Distributed Generation

Table of Contents:

Front Cover 1
Table of Contents 2
Introduction 3
Background
Operating Principles
Applications of Distributed Generation in Malaysia

 Micro-grids
 Back-up Generation
 Intentional Islanding
 Base Loading
 Peak Load Shaving
 Co-generation
 Load Displacement
 Energy Sale
 Tri-generation (Heat, Cooling and, Electricity)
 Distributed Storage
Conclusion
References

Distributed generation

Introduction,

Distributed generation, also known as, on-site generation ,embedded generation,

decentralized energy, dispersed generation ,or decentralized generation. It is a way
that we produce electricity by using many source. Distributed energy resource (DER)
systems are small-scale power generation technologies (3 kW to 10,000 kW) used to
provide an alternative to or an enhancement of the traditional electric power system.
The common problem related to distributed generators is regarding the cost in its
installation is very expensive.

For example, solar panels located on buildings. The production cost is $0.99 to
2.00/W (2007) plus installation and supporting equipment unless bringing the cost to
$6.50 to 7.50 (2007). This is comparable to coal power plant costs of $0.582 to
0.906/W (1979), adjusting for inflation

There are two-levels of distributed generation : First is local level and second end-
point level. wind turbines, solar systems, geothermal energy production (photovoltaic
and combustion), and some hydro-thermal plants are the Local level power generation
plants often include renewable energy technologies that are site. These plants is
smaller and less centralized compared to traditional model plants. The advantages is
about the cost efficiency and more reliable.

the individual energy consumer can apply many of these same technologies with
similar effects at the end-point level. One Distributed Generations technology
frequently works by end-point users is the modular internal combustion engine.
Nowadays, industrial countries frequently use very large main nature resource, like
fossil fuel (coal, gas powered) nuclear and hydropower plants. Which own excellent
economies, but commonly, long distances delivering electricity and have bad affect to
our environment.

Most plants are modeled by considering number of economic, health & safety, ,
environmental, logistical and geographical. For example, coal base power plants are
built away from cities to in order to prevent their serious air pollution on affecting the
civilian. Avoiding or reducing pollution is a important advantage of combined cycle
plants that burn natural gas. This condition may to use as The low pollution permits
the plants to be near enough to a city to be used as for district heating and cooling.

the amount of energy lost reduces by distributed generation in transmitting electricity

due to the electricity is generated very close to where it is used. This reduces the size
and number of power lines that must be constructed so it can also cut the cost or
budget.

Background.
In the electricity industry distributed generation is a new way or approach .The Public
Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) of 1978 had the most far-reaching—and
least intended—consequences for power companies. Encouraging research on
environmentally preferable technologies that environmental elements such as water,
wind, or solar power to produce electricity is one of the provision of PURPA. PURPA
prompted work which cut the cost of power produced using solar photovoltaic panels
about 70 percent year between 1980 and 1995.

Efficient is another advantageous and it also suitable to use in all kind of level power
producing, according to its size (smaller), time spend to build it (less time consume). 
Focused attention again on the cost and security of energy supplies, after the Gulf
War, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 1992.  The law have been modified to
employ competitive forces in order to increase domestic fuel production and to
improve the efficiency of energy use.  One provision gave states the option of opening
up their transmission network to use by competitors.  The network would serve as a
common carrier so any electricity producer could sell power to any customer.

As stakeholders started reconsider their situation in an altered utility system, in 2000

and 2001, the California electricity problems of created uproar condition. Then, after
blackouts in the Midwest in 2002 and in the Northeast and Canada in 2003
contributed further to that disharmony, new action that will solve the 2003 blackout
suggested by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that will give it greater
control on the increasingly fragile-looking transmission grid. As utility companies and
nonutility entrepreneurs remained concerned in an uncertain policy setting about how
the grid will be employed and which stakeholders will profit from its use, so that the
grid has witnessed serious underinvestment at 1990s.

The unsettled state of affairs in the power system has provided opportunities for
advocates of environmentally-friendly and distributed-generation technologies. 
Taking advantage of the flux within the utility system, especially in states with strong
traditions of politically brilliant environmental advocates, activists that won passage
of laws for funding of renewable energy and small-scale generation technologies. 
Customers paid into “public benefit funds” regardless of which company (a traditional
utility or nonutility company) service them with electricity.

Operating principles
Figure 1|Comparison between Central and distributed generations.
Basically the distributed generation work as backup system to old traditional system. We have
several source that we can use. Small wind turbines become one of the method that are a nice
option in distributed generation. 1 to 10KW normal residential scale turbines size range from. The
turbine size increases accordingly to the cost effectiveness. A small turbine maybe cheaper
initially but cost more per KW than a larger one. $5,000 per KW the cost, turbines are within
reach of the commercial and homeowners sector.
 Figure 2: Small Turbine for a

residence Figure 3| Shown wind turbine in the Grid-connected system.

Solar Power and Renewable Distributed Electricity and Heat Generation

Photovoltaic’s (PV)  convert energy of light supply by the sun into electricity, due
to high conventional fuel costs, a solar panel or multiple panels that make up a
photovoltaic array are growing in popularity clearly for recent years.

the energy during the day and store excess energy in batteries that is chargeable for
night time use, these how the systems operation goes. This is beneficial because when
insufficient electricity is produced by the solar panel system, energy can be drawn
from the grid for use. Inversely, when an excess of electricity is made by the solar
panels energy can be fed and sold to the grid. Therefore these systems can be used not
only for supplying electricity, but also for financial gain.

Silikon is a example of semiconductor material that widely used in making

Photovoltaic cells. This semiconductor, when flash with sunlight is bombarded with
photons which excite the electrons around the silicon molecules. An electric field is
induced through the semiconductor to create a flow of the excited electrons out of the
silicon and into metal contacts allowing the electricity to be used elsewhere.

Figure 3: Photovoltaic Concept

Applications of Distributed Generation in Malaysia:

In Malaysia, there are quite a lot of applications of distributed generation. There
are 2 types of DG applications, which are isolated DG and grid-connected DG. They
are shown as below:
Application of Isolated DG Application of Grid-Connected DG
 Micro-grids  Base Loading
 Back-up Generation  Peak Load Shaving
 Intentional Islanding  Co-generation
 Load Displacement
 Energy Sale (not yet allowed)
 Tri-generation (Heat, Cooling and, Electricity)
 Distributed Storage

1. Isolated DG Application:
a) Micro-grid
Micro-grid has the ability to separate and isolate itself during utility grid
disturbance. After the utility grid has return to normal, the micro-grid will
resynchronizes and reconnect automatically to the utility grid. Hence, it can
help to decrease the losses in the power transmission. In Malaysia, micro-grid
is still a new transmission, distribution and ICT project. Example of source of
micro-grid is fuel source.
 Figure 1: Example of Micro-Grid at Sabah

Figure 2: AEP/CERTS Micro-grid Schematic

b) Back-up generation
In Malaysia, one of the back-up generation is done by using liquefied
petroleum (LP) gas tank. LP Gas is portable and storable. This makes it
perfect to distribute renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and wave. Not
only that, using LP Gas can improve energy reliability and reduce life-cycle
cost. Hence, using LP gas, distributed generation can be used as back-up
generation.

Figure 3: Example of back-up generation system using LP Gas Tank

c) Intentional Islanding
Intentional islanding is sectionalization of utility system when widespread
disturbances. It is used to create the power ‘islands’. These islands help to
 maintain continuous supply of power when there are disturbances of main
distribution system.

Figure 4: Sectionalization of grid when there are disturbance

In Malaysia, it is estimated that about 80% of the supply interruptions that are
faced by the customers are the failures that occur in distribution network.
Hence, many companies start to maintain the quality and reliability of
uninterrupted power supply. Intentional islanding is chosen to be the best
solution for this problem. Some examples are like gas-turbine generators and
solar panels. Gas-turbine generator provides power to industrial or commercial
sites like shopping malls, universities, and apartment complexes. Solar panel
is used on top of houses or buildings.
2. Grid-connected DG Application:
a) Base Loading
According to EIA Energy Glossary, base loading is the minimum amount of
electric power delivered or required over a given period of time at a steady
rate. Using distributed generations, this can be achieved. In Malaysia,
distributed generation is used widely for base loading. Most of our electricity
comes from base load power plant. The sources of base load come from coal-
powered plant and natural gas.

Figure 5: Existing power plant at Teluk Salut from Ranhill Engineers & Construction Sdn Bhd
b) Peak Load Shaving
Peak load shaving is the process where the electrical load on the utility power
is offset using a generator. In Malaysia, distributed generation is used widely
on peak load shaving. By using distributed generation, the peak load
requirements can be reduced. This helps to save a lot of money as the
generator is fired up at peak times when the electricity (in kilowatt-hours) is
more expensive. It also helps to cut the maintenance costs and extend the
equipment life.

Figure 6: Power Depend unit used for peak load shaving

c) Co-generation
Co-generation, or known as combined heat and power (CHP), is using heat
engine or power station to generate both the electricity and heat. It is the most
common type of energy recycling. Cogeneration can be done by using solar
panel, stirling engine or reciprocating engine, or biomass. Co-generation is
widely used in Malaysia too. Quite a lot of factories, offices, or even hospitals
in Malaysia are using co-generation to generate electricity and heat for air
conditional and hot water. This can help to reduce the cost.
 Figure 7: KLIA Co-Generation Plant LM2500

Figure 8: integration of a stirling engine into a biomass co-generation plant

d) Load Displacement
Another application of distributed generation is load-displacement generation.
It is the distributed generation which is connected behind the customer meter,
and helps to reduce the customer’s load on distributed system so that the
power will never flowed into the distribution system. Load displacement
generation helps to reduce the line losses, avoid the network transmission
charges and also avoid the distribution-expansion cost. For this moment, load
displacement generation is not so popular in Malaysia.

e) Energy Sale
Energy sale will be possible by using distributed generation. Customers can
sell back their energy back to the grid through distributed generation if they
got extra energy sources. This can be done either at peak pricing period or
other time. Hence, through this way, sometimes customers are said as
generators too as they generate extra energy and sell to grid for other people to
use. The most common source used is solar energy. In Malaysia, this is not
allowed yet to avoid the lost in electricity supply system.

f) Tri-generation (Heat, Cooling, and Electricity)

Tri-generation, or can be said as trigen, is the production of electricity, heat,
and cooling. Sometimes, it is also said as CCHP (combined cooling, heating
and power generation). Like co-generation, tri-generation produces heat that
can be used as energy. Tri-generation is quite similar to co-generation, the
only difference is in tri-generation power plant, absorption chiller is added.
 Figure 9: Sample system of tri-generation power plant
Chiller can produce chilled water (cold water) from the heat. It can be used for
air conditioning. Compare to co-generation, the efficiency of tri-generation
can exceed 90%, while the efficiency of co-generation can only exceed 80%.
This shows that tri-generation is better if compare to co-generation. In
Malaysia, tri-generation is widely used also. The most common source for tri-
generation is solar source.

Figure 10: Tri-generation power plant by Knowledge Intergration Services(MALAYSIA)

PNT. LTD.
g) Distributed Storage

Distributed storage means that the energy is stored in multiple places. In this
way, through many different generation or storage points which are connected
together, those energy sources can be sent to supply electricity to any places.
Using distributed storage, this will make the grid network become more

efficient during peak-demand period or load variability. The source of

distributed storage energy can come from wind, geothermal, solar or other
renewable sources. There are a lot of distributed storage energy system, like
the UPS systems, batteries, hydrogen and fuel cells, compressed air devices,
superconductor magnetic energy storage, and flywheels. In Malaysia,
distributed storage is not so popular yet.
Conclusion:
1. Distributed generation is widely used in Malaysia. There are 2 types of distributed
generation, which are isolated distributed generation and grid-connected
distributed generation.
2. There are 3 applications of isolated distributed generation:
a) Micro-grids
b) Back-up Generation
c) Intentional Islanding
3. There are 7 applications of isolated distributed generation:
a) Base Loading
b) Peak Load Shaving
c) Co-generation
d) Load Displacement
e) Energy Sale (not yet allowed)
f) Tri-generation (Heat, Cooling and, Electricity)
g) Distributed Storage

4. The used of the Distributed Generation is very beneficial to the society it’s
because it can save our environment and we can avoid big trouble such as
blackout.
5. Another advantageous is in saving money, because the Distributed Generation
work very efficient.

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