A Smart Grid Approach to Sustainable Power System Integration
Abstract
Many factors can be identified for faster incorporation of renewable energy resources
to displace the traditional fossil fuel energy sources. These factors are divided into three
different aspects. First is the rapid decline of the cost of renewable energy sources and their
associated components. The second factor can be attributed to the increasing pressure to
transition from fossil-fuel energy sources which have detrimental environmental effects
towards more sustainable energy source. A third aspect can be introduced in countries
which are blessed with an enormous amount of fossil fuel resources, where the preservation
of these limited natural resources is of paramount importance to the country that holds
it. The dissertation includes the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the primary case study. However,
the algorithm developed is applicable for other geographical locations which share
similarities to the kingdom. The kingdom is considered to be one of the countries with an
abundance of fossil-fuel reserves. The unique features of Saudi Arabia are primarily the
availability of solar radiation and wind speed as well as high percentage of electrical loads
which can be controlled such as energy-intensive desalination plants. This feature, in particular,
provides a significant driver for renewables to penetrate the electricity generation
mixture. With loads that are deferrable, the issue of renewable sources variability can be
mitigated and reduced with an optimized operation strategy. Therefore, the research tends
to define and model electrical loads by how susceptible they are to the time of service.
The types of loads considered are summarized as non-deferrable such as typical electrical
loads in which the demand must be satisfied instantly, semi-deferrable loads which they
share the same features as the non-deferrable, however, a storage medium is available to
store energy products for later usage. This category of loads is represented by a water
desalination plant with a water tank storage. The final load model is the fully deferrable
load which is flexible in regarding time of service, and this type of load can be represented
by an industrial production factory, such as a steel or aluminum plants. The concept of
value storage is introduced, where energy can be stored in different forms which are quite
different from a typical storage component (i.e., batteries).
The justification to start increasing the penetration of renewable sources into the existing
grid in countries which have abundant fossil fuel might not be evident. However, the
dissertation provides both economical as well as environmental justifications and incentives
to approach more sustainable energy sources.
The economical and technical evaluation is referred to as the Generation Expansion
Planning (GEP). This type of problem is associated with high complexity and non-linearity.
Therefore, computational intelligence based optimization methods are used to resolve
these issues. Heuristic optimization methodologies are utilized to solve the developed
problem which provides a fixable approach to solve optimization problems.
Citation
Almehizia, Abdullah Abdulaziz M. (2018). A Smart Grid Approach to Sustainable Power System Integration. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A & M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /173662.