Aims

The purpose of our group project is to supply electricity to residences in the Great Cumbrae by using renewable energy as much as possible in order to attract tourists and make a sustainable life for the residences. This will also help to sustain the environment, reduce the cost of electricity, and improve economic growth in the Isle of Cumbrae. In addition, self-sufficient generation at the Island will help to reduce the dependency on the unreliable grid. However, the electricity supplies must have the reliability to generate power to customers for the entire year and at any seasons. This means the power system should considerably aware of energy surplus and energy deficit. Also, the improvements in the housing standard will help to reduce the current demand, and it can minimise the capital investments for the renewable installations.

The four main Aims of our project are:

Methodology

The below section explains step by step procedures that we have adopted to achieve the objectives.

1. Determine the current demand at the Isle of Cumbrae

In order to begin our project it was necessary to determine the current remand at the Island. It was a challenging task, and after adopting different techniques we are able to establish the current demand. It is estimated as 9.5 GWh/year.

Please click on the below button to know more about the demand at Cumbrae.

Current demand

2. Find the current Carbon dioxide emission and Cost of Electricity

Our next step was to establish the current Carbon dioxide(C02) emission and Cost of Electricity (COE) at the Island. We have used Homer software to determine these parameters, and it helped to calculate the reduction of emission and COE in our models. The current C02 emission and COE are determined as 6,000 tonnes/year and 9.88 pence/kWh respectively.

Please click on the below buttons to know more about the COE and CO2 Emission.

COE CO2 emission

3. Establish different Scenarios and compare the results

After finding the current demand, COE, and CO2 emission, our next target was to establish different scenarios to meet the demand, reduce the COE and CO2 emission. We have used parameters such as Renewable fraction, Levelized cost of electricity (COE), and % of carbon dioxide emission savings to analyse the results.

The formula that we have used to calculate these parameters are:

The more detailed definition of these parameters can be found here:
Renewable fraction Levelized cost of electricity(COE)

Note:- We haven't considered the grid export in COE calculation. Also, the link given here is for the detailed definition of Cost Of Energy instead of Cost of Electricity. Our current project is focused only on the electricity, and haven't considered other energy sources such as gas and oil. But, the approach and calculation methods are same.

The three main scenario's that we have considered are:

Scenario 1 : The proposed Hybrid combination model
5 MW PV + 1 MWh lithium ion battery hybrid system

As the Isle of Cumbrae has the permission in place to install this combination, in our first scenario we tried to model the same, and compare the result in terms of the Renewable fraction , COE, and CO2 emission.

Scenario 2 : Our recommendation model 5 MW PV + 4 X 900kW WT + Pumped hydro storage hybrid system

In the Scenario 2, we have used Wind potential(WT) along with the proposed 5 MW solar farm(PV). For storage, seawater pumped hydro system is proposed. Then, we analysed the results by using the Renewable fraction ,COE, and CO2 emission.

Scenario 3 : Establish Scenario 2 with the demand reduction technique proposal, and calculate hybrid components savings.

In this scenario, once again we have modeled the same combination as in Scenario 2 after applying the housing upgrade techniques. Thus, the Scenario 3 is basically same as Scenario 2 with reduced demand and calculated the savings of hybrid components used in the model.

4. Find out the suitable softwares to model the above scenarios and analyse the possible housing upgrade techniques

After doing some research, finally, we have selected the software 'HOMER Pro' and 'HEM' for our analysis. 'HOMER' is one of the widely used software to design economic and engineering optimization of microgrid systems. 'HEM' is a flexible approach to mapping the possible carbon and energy performance of a dwelling.

5. Find out the weather data to give inputs for PV and Wind turbines

We got 2017 hourly weather data from a site close to the Cumbrae Island at the south of the Hunterston power station on the mainland (55.707N -4.91W). It is based on the anemometer placed at the10m height from the sea level. The data can be download from here.

6. Suggest suitable location for the hybrid components

We visited the site in order to identify the suitable location for our hybrid components. To know more about the identified location click here.

Address

Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, James Weir Building, Level 8,
75 Montrose Street
Glasgow G1 1XJ
Scotland, UK

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