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Back to home page Overview of our ProjectBackgroundHowever,
the current electricity infrastructure is not capable of utilising the
potential. This is because the
transmission networks were originally designed, not for accommodating
renewable energy sources, but for fossil fuel plants, which are generally
located away from areas of large renewable resource. Moreover, high demand centres tend to be located away from areas
of large renewable resource. Another
report released by the Scottish Executive last year “Impact
of Renewable Generation on the Electrical Transmission Network in Scotland”(pdf
format) suggested that the available capacity for the integration of
new renewable generation onto the existing transmission network in Scotland
is about 1000MW – not much more than 1% of the total UK power consumption.
For the network to be able to accept more than this amount, much
reinforcement of the network would need to be made, in terms of substation
equipment and transmission lines. This is a very costly process.
There is, however, another way to take advantage of the renewable energy potential in Scotland, and this is to apply distributed generation. As we have seen already, distributed generation involves supplying generation directly to the distribution network, and so avoiding the transmission stage. In doing so, renewable energy generation can meet local demands, without having to be transferred through the, already congested, transmission network, and so taking advantage of renewable resources, without major reinforcements.
Objectives
The
focus of our study was to look at the application of distributed generation
in an area where there is presently no available capacity on the transmission
network for the addition of further generation from renewable sources. Our objective was to study the feasibility of distributed generation in such a case, in order to meet the base load of the local demand. By covering the base load, as opposed to peak loads, a greater energy content can be supplied by the distributed generator. We set out to determine the economic optimum generation level, with respect to local demand. In doing so, the aspects to be considered were the barriers associated with demand and supply – that of location and time of year. We also examined the control of various supply options for meeting the intermittent and peak demands. The final considerations of the project were environmental and socio-economic impacts. In order to analyse these elements, we chose a case study approach. The site of our case study is a distribution network connected to Cassley substation on the Scottish and Southern energy network. The reason for selecting this network to study is that Cassley substation has no available capacity for adding further renewable generation, and is located near to large renewable energy potential. Back to home page |