Showing papers by "Shafiqur Rehman published in 2015"

Pumped hydro energy storage system: A technological review

Abstract: The pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) is a well-established and commercially-acceptable technology for utility-scale electricity storage and has been used since as early as the 1890s. Hydro power is not only a renewable and sustainable energy source, but its flexibility and storage capacity also make it possible to improve grid stability and to support the deployment of other intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. As a result, a renewed interest in PHES and a demand for the rehabilitation of old small hydro power plants are emerging globally. With regard to PHES, advances in turbine design are required to enhance plant performance and flexibility and new strategies for optimizing storage capacity and for maximizing plant profitability in the deregulated energy market. In the early 2000s, this technology has again emerged as an economically and technologically acceptable option for peak load shaving and wind and solar energy storage for power quality assurance. Furthermore, renewable energy sources due to their fluctuating nature cannot maintain or regulate continuous supply of power and hence require bulk electricity storage. The present study aims at reviewing the existing global PHES capacities, technological development, and hybrid systems (wind-hydro, solar pv-hydro, and wind-pv-hydro) and recommending the best possible options. The review explores that PHES is the most suitable technology for small autonomous island grids and massive energy storage, where the energy efficiency of PHES varies in practice between 70% and 80% with some claiming up to 87%. Around the world, PHES size mostly nestles in the range of 1000–1500 MW, being as large as 2000–3000 MW. On the other hand, photovoltaic based pumped storage systems have been used for very small scale (load of few houses) only.

A review on desiccant based evaporative cooling systems

Abstract: The air conditioner should control the building sensible and latent load properly in order to provide the indoor comfort conditions. The conventional mechanical vapor compression system usually controls the latent load by the process of condensation of water vapor in which air is cooled below its dew point temperature and then reheated again up to the required supply conditions. The conditions where latent load is dominant these two processes i.e. overcooling and then reheating again will increase the consumption of electrical energy and emission of CO 2 remarkably. To avoid this wastage of primary energy and emission of harmful gases, desiccant based evaporative cooling system is a good alternative to traditional air conditioning system which is cost effective as well as environment friendly. It can be driven by thermal energy which makes a good use of solar energy which is free as well as clean. In this paper, a review of desiccant based evaporative cooling systems has been presented. The present study is undertaken from variety of aspects including background and need of alternative cooling systems, concept of conventional and desiccant based evaporative coolers, system configurations, operational modes, as well as current status of the desiccant based evaporative cooling technology. The review work indicated that the technology of desiccant based evaporative cooler has a great potential of providing human thermal comfort conditions in hot and humid climatic conditions at the expense of less primary resources of energy as compared to conventional cooling systems. Some modified and modern evaporative coolers have also been introduced in this paper.

Wind speed and power characteristics for Jubail industrial city, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: This paper presents the wind characteristics and resource assessment of the largest industrial base in the Middle East (Jubail industrial city) using measured hourly mean wind speed data at 10, 50 and 90 m above ground level (AGL) from 2008 to 2012 At respective heights, the mean wind speeds were found to be 334, 479 and 535 m/s At 50 and 90 m AGL, the availability of wind speed above 35 m/s was more than 75% The prevailing wind direction was from the north-west The local wind shear exponent calculated using measured wind speed values at three heights was found to be 0217 The mean wind power density values at measurement heights were 5092, 11603 and 16846 W/m 2 respectively The comparison of energy output from five commercially selected wind turbines of rated power ranging from 18–33 MW showed that the most efficient wind turbine is 30 MW rated power The annual energy production from this turbine was estimated to be 6285 MWh with a plant capacity factor of 25%

Study of a Solar Pv/Wind/Diesel Hybrid Power System for a Remotely Located Population near Arar, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: Different hybrid configurations of wind, photovoltaic (PV), and diesel systems for a village in the north-eastern region of Saudi Arabia are presented. The configurations (i) diesel only, (ii) wind-diesel, (iii) PV-diesel, and (iv) wind-PV-diesel power generation systems are designed and compared to select the optimal alternative system by considering the minimum cost of energy and least environmental impact. For sizing and optimizing the hybrid power systems, local hourly average wind speed, hourly total solar radiation, and hourly load data have been used as input. Of the four configurations investigated, the diesel only system is found to be most cost effective with an energy cost of 0.037 US$/kWh with a fuel cost of 0.067 US$/1. Among the hybrid power systems, the PV-diesel hybrid system with 1,500 kW PV capacity, equal inverter capacity, and four diesel generators each of 1120 kW capacity are found to the most economical solution with a COE of 0.038 US$/kWh.

Assessment and Analysis of Wind Power Resource Using Weibull Parameters

Abstract: In this study, wind data of eleven years (2002–2012) has been used to determine wind characteristics of Saudi Arabian city Jeddah. These characteristics include the daily, monthly and annual wind speed, wind probability density distribution, shape (k) and scale (c) parameters at 10 m height. The analysis revealed that yearly values of k ranged from 1.398 to 1.763 with a mean value of 1.590 and values of scale parameter c varied from 3.146 to 4.329 with mean value of 3.95. Furthermore, the results showed that maximum and minimum wind power potential was observed in the month of March and February, respectively. The wind was found to be blowing predominantly from south east direction. It was found that wind potential of the region can be used for small scale off-grid wind applications.

A Combined Optical, Thermal and Electrical Performance Study of a V-Trough PV System—Experimental and Analytical Investigations

Abstract: The objective of this study was to achieve higher efficiency of a PV system while reducing of the cost of energy generation. Concentration photovoltaics was employed in the present case as it uses low cost reflectors to enhance the efficiency of the PV system and simultaneously reduces the cost of electricity generation. For this purpose a V-trough integrated with the PV system was employed for low concentration photovoltaic (LCPV). Since the electrical output of the concentrating PV system is significantly affected by the temperature of the PV cells, the motivation of the research also included studying the ability to actively cool PV cells to achieve the maximum benefit. The optical, thermal and electrical performance of the V-trough PV system was theoretically modeled and validated with experimental results. Optical modeling of V-trough was carried out to estimate the amount of enhanced absorbed radiation. Due to increase in the absorbed radiation the module temperature was also increased which was predicted by thermal model. Active cooling techniques were studied and the effect of cooling was analyzed on the performance of V-trough PV system. With absorbed radiation and module temperature as input parameters, electrical modeling was carried out and the maximum power was estimated. For the V-trough PV system, experiments were performed for validating the numerical models and very good agreement was found between the two.

Performance Comparison of Diesel and Solar Photovoltaic Power Systems for Water Pumping in Saudi Arabia

Abstract: Optimum configuration of solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation system has been carried out for achieving a minimum cost of energy (COE) in five different geographic locations in Saudi Arabia, namely, Dhahran, Riyadh, Jeddah, Guriat and Nejran . The ultimate goal in the present study is to investigate and compare the performance of both the diesel and solar PV stand-alone power generating systems for underground water pumping purposes. It is found that the solar PV power generating system not only helps to decrease carbon emission to the atmosphere but also is comparable in the unit COE with the diesel only system in many sites even though the unit price of the diesel fuel is very low.The proposed diesel only system produces annually about 24,069 tons of green house gases which can be otherwise eliminated by using solar PV system. Cost of water pumping from an underground well of 50 m total dynamic head is found to vary from 10–17 US¢/m3 for the five sites considered. When compared with the diesel only ...

Performance Evaluation of a PV Module under Climatic Conditions of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Abstract: In this paper, the performance characteristics of a photovoltaic (PV) module are modeled numerically and validated experimentally for the typical climatic conditions of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The electrical model is developed using EES software including all the important parameters like cell temperature, maximum power point current, maximum power point voltage, electrical power, and maximum power point efficiency. The model results were compared with the experimental values obtained by exposing the PV panel to the local environmental conditions of Dhahran. The variation of cell temperature, maximum power point current, voltage, maximum power and efficiency of PV module was recorded for a typical day and the effect of climatic conditions including solar irradiance, ambient temperature and wind speed was quantified. Finally, the modeled results were found to be in close agreement with the experimental values with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.98 and root mean square error of e = 5.2% for the overall e...

Assessment of Electricity Storage Systems

Abstract: The objective of this study was to assess currently available advanced electricity storage systems (ESSs) that are efficient and cost-effective to be able to store electricity generated from intermittent renewable sources such as solar photovoltaics and wind. Weather conditions, electricity demand patterns, and available raw materials were studied to select suitable ESS for Saudi Arabia. It was found that temperatures in Saudi Arabia vary between − 9 and 51 °C, and most of the ESS are sensitive to operating temperatures. A thorough assessment of available technologies pertaining to the advanced ESS for storing electricity generated from renewable energy sources was carried out. The technology assessment was based on key ESS performance parameters such as energy efficiency, energy density, battery life, depth of discharge, charge/discharge rate, commercial maturity, and so on. Cost data in terms of capital cost, per-cycle cost, and maintenance cost were presented.

Wind farm layout design using modified particle swarm optimization algorithm

Abstract: Wind energy has shown tremendous potential for power generation. The energy is generated by wind turbines placed in a wind farm. To extract maximum energy from these wind farms, one of the most important issues is an efficient layout of the farms. This layout governs the location of each turbine in the wind farm. Due to its complexity, the wind farm layout design problem is classified as a complex optimization problem. Several attempts have been made previously to come up with better approaches and algorithms for optimization of wind farm. This paper proposes yet another optimization algorithm which is based on the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, which is a popular optimization algorithm. The proposed algorithm, termed as the modified particle swarm optimization algorithm (MPSO), is compared with previous results generated by another optimization algorithm, namely, genetic algorithm. Results indicate that MPSO generated better results.

Device to measure the corrosive sulfur species formation rate in power transformers and a method of using the same

Abstract: An apparatus for measuring the rate of Cu 2 S formation in power transformers comprising a sealable transformer vessel and a sealable lid with at least four sealable ports, and an internal apparatus configuration involving a copper metal sheet, a power transformer, a temperature sensor, and a weighing device providing real-time feedback data, whereby these components are submerged in an effective amount of a reactive sulfur-containing transformer oil and sealed. An inert gas atmosphere is provided within the transformer vessel by a gas bubbler. The transformer oil is heated with a heating bath to a reactive temperature for Cu 2 S production. A method of measuring the rate of Cu 2 S formation whereby the apparatus is purged with an inert gas, heated to a reactive temperature, examined for Cu 2 S formation, the Cu 2 S produced is quantified and the rate of formation of Cu 2 S is calculated.