Matching Items (12)
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- All Subjects: solar
- Creators: Electrical Engineering Program
- Creators: Ayyanar, Raja
Description
At present, almost 70% of the electric energy in the United States is produced utilizing fossil fuels. Combustion of fossil fuels contributes CO2 to the atmosphere, potentially exacerbating the impact on global warming. To make the electric power system (EPS) more sustainable for the future, there has been an emphasis on scaling up generation of electric energy from wind and solar resources. These resources are renewable in nature and have pollution free operation. Various states in the US have set up different goals for achieving certain amount of electrical energy to be produced from renewable resources. The Southwestern region of the United States receives significant solar radiation throughout the year. High solar radiation makes concentrated solar power and solar PV the most suitable means of renewable energy production in this region. However, the majority of the projects that are presently being developed are either residential or utility owned solar PV plants. This research explores the impact of significant PV penetration on the steady state voltage profile of the electric power transmission system. This study also identifies the impact of PV penetration on the dynamic response of the transmission system such as rotor angle stability, frequency response and voltage response after a contingency. The light load case of spring 2010 and the peak load case of summer 2018 have been considered for analyzing the impact of PV. If the impact is found to be detrimental to the normal operation of the EPS, mitigation measures have been devised and presented in the thesis. Commercially available software tools/packages such as PSLF, PSS/E, DSA Tools have been used to analyze the power network and validate the results.
ContributorsPrakash, Nitin (Author) / Heydt, Gerald T. (Thesis advisor) / Vittal, Vijay (Thesis advisor) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Battery energy storage has shown a lot of potential in the recent past to be effective in various grid services due to its near instantaneous ramp rates and modularity. This thesis aims to determine the commercial viability of customer premises and substation sited battery energy storage systems. Five different types of services have been analyzed considering current market pricing of Lithium-ion batteries and power conditioning equipment. Energy Storage Valuation Tool 3.0 (Beta) has been used to exclusively determine the value of energy storage in the services analyzed. The results indicate that on the residential level, Lithium-ion battery energy storage may not be a cost beneficial option for retail tariff management or demand charge management as only 20-30% of the initial investment is recovered at the end of 15 year plant life. SRP's two retail Time-of-Use price plans E-21 and E-26 were analyzed in respect of their ability to increase returns from storage compared to those with flat pricing. It was observed that without a coupled PV component, E-21 was more suitable for customer premises energy storage, however, its revenue stream reduces with addition to PV. On the grid scale, however, with carefully chosen service hierarchy such as distribution investment deferral, spinning or balancing reserve support, the initial investment can be recovered to an extent of about 50-70%. The study done here is specific to Salt River Project inputs and data. Results for all the services analyzed are highly location specific and are only indicative of the overall viability and returns from them.
ContributorsNadkarni, Aditya (Author) / Karady, George G. (Thesis advisor) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Hedman, Kory (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The Phoenix CubeSat is a 3U Earth imaging CubeSat which will take infrared (IR) photos of cities in the United Stated to study the Urban Heat Island Effect, (UHI) from low earth orbit (LEO). It has many different components that need to be powered during the life of its mission. The only power source during the mission will be its solar panels. It is difficult to calculate power generation from solar panels by hand because of the different orientations the satellite will be positioned in during orbit; therefore, simulation will be used to produce power generation data. Knowing how much power is generated is integral to balancing the power budget, confirming whether there is enough power for all the components, and knowing whether there will be enough power in the batteries during eclipse. This data will be used to create an optimal design for the Phoenix CubeSat to accomplish its mission.
ContributorsBarakat, Raymond John (Author) / White, Daniel (Thesis director) / Kitchen, Jennifer (Committee member) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
A hybrid PV/T module was built, consisting of a thermal liquid heating system and a photovoltaic module system that combine in a hybrid format. This report will discuss the work on the project from Fall 2012 to Spring 2013 and the extended section on the economics for the Honors Thesis. Three stages of experiments were completed. Stage 1 showed our project was functional as we were able to verify our panel produced electricity and increased the temperature of water flowing in the system by 0.65°C. Stage 2 testing included “gluing” the flow system to the back of the panel resulting in an average increase of 4.76°C in the temperature of the water in the system. Stage 3 testing included adding insulating foam to the module which resulted in increasing the average temperature of the water in our flow system by 6.95°C. The economic calculations show the expected energy cost savings for Arizona residents.
ContributorsHaines, Brent Robert (Author) / Roedel, Ronald (Thesis director) / Aberle, James (Committee member) / Rauch, Dawson (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
A hybrid PV/T module was built, consisting of a thermal liquid heating system and a photovoltaic module system that combine in a hybrid format. This report will discuss the work on the project from Fall 2012 to Spring 2013. Three stages of experiments were completed. Stage 1 showed our project was functional as we were able to verify our panel produced electricity and increased the temperature of water flowing in the system by 0.65°C. Stage 2 testing included “gluing” the flow system to the back of the panel resulting in an average increase of 4.76°C in the temperature of the water in the system. Stage 3 testing included adding insulating foam to the module which resulted in increasing the average temperature of the water in our flow system by 6.95°C.
ContributorsDenke, Steven Michael (Author) / Roedel, Ron (Thesis director) / Aberle, James (Committee member) / Rauch, Dawson (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
The Lightning Audio capstone group, consisting of Brian Boerhinger, Rahul Nandan, Jaime Ramirez, and Niccolo Magnotto (myself), united in the effort to prove the feasibility of a consumer grade plasma arc speaker. This was achieved in group's prototype design, which demonstrates the potential for a refined product in its conventional interfacing, casing, size, safety, and aesthetics. If the potential for an excellent ionization-based loudspeaker product were realized, it would be highly profitable in its reasonable cost of production, novelty, and place in a large and fitting market.
ContributorsMagnotto, Niccolo John (Author) / Roedel, Ronald (Thesis director) / Huffman, James (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Growing up in Ghana West Africa, I realized there were a few major obstacles hindering the education of the youth. One of them was the consistent supply of all year-round power. Therefore, pursuing a career in power electronics, I decided to research and implement a budget-friendly DC-AC converter that can take power from a DC source such as a solar panel to make AC power, suitable for grid-implementation. This project was undertaken with two other colleagues (Ian Vogt and Brett Fennelly), as our Senior Design Capstone project. My colleagues primarily researched into the "advanced" part of the converter such as Volt-VAR, Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT), and variable power factor, making the Capstone project be dubbed as "Smart Inverter". In this paper, I elaborate on the entire process of my research and simulation, through the design and layout of the PCB board to milling, soldering and testing. That was my contribution to the capstone project. After testing the board, it was concluded that although the inverter was intended to be the very inexpensive, some electrical and design principles could not be compromised. The converter did successfully invert DC power to AC, but it was only at low voltage levels; it could not withstand the higher voltages. This roadblock stymied the testing of advanced functionalities, paving way for an avenue of further research and implementation.
ContributorsAsigbekye, John (Author) / Ayyanar, Raja (Thesis director) / Sedillo, James (Committee member) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The demand for cleaner energy technology is increasing very rapidly. Hence it is
important to increase the eciency and reliability of this emerging clean energy technologies.
This thesis focuses on modeling and reliability of solar micro inverters. In
order to make photovoltaics (PV) cost competitive with traditional energy sources,
the economies of scale have been guiding inverter design in two directions: large,
centralized, utility-scale (500 kW) inverters vs. small, modular, module level (300
W) power electronics (MLPE). MLPE, such as microinverters and DC power optimizers,
oer advantages in safety, system operations and maintenance, energy yield,
and component lifetime due to their smaller size, lower power handling requirements,
and module-level power point tracking and monitoring capability [1]. However, they
suer from two main disadvantages: rst, depending on array topology (especially
the proximity to the PV module), they can be subjected to more extreme environments
(i.e. temperature cycling) during the day, resulting in a negative impact to
reliability; second, since solar installations can have tens of thousands to millions of
modules (and as many MLPE units), it may be dicult or impossible to track and
repair units as they go out of service. Therefore identifying the weak links in this
system is of critical importance to develop more reliable micro inverters.
While an overwhelming majority of time and research has focused on PV module
eciency and reliability, these issues have been largely ignored for the balance
of system components. As a relatively nascent industry, the PV power electronics
industry does not have the extensive, standardized reliability design and testing procedures
that exist in the module industry or other more mature power electronics
industries (e.g. automotive). To do so, the critical components which are at risk and
their impact on the system performance has to be studied. This thesis identies and
addresses some of the issues related to reliability of solar micro inverters.
This thesis presents detailed discussions on various components of solar micro inverter
and their design. A micro inverter with very similar electrical specications in
comparison with commercial micro inverter is modeled in detail and veried. Components
in various stages of micro inverter are listed and their typical failure mechanisms
are reviewed. A detailed FMEA is conducted for a typical micro inverter to identify
the weak links of the system. Based on the S, O and D metrics, risk priority number
(RPN) is calculated to list the critical at-risk components. Degradation of DC bus
capacitor is identied as one the failure mechanism and the degradation model is built
to study its eect on the system performance. The system is tested for surge immunity
using standard ring and combinational surge waveforms as per IEEE 62.41 and
IEC 61000-4-5 standards. All the simulation presented in this thesis is performed
using PLECS simulation software.
important to increase the eciency and reliability of this emerging clean energy technologies.
This thesis focuses on modeling and reliability of solar micro inverters. In
order to make photovoltaics (PV) cost competitive with traditional energy sources,
the economies of scale have been guiding inverter design in two directions: large,
centralized, utility-scale (500 kW) inverters vs. small, modular, module level (300
W) power electronics (MLPE). MLPE, such as microinverters and DC power optimizers,
oer advantages in safety, system operations and maintenance, energy yield,
and component lifetime due to their smaller size, lower power handling requirements,
and module-level power point tracking and monitoring capability [1]. However, they
suer from two main disadvantages: rst, depending on array topology (especially
the proximity to the PV module), they can be subjected to more extreme environments
(i.e. temperature cycling) during the day, resulting in a negative impact to
reliability; second, since solar installations can have tens of thousands to millions of
modules (and as many MLPE units), it may be dicult or impossible to track and
repair units as they go out of service. Therefore identifying the weak links in this
system is of critical importance to develop more reliable micro inverters.
While an overwhelming majority of time and research has focused on PV module
eciency and reliability, these issues have been largely ignored for the balance
of system components. As a relatively nascent industry, the PV power electronics
industry does not have the extensive, standardized reliability design and testing procedures
that exist in the module industry or other more mature power electronics
industries (e.g. automotive). To do so, the critical components which are at risk and
their impact on the system performance has to be studied. This thesis identies and
addresses some of the issues related to reliability of solar micro inverters.
This thesis presents detailed discussions on various components of solar micro inverter
and their design. A micro inverter with very similar electrical specications in
comparison with commercial micro inverter is modeled in detail and veried. Components
in various stages of micro inverter are listed and their typical failure mechanisms
are reviewed. A detailed FMEA is conducted for a typical micro inverter to identify
the weak links of the system. Based on the S, O and D metrics, risk priority number
(RPN) is calculated to list the critical at-risk components. Degradation of DC bus
capacitor is identied as one the failure mechanism and the degradation model is built
to study its eect on the system performance. The system is tested for surge immunity
using standard ring and combinational surge waveforms as per IEEE 62.41 and
IEC 61000-4-5 standards. All the simulation presented in this thesis is performed
using PLECS simulation software.
ContributorsManchanahalli Ranganatha, Arkanatha Sastry (Author) / Ayyanar, Raja (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
The project described here is a solar powered intrusion detection system consisting of three modules: a battery recharging circuit, a laser emitter and photodetector pair, and a Wi- Fi connectivity board. Over the preceding seven months, great care has been taken for the design and construction of this system. The first three months were spent researching and selecting suitable IC's and external components (e.g. solar panel, batteries, etc.). Then, the next couple of months were spent ordering specific materials and equipment for the construction of our prototype. Finally, the last two months were used to build a working prototype, with a substantial amount of time used for perfecting our system's packaging and operation. This report will consist of a detailed discussion of our team's research, design activities, prototype implementation, final budget, and final schedule. Technical discussion of the concepts behind our design will assist with understanding the design activities and prototype implementation sections that will follow. Due to the generous funding of the group from the Barrett Honors College, our overall budget available for the project was $1600. Of that amount, only $334.51 was spent on the actual system components, with $829.42 being spent on the equipment and materials needed for the testing and construction of the prototype. As far as the schedule goes, we are essentially done with the project. The only tasks left to finish are a successful defense of the project at the oral presentation on Friday, 29 March 2013, followed by a successful demo on 26 April 2013.
ContributorsTroyer, Nicole L. (Co-author) / Shtayer, Idan (Co-author) / Guise, Chris (Co-author) / Kozicki, Michael (Thesis director) / Roedel, Ronald (Committee member) / Goodnick, Stephen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Wire connected solar cells are a promising new technology that can increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of solar modules. The use of wire rather than ribbon bus bars can lead to reduced shading, better light trapping, and reduced material costs, all while eliminating the need for soldering. This research first analyzes the optimal wire gauge to reduce cracking and improve efficiency. Wire sizes between 20 AWG and 28 AWG were tested, with the optimal size being between 24 AWG and 26 AWG for the ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) layer used in the module. A polyethylene sheet was then added between the wires and EVA layer to prevent the EVA from running underneath the wires during lamination, ultimately allowing for a more uniform contact and only a slight reduction in quantum efficiency. Then, a comparison between tinned copper wires and indium coated copper wires is shown. A mini-module efficiency of 20.0% has been achieved using tinned copper wires, while indium coated copper wires have produced a mini-module efficiency of 21.2%. Thus, tinned copper wires can be a viable alternative to indium coated copper wires, depending on the needs of the customers and the current price of indium. The module design throughout the research utilizes a planar assembly method, which improves the ease of manufacturing for wire interconnection technology. A two-cell base component is constructed and shown, with the intended future application of making large wire connected modules. Finally, wire applications in both single-cell and four-cell flexible modules are explored, with an efficiency of 18.65% achieved on a single-cell, flexible, heterojunction solar module using wire interconnections. A fully flexible four-cell string is developed, and future recommendations for related research are included.
ContributorsTyler, Kevin Daniel (Author) / Bowden, Stuart (Thesis director) / Herasimenka, Stanislau (Committee member) / Electrical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-12