Original Post: Volker Wachenfeld
Industries in remote
areas with weak or even no grid infrastructure typically use fossil fuel
generators to ensure a reliable energy supply. Integrating solar power into
diesel-powered systems creates a reliable, resource-friendly and efficient
energy supply, as Volker Wachenfeld explains.
Rapid operational readiness and maximum reliability and
availability are essential for energy-intensive operations in mining, raw
material processing, agriculture, water desalination and other areas. In order
to be prepared for power outages and power supply interruptions from the grid,
the diesel generators often run constantly. This results in high operating
costs and leads to high volumes of CO2 emissions.
Rising diesel prices are motivating many companies to search for
ways to minimise their operating costs; reducing fuel consumption is a logical
way to do this. In many regions, one liter of diesel fuel already costs more
than one US dollar. There are additional costs involved with transporting fuel
to remote areas and storing it on-site. In contrast, the cost of solar power
systems has dropped sharply over the past few years.
This is why more and more industrial companies seek to benefit
from power supply solutions implementing hybrid systems that allow for the
integration of cheap solar power into existing diesel power systems. The
combination of diesel generator sets and photovoltaics in a hybrid system can
reduce operating costs, CO2 emissions and dependence on fossil fuel.
There is great potential for such photovoltaic (PV) hybrid
systems, because most industries in remote areas have excellent solar
irradiation. In regions with weak grid infrastructure, many industrial
businesses are critically dependent on a reliable and cost-effective
electricity supply to ensure competitiveness. Integrating high shares of
photovoltaics into diesel-powered grids must ensure stable grid operation at
all times. To meet increasing energy demand, it is also important that these
system solutions are scalable and that they can be adjusted according to
current energy demands at any time.
Customised solution
for stable and safe energy supply
The key technological challenge for these fuel-saving solutions is
the use of smart control engineering to maximise the PV share that can be
stably incorporated into diesel grids. Alongside the PV inverters, control
devices are the main components. The SMA Fuel Save Controller (FSC), for
example, manages demand-based PV feed-in at the interface between the diesel
and photovoltaic generator and the load, while leaving the genset control unaffected.
“Our experiences with covering different power classes and system topology
since our first PV-Diesel-Hybrid systems in 2012 have been consolidated into
the second generation of the SMA Fuel Save Controller FSC2.0,” comments Mohamed
Mostafa, Head of Product Management at the company. “Customer demand ranges
from integrating 100-kilowatt solar power into a fossil-fuel system, up to the
multi-megawatt range. So with this second generation, we used product
segmentation to serve each application segment.”
SMA developed the FSC M as a simple and affordable complete
solution. It is a plug-and-play solution for solar grid feed-in of up to 1 MW
of PV power in PV diesel hybrid systems. The FSC L solution for solar grid
feed-in of up to 5 MW and optional storage integration is suitable for
operators who want to use solar power at night and have additional power
smoothing capabilities. An optional storage unit can further increase the
proportion of solar power fed into the hybrid system by up to 75% of PV capacity
compared to installed diesel genset capacity. This means additional savings on
fuel and CO2 emissions. A customised solution for systems requiring up to 50 MW
of solar power is fitting for larger islands with weak grid capacity like
Puerto Rico, Hawaii or The French Overseas Departments.
In all applications, the photovoltaic inverters operate in wide
frequency and voltage ranges, and can adapt their output power depending on
grid frequency. The generated solar power, the current operational diesel
genset power and the current load states must be measured and assessed. This
ensures that, in the event of large load changes or a sudden collapse in solar
power grid feed-in, sufficient spinning reserve is always available, preventing
reverse power feed-in to the generators.
On average, the investment in a PV-Diesel-Hybrid system pays off
in three to five years in sunny regions. This depends, of course, on the size
of the photovoltaic power plant, local solar irradiation conditions, load
behavior and generator output.
No comments:
Post a Comment