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Modeling Electrical EnergyIn A Home With Renewable Stored Energy

William Thorne

Spring 2015 Physics Seminars

March 25th, 2015

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Introduction

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Personal Data

William Thorne• Electrical Engineering : Wichita State

University

• Employment: Bombardier Flight Test Center

• Major area of interests:Electrical power system with an emphasis on long term sustainability.

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An Aphorism For Climate Change

Image from: http://www.rfdblog.com/

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Synergistics, Different Fields of Science and Applied Science

• Climate change is a urgent threat to our advancement.

• We accomplish more as a whole.

• Course such as Computational Physics are the key to synergy.

• Key course elements responsible for growth

• Less ridged course structure placing responsibility of learning squarely on the student.

• Students obtain experience solving open-ended problems.

• Important skills of researching and apply knowledge are obtain due to the lack of formal course text.

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My Reasons For Choosing A Sustainability Project

• Economic impacts of dependence on fossil fuels.

• Global social destabilization directly resulting from decreasing supplies.

• Environmental impact of continued dependence on non renewable resources.

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Current Status of United States Renewables

• Current United States alternative energy capacities, while growing, are incapable of meeting our energy consumption requirements.

• Creative methods for solving this problem, may prove to be the best hope of solution.

• This is my goal, and my reason for choosing this research topic.

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Experiment Conducted

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Outline of Experiment

• I analyzed what it would take to get my own residents off the grid.

• The first step was to analysis of my homes energy consumption.

• Then the analysis of renewable energy available.

• After that I started planning and design a system capable of replacing electrically derived portions of my utility needs.

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Determining Load Requirements

• Measurement of load data was accomplished using, a Blue Line Innovations Power Cost Monitor.

• This monitor attaches to a variety of existing meters and records data at 30 second intervals

• Via a Wi-Fi device, it uploads the information to cloud.

• The device is accurate to ± 1%

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Determining Available Wind Energy

• Measurement of wind data was accomplished utilizing a LaCrosse Technologies weather station.

• The data is recorded utilizing a the weather station monitor and a Wi-Fi receiver using software.

• It records wind speed & direction, as well as barometric pressure & relative humidity.

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Determining Available Wind Energy

• Unit Specifications– Outdoor Temperature

• -40°F to 139.8° with .2 resolution

– Outdoor Humidity • 1% to 99% with 1% resolution

– Wind Speeds / Gust• 0 to 111.8 mph with .22 mph

resolution

– Air Pressure• 8.86 inHg to 32.46 inHG

(measured 15sec intervals)

• Weather Software– Software records

1750 sets of values, at intervals of 1 minute to 24 hours.

– I learned and important lesson here as my measurement were recorded at 1 per 2 hour intervals by default.

– This mistake and my desire for conclusive data was one of the reasons the project went through two semesters.

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Determining Available Solar Energy

• Solar data was measured using a broadband pyranometer. I built from kit from Institute for Earth Science Research and Education.

• Without absolute calibration, the margin of error is unknown.

• An Onset Data Logger was used to collect voltage data at 10 sec intervals, with .6 mV resolution.

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Data Collected

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Load Requirement Data Obtained

• The data recorded show energy usage in blue and temperature in green. With peak usage shown when we ran the air conditioner.

• With the peak usage was measured at 3.099 kW.

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Wind Data Collected

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Other Air Condition Data Collected

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Solar Data Collected

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Tabulation Data

98090 W9809 W1462 W13577 W1033 W

Average PowerPower Consumed During Test

Daily Load Calculations

Standard DeviationPeak UsageHighest Hourly Use

Average Measure Wind Speed 2.19 mph 0.98 m/sStandard Deviation 1.94 mph 0.87 m/sSample Maxium 8.5 mph 3.80 m/sCalculated Average Maxium 4.13 mph 1.84 m/sCalculated Average Minimum 0.25 mph 0.11 m/s

Average Measure Wind Speed 4.18 mph 1.87 m/sStandard Deviation 3.69 mph 1.65 m/sSample Maxium 16.21 mph 7.25 m/sCalculated Average Maxium 7.87 mph 3.52 m/sCalculated Average Minimum 0.48 mph 0.22 m/s

Wind Data Sample Measure at 1.67 Meters

Wind Speed at 6.00 Meters

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Component For Implementing

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Typical Component Assembly

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Battery Design

470 AVG+Std Dev Wh /Day1409 Wh3522 Wh3910 Wh81 Ah

566 Max Wh /Day1697 Wh4243 Wh4710 Wh98 Ah

200 AhInquiringCost Approximate

3 Days Of Automony40% Depth of DischargeDerated for Controled Temp 60FMinimum Capacity Base on 48V system

Optima - LiFePO4 Battery 48V

40% Depth of DischargeDerated for Controled Temp 60FMinimum Capacity Base on 48V system

Battery Design Off GridDaily Usage

Battery Design On GridDaily Usage3 Days Of Automony

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Components For Inverter Connection

Charge Controller – Cost Estimate $500 Battery Monitor – Cost Estimate $250

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Inverter Design

3099 Max Power in Watts4029 Inverter Size in Watts5000 Max Delivered in Watts5000 Max Delivered in Watts$500-800Cost Approximate

Inverter DesignInverter MaxInverter Size Min

Tress - TLS-5KVA (Off Grid)Tress - TLS-5KTS (On Grid)

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Wind Turbine Design

GundCraft 1.5KW - 2.8m Dia Blade 134 WattGundCraft 3.0KW - 3.2m Dia Blade 175 Watt

Windpower Estimate

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Cost Estimation NREL

• The National Renewable Energy Laboratory Provides tools for estimating total cost of an installed system.

• Using my load data I obtained this estimate

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Proposition For Future Study

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The need for more creative solutions

• As you can see from my cost estimation on the last slide there was a 48 year pay back on the investment to go off the grid. I will most likely be dead by then.

• However, if the investment was shared by a community the cost could be shared and reduce the number of components to implement the system.

• If the components of the system itself have more one purpose, such as an all electric vehicles battery as a storage source. This once again would distribute cost.

• Improved method of storage such as using water columns to store energy from photovoltaic and wind turbines, releasing energy as needed.

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Advancements Since Experiment and Continued Research.

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Energy Storage

• High capacity electrolytic batteries in the 12kW range.

• In another lecture last year Professor Carlo Segre presented a battery design capable of storing 25 kWh at 40V in a 26 kg package

• This is a very high energy density is a small package

• High Farad rated capacitors.• Due to laser surface etching the available surface area

of the conducting plates have dramatically increased.• Advantages include quick charge rate, and high life

cycle, low environmental impact.

• This applies to both the energy and consumer market.

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Continued Research

• I am currently researching the feasibility of a hybrid micro grid system that incorporates the following components:

• Use of both solar and wind energy• Storage of energy utilizing a water tower, and low

head pressure turbine generation

• Experimental data will be obtained through simulation using:

• PowerGrid Simulations• Matlab

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Conclusion

• Thank you for your time and attention.

• Links to various sources– IN My Backyard – NREL Website

• http://www.nrel.gov/eis/imby/

– Building your own pyranometer – Institute for Earth Science Research and Education.• http://www.instesre.org/construction/pyranometer/pyranometer.htm