Ecosense Establishes Microgrid Lab at VIT Vellore

Ecosense Establishes Microgrid Lab at VIT Vellore

Ecosense established 30kW Smart Hybrid AC/DC Micro grid solution Research Lab at VIT University, Vellore

Ecosense established 30 kW Smart Hybrid AC/DC Micro-Grid Solution Research Lab at VIT University, Vellore.

The Lab is established in SENSE department of VIT University, Vellore.

Renewable energy based micro grids will play a dominant role in electricity production in near future. Distributed generation based on wind, solar energy, fuel cell, battery storage along with use of super capacitors will give significant momentum in near future. Advantages like environmental friendliness, expandability and flexibility have made distributed generation, powered by various renewable and nonconventional micro sources, an attractive option for configuring modern electrical grids. A micro-grid consists of cluster of loads and distributed sources that operate as a single controllable system. As an integrated energy delivery system micro grid can operate in parallel or isolated from the main power grid. 

Smart Hybrid Microgrid Solution

In Smart Hybrid Micro-Grid Solution, the performance of hybrid AC/DC micro grid system is analyzed in the grid tied mode. Here photovoltaic system, wind turbine generator, super capacitors, fuel cell and battery are used for the development of micro grid. Also control mechanisms are implemented for the converters to properly coordinate the AC sub-grid to DC sub-grid. The results are obtained from the LabVIEW environment. 

Control is achieved through dc bus voltage monitoring and control operations on the interfacing converters, based on predefined voltage set points. As an interfacing converter, a bi-directional, a cascaded boost, buck and boost converter is used and controlled.

Energy Sources

There are three different kinds of renewable energy sources are used in this project.

1. Wind Turbine Emulator:

As this project is established to carry on research, instead of using actual Wind Turbine a 10kW PMSG based Wind Turbine Emulator developed by Ecosense is used in this project. Wind Turbine Emulator eliminates the dependence on environmental condition and facilitates smooth operation though out the day inside lab.

2. Solar PV Emulator:

Similar to Wind Emulator, a 10kW Solar PV Emulator developed by Ecosense is used in this project. Solar PV Emulator can work at any time of the day eliminating the dependency on environmental factors.

3. Fuel Cell system:

A 1kW actual fuel cell system is used as the third source. As Fuel Cell do not depend on environment but on availability of Hydrogen gas, an actual fuel cell system is used in this project.

Ecosense Establishes Microgrid Lab at VIT Vellore

Scope and Applications of the Microgrid project

  • Ability to track torque-speed and power-speed characteristics of a wind turbine at different wind speeds and pitch angle.
  • Plotting performance curve to show the turbine characteristics at a particular pitch angle.
  • Real time tracking of TSR could be utilized to track the optimal TSR of a turbine.
  • Maximum power point tracking opportunity based on the generated voltage and current feedback.
  • Ability to control DC link voltage using bidirectional converter in stand-alone mode.
  • Research on micro grid possible as the DC link can accommodate other renewable sources such as PV.

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