APPLYING ELECTRIC SPRING TECHNOLOGY IN SMALL SCALE RESIDENTIAL MICROGRID

Abstract

Considering the excessive consumption of fossil fuels in energy production in addition to its disastrous harm to the environment, the usage of renewable energy sources becomes a necessity for sustainable power production. Generally, energy communities worldwide and in Egypt specifically encourage household customers toward the renewable energy investment by utilizing grid-connected rooftop renewable generators (i.e. PV, wind turbines). The growing penetration of these intermittent renewable energy sources into the existing power grid enhances the capability of the grid but also poses challenges regarding system operational conditions especially voltage regulation. Many techniques have been developed over the years to provide practical solutions to power quality problems. A recent technology called "Electric Springs" (ES) is presented in this thesis to provide better voltage regulation in addition to mitigation for other power quality issues. A simulation case study for a small-scale residential microgrid by MATLAB/SIMULINK is carried out to investigate the voltage regulation capability of ES under the potential sources of voltage disturbances that may occur in a residential microgrid. Different disturbances such as load switching, varying PV generation profile in sunny/cloudy days, dynamic response of the standby diesel generator, and the utility grid disturbances (i.e. voltage decrease, increase, and fluctuation) are investigated. Under all of the previous sources of disturbances, the ES technology has proved its effectiveness in terms of voltage regulation.