Issues and applications of real-time data from off-grid electrical systems (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT), 2022
Remote control and monitoring of energy resources are vital for the effective management of electricity in rural areas. Access to electricity in rural areas of Nigeria has grown in recent years. Nigeria appears to be growing rapidly in the electrification of both rural and urban areas through the use of distributed energy resources using renewable energy. Nevertheless, there have been challenges in the remote monitoring of the energy resources in the rural area. The challenges include high cost of implementation, available technology, power consumption, system integration, social-Economic challenge, etc. This paper present a cost-effective concept for remote monitoring systems of distributed energy resources (off-grid/mini-grid) and on-grid/main-grid technologies based on free open-source Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) or vison CC software that runs on a server located at the central station and a robust interface panel where the sensors measure system parameters, which are subsequently analyzed by signal processors before being transferred to a central location, where data is stored on the server's hard drive. The remote monitoring system is for monitoring and collection of energy data such as current, voltage, power, and environmental data such as temperature and humidity. The basic remote monitoring system consists of two components: a transmitter located at a remote site (where the mini-grid is installed) and a receiver located at the central station (where the system monitoring process is done). The proposed concept comprises various means of connecting locally with the remote system, with the connection being through Universal Serial Bus (USB), RS232, RS485, or Ethernet, where this data is stored on a central relational database management system, which makes it possible for posterior analysis.
2023
To achieve electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa, off-grid Distributed Energy Resource Systems, such as microgrids, are required. Sustainability of these systems requires improved business models and efficient maintenance and operations frameworks. However, a lack of technical and economic data from the existing installation base hampers the necessary learning and innovation. This paper describes a case study deployment of DER systems in Malawi, demonstrating the application and benefits of high levels of instrumentation and monitoring. A proposed classification of minimum, preferred and desirable levels of data gathering and sharing is offered as a key recommendation for future DER system deployments in Malawi.
Developing an open access monitoring device for off-grid renewables
2016 4th International Conference on the Development in the in Renewable Energy Technology (ICDRET)
Electricity access is a key driver for developing a modern society. The use of locally generated renewable energy can overcome limitations of expensive grid infrastructure. However, there are still barriers to access particularly for the rural poor in the global south. When individuals or communities invest in electricity provision it is important to know how well the system is performing. Commercial monitoring systems have been developed for large scale renewable energy systems. The cost of these can outweigh the cost of a small decentralised renewable energy system. This paper describes the development of a low cost data logger that is going to be used to monitor the system performance of small photovoltaic nano-grids in Kenya and Bangladesh. The device performs within the expected range for the current, voltage, temperature and irradiance sensors. Data from the data logger device is sent via GPRS to a website where it can be accessed as real time graphical displays and data files.
Remote monitoring of off-grid renewable energy Case studies in rural Malawi, Zambia, and Gambia
Increased understanding of off-grid renewable energy technology (RET) performance can assist in improving sustainability of such systems. The technologies for remote monitoring of RET deployments in developing countries are promising with various configurations and usages being tested. Recent applications of remote monitoring technologies in Malawi, Gambia, and Zambia are presented along with their respective strengths and weaknesses. The potential for remote monitoring applications to improve sustainability of off-grid RET is explored along with some theoretical directions of the technologies.
A low cost concept for data acquisition systems applied to decentralized renewable energy plants
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland), 2011
The present paper describes experiences of the use of monitoring and data acquisition systems (DAS) and proposes a new concept of a low cost DAS applied to decentralized renewable energy (RE) plants with an USB interface. The use of such systems contributes to disseminate these plants, recognizing in real time local energy resources, monitoring energy conversion efficiency and sending information concerning failures. These aspects are important, mainly for developing countries, where decentralized power plants based on renewable sources are in some cases the best option for supplying electricity to rural areas. Nevertheless, the cost of commercial DAS is still a barrier for a greater dissemination of such systems in developing countries. The proposed USB based DAS presents a new dual clock operation philosophy, in which the acquisition system contains two clock sources for parallel information processing from different communication protocols. To ensure the low cost of the DAS and t...
Online Monitoring Leads to Improve the Reliability and Sustainability of Power Grids
2019
The paper aims to address the concept of virtualized grid automation. This approach will be developed within a project by combining the application of data visualization techniques, sensor analysis tools, advanced energy measurement and ICT technologies to ensure the visibility and control of electricity grids. The development of advanced distributed processing solutions will solve time-critical issues.CEZ Romania wants to monitor online the distribution system for optimization of the grid operation at medium voltage (MV) and low voltage (LV). CEZ wants to have data from networks in real-timeand to be able to remotely optimize the operations. A set of advanced sensors will be deployed in the networks, connected using available communications networks to the service server located at the DSO premises. Appropriate control room displays will be connected to the services to display the results of the data analysis.We decided to start with an area with a high density of consumers, especi...
EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing, 2015
Power networks will change from a rigid hierarchic architecture to dynamic interconnected smart grids. In traditional power grids, the frequency is the controlled quantity to maintain supply and load power balance. Thereby, high rotating mass inertia ensures for stability. In the future, system stability will have to rely more on real-time measurements and sophisticated control, especially when integrating fluctuating renewable power sources or high-load consumers like electrical vehicles to the low-voltage distribution grid. In the present contribution, we describe a data processing network for the in-house developed low-voltage, high-rate measurement devices called electrical data recorder (EDR). These capture units are capable of sending the full high-rate acquisition data for permanent storage in a large-scale database. The EDR network is specifically designed to serve for reliable and secured transport of large data, live performance monitoring, and deep data mining. We integrate dedicated different interfaces for statistical evaluation, big data queries, comparative analysis, and data integrity tests in order to provide a wide range of useful post-processing methods for smart grid analysis. We implemented the developed EDR network architecture for high-rate measurement data processing and management at different locations in the power grid of our Institute. The system runs stable and successfully collects data since several years. The results of the implemented evaluation functionalities show the feasibility of the implemented methods for signal processing, in view of enhanced smart grid operation.
Application of smart grid technologies in developing areas
2013 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting, 2013
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Power grid frequency monitoring over mobile platforms
2014 IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications (SmartGridComm), 2014
Information about the frequency deviation is critical to reliable and stable operation of the power grid. Current widearea power grid monitoring systems consist of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) at both high-voltage transmission level and low-voltage distribution level, but are generally unsatisfactory for large-scale deployment over highly distributed microgrids in individual households and local communities due to their high cost and low accessibility. In this paper, we present a practical system design which significantly improves the accessibility and reduces the cost of frequency monitoring by unleashing the capabilities of modern mobile platforms in computation, communication, and storage. In our system, the Network Time Protocol (NTP) is exploited for time synchronization, replacing inflexible GPS receivers that are widely used in current PMUs. A small quantity of peripheral hardware components are used to build up an embedded sensing component for efficient and accurate frequency measurement. The experiment results compared to the traditional Frequency Disturbance Recorders (FDRs) show the effectiveness of the proposed frequency monitoring system.