanks in practical engineering, the stability carrying capacity of wind load is relatively lower. It is also indicated that the buckling behavior of tanks under wind load is governed by the windward positive pressure while wind pressure in other region of tank essentially has no influence on the buckling performance. The geometrically nonlinear analyses are then conducted to investigate the more realistic buckling behavior of tanks under wind load. It is found that the buckling behaviors of perfect tanks and imperfect tanks are much different. The weld induced imperfection only has little influence on the wind buckling behavior while the classical buckling mode imperfection has significant influence, leading to a considerable reduction of wind buckling resistance. The influences of thickness reduction of cylindrical wall, liquid stored in the tank and wind girder on the buckling behavior are also examined. It shows that the thickness reduction of cylindrical wall considerably reduces the wind buckling resistance while sufficient liquid stored in the tank and wind girder significantly increase the wind buckling resistance.     

Wind over complex terrain – Microscale modelling with two types of mesoscale winds at Nygårdsfjell

Nygårdsfjell, a complex terrain near Norwegian-Swedish border, is characterized by its significant wind resources. The feasibility of using mesoscale winds as input to microscale model is studied in this work. The main objective is to take into account the actual terrain effects on wind flow over complex terrain. First set of mesoscale winds are modelled with Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) numerical tool whereas second set of mesoscale winds are taken from the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) data system. WindSim, a computational fluid dynamics based numerical solver is used as microscale modelling tool. The results suggest that the performance of microscale model is largely dependent upon the quality of mesoscale winds as input. The proposed coupled models achieve improvements in wind speed modelling, especially during cold weather. WRF-WindSim coupling showed better results than MERRA-WindSim coupling in all three test cases, as root mean square error (RMSE) decreased by 70.9% for the February case, 61.5% for October and 14.4% for June case respectively. Raw mesoscale winds from the WRF model were also more correct than the mesoscale winds from MERRA data set when extracted directly at the wind turbine by decreasing the RMSE by 62.6% for the February case, 62.7% for October and 23.7% for June case respectively. The difference of RMSE values between the mesoscale winds directly at wind turbine versus the coupled meso-microscale model outputs are not conclusive enough to indicate any specific trend.