Small renewable hybrid systems for stand alone applications

To provide renewable energy to stand alone applications the generation system should be composed of different types of energy sources to make better use of the natural resources in these applications. A common practice is to combine wind and solar PV energies in the so called hybrid renewable systems. Due to the long distance, and difficult access the overall system used in these applications must be reliable. And the reliability of the system, specially the inverter used to regulate the AC voltage, is one of the main problems associated to these systems, and is responsible for the lack of confidence in renewable systems at several locations in Brazil. This paper shows the initial results of using renewable hybrid systems specially designed for isolated areas, focusing attention on reliability, efficiency and expansion flexibility. It presents the system description, mode of operation, inverter design, and experimental results measured in a pilot plant located in Lençóis Island, a small isolated community in the northeast region of Brazil.

[1]  K. Mauch,et al.  Parallel operation of single phase inverter modules with no control interconnections , 1997, Proceedings of APEC 97 - Applied Power Electronics Conference.

[2]  N.A. Ahmed,et al.  A Stand-Alone Hybrid Generation System Combining Solar Photovoltaic and Wind Turbine with Simple Maximum Power Point Tracking Control , 2006, 2006 CES/IEEE 5th International Power Electronics and Motion Control Conference.

[3]  Elmer E Lewis,et al.  Introduction To Reliability Engineering , 1987 .

[4]  K. N. Dollman,et al.  - 1 , 1743 .

[5]  Russell H. Bonn,et al.  Status and Needs of Power Electronics for Photovoltaic Inverters: Summary Document , 2002 .

[6]  Ki-Yeon Joe,et al.  Parallel operation of three-phase UPS inverters by wireless load sharing control , 2000, INTELEC. Twenty-Second International Telecommunications Energy Conference (Cat. No.00CH37131).

[7]  S. J. Chiang,et al.  Parallel control of the UPS inverters with frequency-dependent droop scheme , 2001, 2001 IEEE 32nd Annual Power Electronics Specialists Conference (IEEE Cat. No.01CH37230).

[8]  T. Funabashi,et al.  A hybrid power system using alternative energy facilities in isolated island , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion.