Page 16 - Hybrid-Renewable Energy Systems in Microgrids

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Hybrid PV–wind renewable 1

energy sources for microgrid

application: an overview

Ujjwal Datta, Akhtar Kalam, Juan Shi
Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

1 Introduction

Traditionally, to generate and meet the electricity demand, fossil fuels are used as
the primary sources of energy. However, crisis in conventional fuel sources, upward
trend of fuel prices, and harmful gas emission due to the burning of fossil fuels have
challenged the future viability of the human civilization that is depending on con-
ventional energy sources. In recent years, renewable energy technologies have drawn
greater global attention due to their positive impact on addressing environmental con-
cerns (CO emission that leads to global warming) and their capability to meet the
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growing energy demand. Moreover, low operation and maintenance costs, as well as
their easy setup, have resulted in increased integration of renewable energy sources
(RES) in recent years. As a clean source of energy with zero fuel cost, renewable
energy has gained substantial technical developments, with more ongoing researches
in academia and industry. With 9% increment in the total global capacity in 2016
compared to the previous year, renewable energy accounted for nearly 62% of the
total installed power generation capacity [1]. According to the historical data by Inter-
national Energy Agency (IEA) [2], there is a clear sign of domination by renewable
energy in electricity generation.
Among various available renewable energy technologies (geothermal, tidal, bio-
mass, etc.), photovoltaic (PV) and wind turbines (WT) in the form of distributed
energy resources (DERs) have gained broader attention and have an important impact
on the power system nowadays. They can be a part of the large power system (large-
scale generation capacity), small distribution system, and microgrid (MG). Targets
to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in addition to the several incentives provided
by the government to promote RES have positively influenced the further integration
of renewable energy technologies in power systems. However, present technical con-
cerns of intermittent RES nature has somewhat limited RES penetration level in the
existing power system. With a current share of less than 10% of the total electricity
generation from RES, a great technical advancement is needed to integrate the nearly
expected 100% share of RES by 2050.
Due to geographical location, long distances from the main electric power grid,
high cost of the power transmission lines, technical constraints in remote locations, and
reliability concern of electric power supply because of the natural adversities, access

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