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Reflection Ee 570

The document discusses a course on renewable energy systems taken by the author. The course focused on microgrid power systems and had students design a microgrid. Microgrids are small, localized power systems that can operate independently of or connected to the central grid. They enable use of distributed energy resources like solar and wind. For the design project, the author selected thin film solar panels for power generation and iron-flow batteries for energy storage. Iron-flow batteries are considered environmentally sustainable. The most challenging part was selecting standards, but with help, IEEE 2030.7 was chosen. The author learned about renewable distribution, generation, and storage and felt the design project most improved their understanding of microgrid components.

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86 views2 pages

Reflection Ee 570

The document discusses a course on renewable energy systems taken by the author. The course focused on microgrid power systems and had students design a microgrid. Microgrids are small, localized power systems that can operate independently of or connected to the central grid. They enable use of distributed energy resources like solar and wind. For the design project, the author selected thin film solar panels for power generation and iron-flow batteries for energy storage. Iron-flow batteries are considered environmentally sustainable. The most challenging part was selecting standards, but with help, IEEE 2030.7 was chosen. The author learned about renewable distribution, generation, and storage and felt the design project most improved their understanding of microgrid components.

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Being a student of Clean Energy major, I was excited to take the subject Renewable ES.

I had been
looking forward to this course since I applied to UB for my master's program. I believe it's the
professor of the subject who makes the course interesting and easy to understand. The course
professor Dr Kevin Burke is one of the best professor in UB. He made the course easy and fun to
understand. Dr Kevin Burke taught the course that strengthened my fundamentals as well as in-
depth advanced technologies in Renewables.
Mainly, this course focused on the microgrid type of power system. Topics will include a historical
global perspective of electrical systems, and individual enabling technologies that comprise a
microgrid. At the end of the course, I had to design a microgrid system that incorporates and
considers economic, environmental, sustainable, manufacturable, ethical, health and safety, and
social and political constraints.
Microgrids are small groupings of interconnected power generation and control technologies
that can operate within or independent of a central grid, mitigating disturbances and increasing
system reliability. By enabling the integration of distributed resources such as wind and solar,
these systems can be more flexible than traditional grids.

Figure 1: Micro-grid System [1]


Microgrids use Distributed energy resources (DERs). Distributed energy resources are small-scale
electricity supply or demand resources that are interconnected to the electric grid. They are
power generation resources and are usually located close to load centres, and can be used
individually or in aggregate to provide value to the grid.

DERs include a variety of physical and virtual assets. Physical DERs are typically under 10 MW in
capacity and can consist of diesel or natural gas generators, microturbines, solar arrays, small
wind farms, battery energy storage systems, and more. They can be owned and operated by the
electric utility, by independent power producers or by local businesses. DERs have several types
of electricity generation technologies which include Hydroelectricity, Solar Energy, Battery
Energy Storage and Power Generators like Diesel Generators.
I selected Solar Power Generation as the power generation system for my microgrid. There were
three types of major solar panel choices. Monocrystalline, Polycrystalline, Thin Film solar panels.
Depending on the efficiency and cost of installation, thin film solar panels were selected. To store
the power for the micro-grid, I used Iron-flow batteries. A flow battery is a rechargeable battery
in which electrolyte flows through electrochemical cells from one or more tanks. Iron-Flow
batteries are considered environmentally sustainable because iron is an earth-abundant element
also, they are safe and have a longer lifespan. Commercially available flow batteries are Lockheed
Martin Battery and ESS Batteries. The most important part of designing a microgrid is that it
should comply with IEEE standards. IEEE 2030.7 is a standard made for microgrids. The below
diagram shows a simplified working flow according to IEEE 2030.7 standards.

Figure 2: Simplified Micro-grid workflow [2]


In conclusion, I learned fundamentals and applications of Renewable Distribution generation and
storage. The final project of designing helped me the most to conceptually understand the
components of microgrid systems. It improved my research and teamwork skills. The most
challenging part of the subject was to select standards while designing the microgrid but with
help of Dr Burke and my teammates, we were able to choose the correct standards. If I had a
chance to do this course again I would choose it and strengthen my knowledge of microgrid
systems.
References:

[1] https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2016/02/why-and-how-
microgrid-technology-is-a-good-power-source
[2] https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy20osti/75375.pdf

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