An integrated system for the energy production and accumulation from renewable sources: a rural tower prototype

Abstract The recent growth of renewable sources has led to relevant effects in terms of land consuming, social acceptance, distributed energy generation, non continuous production caused by non-programmable sources such as wind and solar one also characterized by low energy density per surface unit. These issues will be addressed in the next future through the concept of energy smart grid, provided by ICT (Information and Communication Technology). The aims of this paper is to show the preliminary results of the research activities carried out by several operative unities of the Universities of Perugia and Cusano, within a national research project, where one possible solution for renewable energy integration to solve the criticisms in renewable sources application is proposed modeled. The model prototype for energy production could be good applied in existing ancient building with vertical extension such as the dove towers typical of rural areas in central Italy. The preliminary design of the prototype is applied to a chosen case study in Perugia: it consists in an integrated system in which the tower is converted to an energy system for renewable energy production, storage and supply, based on photovoltaic, hydropower and geothermal heat pump with boreholes integrated to micropiles. Energy managing is leaded by an intelligent system, by combining meteorological forecasting to predict energy productions by renewables with the energy demand needs. In particular, the concept of this project is mainly effective because in the rural areas there are many little building centers that are abandoned because they are without any connection to the electricity grid and methane piping: the possibility to create an autonomous energy system is the basis for energy supply.