Integration of renewable energy sources into a domestic environment using intelligent power control,remote communication & sensors,loads & generators

Completed

Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electric power conversion)
Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electricity transmission and distribution)

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Dr P Wilson
Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton

Standard

EPSRC

01 November 2003

31 July 2006

33 months

£124,805

Electrical engineering

South East

Electrical Engineering Responsive -- Process Environment and Sustainability

Dr P Wilson, Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton

Project Contact, BP Solar Ltd

This proposal outlines a scheme for integrating renewable energy sources in a domestic context. A key difficulty in integrating small energy sources in a conventional distributed generation scheme is the requirement for a connecting to the existing utility. This requires matching the output of all the generators to the current utility supply, without adversely affecting the power quality or safety. This type of approach has difficult engineering problems to be addressed and is costly, both interms of the engineering involved but also with regard to the regulatory framework. Intelligent control of the flow oi power from the energy sources, whether from the existing utility or from renewable generators, without the need for network protection or synchronisation. The idea behind this proposal is to use a local supply to drive local loads, without connecting directly to the existing utility. Intelligent control of the generation of power, energy storage and its supply to single or groupsof electrical appliances is used to optimise the efficiency of the renewable generators and its delivery to the loads. Environmental monitoring and load analysis help to automatically control the supply and demand profiles for optimum electrical and economic efficiency by taking into account load usage and weather conditions. Simulations of typical scenarios have been carried out to illustrate the concept. and the research is intended to verifv and refine these oreliminarv results in a practical context

01/01/07