Solar Power System Modeling

Transcription

1 Solar Power System Modeling Chris Martell Principal Engineer GSES Training Consulting Engineering Publications

2 Company Profile Established in 1998, GSES provides renewable energy engineering, training and consultancy services world-wide. - Official Australian Registered Training Organisation (RTO) - Face to face practical and online training - Grid Connect PV (GCPV), Stand-Alone, GC with Batteries, Solar Fundamentals, etc. - Grid Connected PV, Stand- Alone PV and hybrid system design - Feasibility studies - DNSP liaison for Grid Connected systems - Independent/Owner Engineer - Tender Development/Evaluation - Grid Connected PV Systems Design and Installation - Stand Alone Power Systems Design and Installation - News releases, Technical Articles and much more.

3 Global Markets

4 Why is System Modelling important? Why is modelling important and what modelling tools should we consider creating: - To create an accurate performance ratio in order to provide a performance guarantee - To accurately forecast return on investment especially for PPA products - To correctly design a grid-connect with energy storage system or off-grid system - To identify potential customers

5 Making your own model SimElectronics Creating your own model allows you to control all the system variables and give you a full understanding of the functionality of the model (because you created it). Tools for modelling: - MS Excel and VBA - Wolfram Mathmatica - Matlab/Simelectronics But creating models yourself is time consuming and leaves room for error. Sometimes it best to use a 3 rd party model.

6 Predict Performance The Performance Ratio is the system s actual energy yield over a certain period of time divided by the theoretical energy yield over the same period, determined using site specific irradiation data and the nameplate rating of the system. Issues: - Do we trust the weather data? - Do we trust the.pan file (is it a golden module )?* - Do we trust the.ond file (is the inverter information accurate)? *CSIRO has produced the report Improving translation models for predicting the energy yield of photovoltaic power systems, a result of which is the creation of accurate.pan files Source: PVSyst

7 Using Fleet Management EPC s should be offering O&M service contracts and if they do, it is wise to consider an active monitoring service. Active monitoring allows you to provide a high value service to your customers without draining resources from your business. But also, these tools can help to refine/substantiate your model or the figures you are inputting to your model.

8 Financial Modelling Tariff structures are becoming more complicated: - Peak, Off-peak and Shoulder rates Summer and Non-summer rates Peak demand (applied monthly, quarterly, etc.) Tiered rates Multiple meters Fixed costs Using a monthly energy production figure and applying the blended tariff isn t good enough. How accurate will these figures be? How can the customer make an investment decision without financial transparency? Source: sa.gov.au Wouldn t it be nice if we could offer customers a financial prediction with confidence and possibly offer a guarantee

9 Interval Analysis Homer Energy: - Internationally recognised - Robust system modelling for all sorts of power generation systems - Much more capacity than just interval analysis - Might struggle to get the tariff structure right - Earlier versions only able to do 1 hour data, but now can use any interval - Not free.

10 Interval Analysis NREL System Advisory Model (SAM): - Internationally recognised - Suitable for Australia but built for the US market - Great for modelling PPA, cash flows, incentive models - Powerful financial simulation tools - Stochastic Analysis - Sensitivity Analysis - Its free!

11 Interval Analysis ATA s Sunulator: - Built for the Australian Market (NSW and Vic specifically) - MS Excel based (familiar and easy to use) - Runs multiple scenarios - Can model two arrays at once (east/west vs north, etc.) - Can model complex energy tariffs - Can model energy storage systems - Its free!

12 Interval Analysis Food for thought. Interval Analysis could help to inform design decisions: - Use Temperature Data from BOM to model DC voltages - Use DC voltages to model inverter efficiency - Model power factor correction to determine affect on peak demand (if consumption data includes power factor) - Model AC grid voltages to address grid voltage issues before they occur (if consumption data includes line voltages)

13 Hybrid System Modelling System Efficiency PV Battery Charging PV Supply to Load Round Trip DC Bus 88.2% 93.1% 79.6% AC Bus 82.1% 96.0% 74.1% LCOE (USD/kWh) AC Coupling DC Coupling Flat Load 0.217USD/kWh 0.208USD/kWh Night Time Load 0.425USD/kWh 0.401USD/kWh Day Time Load 0.191USD/kWh 0.367USD/kWh Homer Analysis From Solar Energy SE Asia

14 Potential Customers Existing Models could be used to find potential customers. Its possible to use property ownership information from a government or third party resource along with solar resource data from the Australian Photovoltaic Institute or Google s Project Sunroof (coming soon) Source: CoreLogic Source: APVI Also, have a look at which pairs data relevant for solar PV along with many other data sets including cadastral data and transmission lines and substations and the distribution system (in WA only right now)

15 CAD modelling

16 Questions Questions?