Energy Systems Optimization: 2012

Background

Energy systems are playing a major role in day today life. It may be your refrigerator, air conditioner, power generator that you use to get electricity etc. that we discuss. It is prudent that though we use power and energy very few of us are concerned on energy conservation. Even though we always try to match it with financial aspects of it I feel that there is something more on it especially when consider about the social responsibility. Fossil fuel resources are depleting at a rapid speed and at the same time, we are facing lot of problems created by emission of fossil fuel combustion. Therefore, we are in period that special attention should be given to conservation of energy.

Optimal designs of Energy systems become vital in such circumstances, which is always a challenging process where number of technoeconomical and environmental aspects need to be considered. Most of the times modeling related with such energy systems is a difficult task. Meanwhile number of design parameters is to be considered. This makes the optimization work hard and it is essential to move away from classical methods.

In this blog, I am sharing the research work we carried out by our group on optimization of such energy systems. Mainly we are focusing on optimization of multiple boiler systems, hybrid energy systems, and waste to energy pathways. I am really please to hear your comments and it would be a great support to improve the quality of our work.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Role of Internal Combustion Generators (ICG) in Standalone Hybrid Energy Systems (HES)

Recently HES were introduced as an alternative to ICG systems in order to reduce the fuel consumption and life cycle cost. At the same time Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems (HRES) which consists of renewable energy sources such as wind, Solar PV (SPV) and energy storage such as battery bank, Hydrogen Storage where system does not include ICG were also discussed. This makes it important to investigate role of ICG as a dispatchable energy source in standalone systems.

When it comes to as ICG it is capable of absorbing the seasonal variation of renewable energy sources. More importantly, when compared to battery banks and other energy storage techniques ICG can be used to absorb long-term fluctuations of renewable energy sources. Therefore, ICG capacity is plays a major role when it comes to lifecycle cost and power supply reliability. With the increase of power supply reliability ICG plays a dominant role. Hence, combining renewable energy sources to ICG systems are more economical compared to HRESs.