Girassol-E - Multi-objective Control in Solar and Wind

Energies

Elisabete Maria Recto Pereira

Dissertation submitted for obtaining the degree of Master in

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Jury
Supervisor: Prof. João Manuel Lage de Miranda Lemos
Co–Supervisor: Prof. José Fernando Alves da Silva
President: Prof. Gil Domingos Marques
Members: Prof. Alexandre José Malheiro Bernardino

September 2008
i
Acknowledgments

I would like to thank to all that directly or indirectly contributed to the conclusion of this thesis.
Without them this work would be more poor and difficult.
I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor, professor João Lemos for taking the responsi-
bility for this dissertation and whose expertise, understanding and patience added considerably to my
graduate experience. A very special thanks to professor José Fernando Silva for the weekly meetings
where several issues were discussed in order to promote my critical spirit. I must also acknowledge
my friend engineer Ricardo Melro, for suggesting me the theme for this thesis and for his availability
and provision of the font materials evaluated in this study. Appreciation also goes out to my dear-
est colleagues and friends Ana Clara Lopes, Catarina Cruz, Lúcia Cordeiro, Joana Gomes and José
Jerónimo for their friendship and all the instances in which their assistance helped me along the way.
I would also like to thank my family for the support they provided me through my entire life and in
particular, I must acknowledge my parents and sister, without whose love and encouragement I would
not have finished this thesis.
In conclusion, I recognize that this research would not have been possible without the assistance
of INESC-ID (Lisbon), where this thesis was performed.

ii
Resumo

A necessidade de assegurar a diversidade e segurança no fornecimento de energia e a preocu-

pação de proteger o ambiente, motivaram o crescente interesse pelas energias renováveis. A utiliza-
ção dos recursos renováveis de cada país tem vindo a aumentar nos últimos anos e em Portugal a
utilização de recursos hídricos, eólicos e solares é já uma realidade.
Este trabalho explora a possibilidade de conjugar dois recursos (sol e vento) garantindo a produção
de energia mesmo quando um dos recursos não está disponível. O sistema, proposto nesta tese,
pretende melhorar uma tecnologia existente - a tecnologia fotovoltaica. Surge assim o Girassol-E
constituído por oito painés fotovoltaicos montados num rotor orientável ligado a uma turbina eólica.
A geometria das pás do rotor, cuja seccção recta tem a forma de um perfil alar, permite não só a
instalação de painéis fotovoltaicos mas também a captação de vento.
A potência máxima extraída de um painel fotovoltaico varia com a temperatura, radiação e com a
tensão aos terminais do módulo. Sendo desejável colocar os módulos no ponto de potência máxima
- MPP1 estes são equipados com um sistema electrónico: Maximum Power Point Tracker - MPPT,
que opera o sistema à potência máxima. Propõe-se assim um algoritmo de optimização adaptativo
(CAM2 ) que implementa a funcionalidade do MPPT: aproxima sequencialmente a função objectivo a
uma função quadrática juntamente com o algoritmo recursivo de mínimos quadrados (RLS3 ). A van-
tagem deste algoritmo relativamente a outros existentes, prende-se com a capacidade de se adaptar
às alterações repentinas das condições atmosféricas.
Sendo o principal objectivo deste trabalho a orientação do sistema, é proposto um algoritmo que
orienta o sistema para o sol ou para o vento, funcionando num de dois modos: Solar ou Eólico. Para
a produção de energia solar, as pás contendo os painéis fotovoltaicos devem orientar- -se para o sol,
ajustando o ângulo de pitch (β = 90◦ ). No Modo Solar, o sistema segue o sol durante o dia sem recurso
a sensores. Através de um processo iterativo o algoritmo do Gradiente determina qual a melhor
orientação do sistema em azimute e elevação maximizando a potência extraída do sol permitindo
ainda a captação de vento em qualquer direcção devido à presença de pás livres que se soltam neste
modo. Quando a radiação solar deixa de ser significativa, o ângulo de pitch é ajustado optimizando a
potência extraída do vento (β = 12.25◦ ). Os ângulos de elevação e azimute são alterados: E = 90◦
e A de acordo com o sensor de direcção de vento. Os resultados obtidos demonstram a eficência do
algoritmo no seguimento do sol e permitem obter boas estimativas da energia produzida.

Palavras-chave: energia solar, enegia eólica, algoritmos de optimização, MPPT, aplicações de con-
trolo, controlo por computador.

1 Maximum Power Point

2 Constrained Adaptive Maximization
3 Recursive Least Squares

iii
Abstract

The desire to ensure energy supply diversity and safety and the growing awareness or the environ-
ment constant deprivation, lead to growing interest in renewable energies. Renewable resources use
of each country has been growing in the past years and in Portugal, clean sources use such as hydric,
wind or sun’s is already a reality.
This work aims to explore the possibility of gather two resources (sun and wind) in one single
device, in order to guarantee the continuous extraction of energy even when one of the resources
is not available. The main goal of this system is to improve the photovoltaic technology. Girassol-E
includes eight photovoltaic panels mounted in a rotor connected to a wind turbine that, depending on
atmospheric conditions, will be lined up with the sun or the wind. Rotor’s blades geometry have a
straight section with the shape of an airfoil, where the photovoltaic panels are mounted allowing not
only sun’s power extraction but also power from wind.
For the best operation, the photovoltaic panel must operate at their maximum power point (MPP),
defined by the power P as a function of voltage V characteristic (P(V) characteristic). This point de-
pends on sun’s radiation, temperature and on panel characteristics. The P(V) characteristic of a pho-
tovoltaic cell is non-linear and time varying due to changing weather conditions. In order to achieve
the maximum power, it is necessary to implement a Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT) algorithm.
For that sake, an Adaptive Optimization Algorithm (CAM) that sequentially approximates the objective
function with a quadratic together with Recursive Least Squares (RLS) algorithm is used in the thesis.
The advantage of this algorithm is mainly related with its ability to adapt itself in the presence of sudden
atmospheric changes.
Since the main purpose of this project is the system orientation, an optimization algorithm is pro-
posed. The system can operate in two modes: Solar Mode or Wind Mode. In order to produce energy
from sun’s radiation, the blades containing the photovoltaic panels must be lined up with the sun where
its pitch angle is adjusted to β = 90◦ position and able to track the sun during the day. The Gradient’s
Algorithm allows this purpose, achieving the best orientation for Girassol-E through an iterative process
that computes the azimuth and elevation angles maximizing the power extracted from the sun at every
instant. Despite of being in Solar Mode, Girassol-E takes wind’s advantage in every direction due to
the presence of free blades attached to the photovoltaic panels and released when the system is in this
mode. When sun’s radiation is no longer enough to produce significant power, the system must adjust
it’s pitch angle to maximize the power available in the wind, (β = 12.25◦). The elevation and azimuth
angles are also adjusted: E = 90◦ and A according to the information provided by the wind’s direction
sensor. The simulations performed illustrate the algorithm’s efficiency not only as a solar tracker but
also due to the estimate of energy produced.

Keywords: solar energy, wind energy, optimization algorithms, MPPT, control applications, computer
control.

iv
Contents

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Renewable Sources - Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Problem Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 State of the art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.5 Proposed Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.6 Thesis organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Power from the Sun 6

2.1 Solar Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.1 The observer location on the earth surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.2 Earth - Sun Angles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.3 Observer - Sun Angles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 Solar Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.1 Extra-Terrestrial Radiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.2 Solar radiation incident on a surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3 Power from the Wind 15

3.1 Wind structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1.1 Variation in time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.1.2 A wind model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.2 Stationary Wind characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.3 Measuring the wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.4 Prandtl’s Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

4 Girassol-E 21
4.1 System constitution and description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.2 Photovoltaic Panel Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.2.1 MPPT - The Adaptive Optimization Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.3 Wind Turbine Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.3.1 Wind turbine components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.3.2 Aerodynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.4 System operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.4.1 Solar Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.4.2 Wind mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

v
5 Simulation Results 41
5.1 MPPT - The Adaptive Optimization Algorithm Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.1.1 Example 1 - Effect of the forgetting factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.1.2 Example 2 - Effect of dither . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.1.3 Example 3 - Attraction basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.1.4 Example 4 - Algorithm adaptation when facing sudden atmospheric changes . . 44
5.2 Solar Tracker - The Optimization Algorithm Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.2.1 Example 1 - Algorithm performance for a high level of radiation . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.2.2 Example 2 - Algorithm performance for a medium level of radiation . . . . . . . . 47
5.3 One day operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.3.1 Example 1 - Girassol-E orientation during a daylight period (without wind’s pres-
ence) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
5.3.2 Example 2 - Girassol-E orientation during day and night (considering wind’s pres-
ence) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.4 Estimates of Energy Produced . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

6 Economic Evaluation 56
6.1 Micro-generation Incentives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
6.2 Remuneration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
6.3 Girassol-E Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

7 Conclusion 63

Bibliography 65

vi
List of Tables

1.1 Applied tariffs for micro-generation in Portugal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2.1 Sign Convention for important angles (adapted from source [4]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.1 Typical values of z0 (from source [6]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

5.1 Example 1 - Girassol-E positions during a daylight period. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

5.2 Example 2 - Girassol-E positions during a day and night periods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.3 Example 2 - Girassol-E positions during a day and night periods (continuation). . . . . . 54

6.1 Comparison between technologies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

6.2 Comparison between technologies (continuation). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
6.3 Scenario A - Business Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
6.4 Scenario A - Business Plan (continuation). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
6.5 Scenario B - Business Plan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.6 Scenario B - Business Plan (continuation). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

vii
List of Figures

1.1 Production of Renewable Electricity in 2005 (from source [1]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2.1 Geographic coordinate system that enables every location on the earth to be specified
by two coordinates (latitude Φ and longitude ϕ angles). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.2 Earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun showing variations in the earth-sun distance and
the equinoxes and solstices. (From [4]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.3 Hour angle (ω) and its evolution during the day. (From [4]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 Declination angle (δ) and its evolution during the day. (From source [4]). . . . . . . . . . 9
2.5 Coordinate system adopted for observer Q located on a certain point of the earth sur-
face. A is the solar azimuth angle, α is the altitude angle and θz is the solar zenith angle
for a central sun ray along direction vector S. The unit vectors are shown along the
respective axis i, j and k. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.6 Example of sun radiation level during a 5 hours period (from source [8]). . . . . . . . . 11
2.7 The cosine effect of solar radiance on the horizontal surface A above the atmosphere
(from source [3]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3.1 Example of an anemometer record over a 24-hour period (from source [18]). . . . . . . 15
3.2 Example of an anemometer record over a 7-day period (from source [18]). . . . . . . . 16
3.3 Example of an anemometer record over a month period (from source [18]). . . . . . . 16
3.4 Wind’s speed frequency of occurrence (%) (From source [6]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.5 Cup anemometer and direction sensor([19]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.6 Sonic anemometer ([21]) and acquisition system ([6]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

4.1 Girassol-E main components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

4.2 Photovoltaic module equivalent circuit connected to a load through MPPT (extracted
from [8]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.3 Temperature effects on I(V) curves for a 800 W/m2 radiation and different temperatures.
(From source [8]) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.4 Radiation level effect on I(V) curves for a 25◦ C temperature and different values of solar
radiation. (From source [8]) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.5 Temperature effect on P(V) curves for a 800 W/m2 constant radiation and different tem-
peratures. (From source [8]) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.6 Radiation level effects on P(V) curves for a 25◦ C constant temperature and different
values of solar radiation. (From source [8]) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4.7 Wind generator scheme. (Adapted from [22]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.8 Airfoil forces system. (From source [6]) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.9 Power/Wind’s speed characteristic for β = 12.25◦ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

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4.10 Power/Wind’s speed characteristic for β = 90◦ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.11 Girassol-E decision scheme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.12 Girassol-E - Solar Mode (A: Girassol-E azimuth angle; E: Girassol-E elevation angle;
α: Sun altitude; Ψ: Sun azimuth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.13 Power produced by the set of photovoltaic panels as function of Girassol-E orientation
(elevation, E, and azimuth, A) for certain atmospheric conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.14 Wolfe’s rule: construction of an acceptable point. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.15 Girassol-E - Wind Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

5.1 Reference case: Trace of the covariance matrix and the voltage being optimized (λ =
0.92, SD = 0.2 during 80% of time). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.2 Reference case: Determining the optimal voltage V ∗. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.3 Example 1: Trace of the covariance matrix and the voltage being optimized. . . . . . . 43
5.4 Example 2: Trace of the covariance matrix and the voltage being optimized. . . . . . . 43
5.5 Example 3: The voltage being optimized - standard deviation, SD, adjustment: λ = 0.92
and forgetting factor, λ adjustment: SD = 0.2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.6 Example 4: The voltage being optimized facing a sudden climate change. . . . . . . . . 44
5.7 Example 1 - Power surface as function of elevation and azimuth angles (algorithm search
for the position that maximizes power extracted from the sun). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.8 Example 1 - Level curves of solar radiation power (algorithm search for the position that
maximizes the power extracted from the sun). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5.9 Example 2 - Power surface as function of elevation and azimuth angles (algorithm search
for the position that maximizes power extracted from the sun). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.10 Example 2 - Level curves (algorithm search for the position that maximizes power ex-
tracted from the sun). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.11 Record of sun radiation and temperature levels of during the 24-hour period considered. 49
5.12 Record of wind’s speed and direction during the 24-hour period considered. . . . . . . 49
5.13 Example 1 - Girassol-E orientation during the day (presence of wind neglected). . . . . 50
5.14 Example 2 - Girassol-E orientation during day and night. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.15 Power produced considering the whole system (photovoltaic panels gather with micro-
turbine - total power), power produced considering only the set of photovoltaic panels
(power from the sun) and power produced when the system is oriented to the wind
(power from the wind). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

6.1 Hourly averages of sun’s radiation frequency of occurrence in Lisbon grouped in classes
of 100 W/m2 (from source [7]). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
6.2 Map of wind’s speed distribution in Portugal Continental (h = 60 m) (from source [16]). 59

ix
List of Symbols

α - solar altitude angle

β - blades pitch angle
δ - declination angle
ε - silicon band gap
λ - forgetting factor
ω - hour angle
ωm - generator angular speed
ωt - rotor angular speed
Φ - latitude angle
Ψ - solar azimuth angle
ρair - density of the air
Σ - covariance matrix
θ - solar radiation incident angle in a surface
θ∗ - optimum parabola parameters
θ1 , θ2 - estimates of parabola parameters
θz - solar zenith angle
ϕ - longitude angle
a - parábola parameter
A - surface azimuth angle
c - scale parameter with speed dimensions
Cd - drag coefficient
D - drag force
e - residue
E - surface elevation angle
EGE - energy produced by Girassol-E
EP hV - energy produced by the equivalent photovoltaic system
Ek - kinetic energy
f - inflow angle
G - solar radiation received by an horizontal surface
Gr - reference radiation
Gsc - solar constant
G0 - extra-terrestrial solar radiance
Gb - gear-box transmission factor
I - output current produced by the photovoltaic panel
Isc - short circuit current

x
 r
Isc - short circuit reference current
I0 - cell reverse saturation current
I0r - cell reverse reference saturation current
Id - unidireccional current
Is - photocurrent
K - Boltzman constant
k - dimensionless form parameter
k 0 - Von Karman constant
K 0 - Kalman gain
L - lift force
m - ideality factor
m0 - ideal equivalent factor
P - power
Pwind - power available in the wind
Pd - power needed to overcome the drag force
q - electron charge
Rp - parallel resistance
Rs - series resistance
SD - standart deviation
T - absolute cell temperature
t - integer index
T - thrust
Te - machine’s torque
Ts - solar time
Tt - turbine torque
u - wind’s speed
ū - average wind’s speed
Up - out of plane component of W
Ut - in plane component of W
u0 - wind’s turbulence
ūa - annual average speed
V - output voltage applied to the load
V ∗ - optimal voltage
r
Vmax - catalog values for maximum voltage
Voc - open circuit current
r
Voc - catalog values for open circuit voltage
VT - thermal voltage
W - apparent wind
z - height to the ground
Z - load applied to the photovoltaic panel
z0 - typical value of roughness length of the soil
zR - reference high

xi
Chapter 1

Introduction

Reduced harmful gas emissions became a major objective across industrialized countries. In or-
der to accomplish this objective, studies and development of several technologies for electrical power
generation are very important nowadays. This thesis proposes a new extracting power system that
provides energy from renewable sources such as the sun and the wind.
This chapter motivates and formulates the problem to be considered, presents the list of contri-
butions, reviews the state of the art, briefly states the proposed approach and explains the thesis
organization.

1.1 Renewable Sources - Motivation

Fossil fuels (coal, petroleum and natural gas) increasing prices jointly with global concern about
air pollution, are major problems that the global community faces nowadays. Looking to answer to all
this needs, Kyoto’s protocol presented new proposals. Many countries across the globe compromised
themselves to reduce their emissions of Carbon Dioxide (CO2 ) to the earth atmosphere. For example,
Portugal got responsible for reduce 5.2% of it’s 1990’s carbon dioxide emissions until 2008-2012. In
order to achieve this goal, the energy industry has developed many innovative solutions in the field
of Renewable Energies. The path to sustainable development is a long one, but all around the world
results are starting to appear, as many countries have increased their electricity consumption based
on clean energies.
Fig. 1.1 shows the largest share of renewable electricity in Austria and Sweden which are exactly
the countries that generate the larger amounts of electricity from hydro power. The targets already
achieved by these countries are far from being compared to other countries results. In Portugal, the
hydro resource is very little due to the lack of rainfall. Despite being the european country more
exposed to direct sun radiation, solar technologies were a bit neglected in the past. The investment in
wind technologies combined with the high production costs of conventional solar methods are the main
reasons that strongly contributed to the slow development of the solar sector in the past. However, this
situation has changed with the appearance of the world’s largest solar photovoltaic central of Moura
located in eastern Portugal in 2007.
The micro-generation activity is designated to produce electrical energy in low voltage with possi-
ble injection in the public electric network. According to the Portuguese decree-law in [2], the major
electricity produced must be consumed by the owner but the production surplus may be shared with

1
 Figure 1.1: Production of Renewable Electricity in 2005 (from source [1]).

other consumers or injected in the public electric network. In this last case, the injection is restricted
to a maximum of 150 kW. This decree-law establishes only one reference tariff which is set at 650
C/MWh for the first 10 MW nationally registered. For each additional 10 MW of connected power, also
nationally registered, this tariff is decreased in 5%. These tariffs also depend on the type of renewable
energy used as shown in table 1.1.

Table 1.1: Applied tariffs for micro-generation in Portugal.

Type of energy Reference [ C/MWh] Tariff related to reference (%)

Solar 650 100

Eolic 650 70

Hydro 650 30

Cogeneration and biomass 650 30

Clearly photovoltaic micro-generation is privileged since it’s tariffs appear as the highest ones. The
combination of renewable sources in energy production is not usual, however it appears in the decree-
law ([2]) and may be an important way of satisfy the electrical needs of small consumers.

2
1.2 Problem Formulation

Aiming to combine two powerful renewable sources, such as the sun and the wind, this thesis
proposes a new energy conversion system based on photovoltaic panels fixed on a gyratory struc-
ture similar to a wind turbine. This system will be referred from now on as Girassol-E. Once 80% of
Girassol-E is a photovoltaic system, a new optimization algorithm is suggested for power optimization
in photovoltaic cells.
The main purpose of Girassol-E is to find the best orientation in order to maximize the power that
can be extracted at every instant. Most non-fixed photovoltaic panels need sun sensors to yield the
solar radiation available and the sun position at every instant (pyranometers). From this information,
photovoltaic systems have the ability to track the sun, however the inclusion of this devices make
systems more expensive. The proposed system only uses one sensor for wind direction when sun’s
radiation is no longer enough to produce energy. In order to track the sun, the system uses another
sensorless method based on an optimization algorithm. The concept of Girassol-E is to evaluate
atmospheric conditions in order to decide it’s best orientation, to the sun or to the wind.

1.3 Contributions

The contributions of this project are:

Environmental Awareness
Present a new renewable energy system designed to particular entities that are concerned with the
continuous abuse of fossil-fuels and it’s consequent increasing costs.

Improve Technology
Give a contribution for the photovoltaic system sector, introducing some ideas for projects based on
renewable technologies:

• Give a contribution in the application of adaptive optimization methods to derive an algorithm for
power optimization in photovoltaic cells, illustrating its performance by simulation.

• Introduce a new power system that combines power extraction from two renewable resources in
one single device.

1.4 State of the art

Photovoltaic cells are semiconductor devices usually made of silicon, containing doping substances
favorable to the photovoltaic effect - direct conversion of solar radiation in DC electric power. The cell
is the smallest photovoltaic system element with 1,5 Wp 1 To raise the power, the cells are series
or parallel connected forming modules (typically with 50 - 100 Wp) and panels (with superior power
capacity). The number of applications for photovoltaic systems has been increasing, among them
there are:
1 Wp means Watt-peak - unity that measures the maximum power in reference conditions: 1000W/m2 of incident radiation

and 25ºC cell temperature.

3
 • Low power applications (watches, calculators, car accessories, parking meters,...)

• Average power applications (rural electrification and decentralized production grid connected)

The average power applications are more interesting in what concerns the engineering point of
view. In this type of application, photovoltaic panels may be operated in three different ways [7]:

• Grid connected systems, where the whole solar energy produced is injected in the electric net-
work through an inverter that operates as an interface between the photovoltaic panel and the
grid doing the DC-AC conversion demanded by the network.

• Off-grid systems, where the solar energy produced is directly delivered to the loads connected to
the system. It requires some devices, such as batteries, load regulators and inverters.

• Hybrid systems, with other renewable energy converters, (e.g. wind turbines), where photovoltaic
systems may feed isolated loads together.

Power optimization in photovoltaic cells may be done through several existing algorithms for MPPT’s
2
devices used in photovoltaic inverters. Section 4.2.1 presents a new approach used for this purpose.
These methods aim at find the optimal operation point combining accuracy with a quick response under
rapidly changing atmospheric conditions.
There are few systems that combine simultaneously several renewable sources in one single device.
In [17] a self-contained hybrid system consisting in a vertical axis turbine that generates electricity from
both solar cells and wind is presented.

1.5 Proposed Approach

This work as one single goal: present a new mechanism to extract power from renewable sources
(sun and wind). For this purpose two optimization algorithms are performed. One of them is based on
adaptive maximization and aims at adding another solution to Maximum Power Point Tracking methods.
This algorithm consists in fixed iteration steps and relies on concepts of CAM (Constrained Adaptive
Minimization) jointly with the RLS algorithm (Recursive Least Squares). The other algorithm is used to
control the system in order to optimize the power extracted through sun or wind. This algorithm must
have the ability to evaluate atmospheric conditions in order to decide the operation mode.

1.6 Thesis organization

The thesis is organized into seven chapters.

The first chapter begins by introducing the thesis subject, its framework and respective goals.
Chapter two is about solar energy.The solar geometry and the angles produced by apparent sun’s
motion relatively to an observer located on the Earth’s surface are explained. The characteristics of
sun’s radiation outside and inside Earth’s atmosphere is also explained.
Chapter three explains the wind’s structure emphasizing it’s unpredictable behavior. It’s stationary
characteristics are also included and several devices used when studying wind features are incorpo-
rated.
2 Maximum Power Point Tracker.

4
 Chapter four presents the object of this thesis. It begins by describing the components of the
system. Then, the photovoltaic panel model used for the control system is explained. An algorithm
to optimize the photovoltaic panels performance is proposed. A model for the wind turbine is studied
and described in this chapter. In the end it is explained how the system operates emphasizing the two
operation modes, where an optimization algorithm is included to track the sun without making use of
sun sensors.
Chapter five shows simulation results in order to illustrate the performance of the optimization algo-
rithms used in this project, using Matlab. This chapter includes also an estimate of the energy produced
by the device proposed
Chapter six performs an economic evaluation where micro-generation incentives by the Portuguese
Government are explained and then an estimate of energy produced during Girassol-E one year of
operation is calculated.
In the end, chapter seven draws some conclusions about the work performed.

5
Chapter 2

Power from the Sun

The basis for all solar energy systems is the sun. The study of the quantity and quality of solar
energy available at a specific location is of prime importance for the design of any solar energy system.
Although the solar radiation is relatively constant outside the earth’s atmosphere, there are many fac-
tors that influences variations in the available solar radiation, such as the globe location and it’s climate
characteristics. The motion of the sun relatively to the earth, allow surfaces with different orientations
to receive different amounts of solar energy.

2.1 Solar Geometry

The knowledge of solar radiation available during the day, as well as its orientation angle relatively
to a certain observer located on the Earth surface, assumes an important role in the development of
any kind of solar technology. So, the Earth solar geometry study is mandatory to introduce angles
capable of indicate the sun position at every moment of the day.
This section aims to give some useful concepts that will support a significant part of subsequent
work.

2.1.1 The observer location on the earth surface

Any location on earth is described by two coordinates: latitude and longitude. The latitude angle
(Φ) is the angle between a line drawn from a point on the earth’s surface to the center of the earth,
and the earth’s equatorial plane. The line formed by the intersection of the equatorial plane with the
surface of the earth is known as the Equator and has 0◦ latitude - Equator. The earth’s axis of rotation
intersects the earth’s surface at 90◦ latitude (North Pole) and -90◦ latitude (South Pole).
Since the equator is a circle of 360◦ , it can be divided by lines extended from pole to pole ("merid-
ians"). The Greenwich meridian marks the 0◦ longitude. Thus, the longitude angle (ϕ) of a certain
point in the earth surface, located at a specific meridian, is given by the angular measurement ranging
from 0◦ to +180◦ eastward and -180◦ westward. So, any location on the earth surface can be defined
by the intersection of longitude and latitude respective angles. Figure 2.1 illustrates this geographic
coordinate system.

6
Figure 2.1: Geographic coordinate system that enables every location on the earth to be specified by
two coordinates (latitude Φ and longitude ϕ angles).

2.1.2 Earth - Sun Angles

The sun describes an elliptical orbit around the sun every 365.25 days. On about the third day of
July, the earth’s trajectory reaches a maximum distance (1.52×1011 m) from the sun and it’s known as
aphelion. The minimum earth-sun distance, perihelion (1.47×1011 m), takes place on about January
second day. Figure 2.2 depicts the earth’s motion around the sun and respective distances related to
the Northern Hemisphere seasons.
The earth motion around its own polar axis in approximately 24-hour cycles produces days and
nights. The polar axis is inclined to the elliptic plane by 23.45 degrees. The tilt of this axis produces
our seasons as the earth revolves around the sun.
The passage of time is measured through the rotation of the earth about its axis. The base for time
(and longitude) measurement is the Greenwich Meridian, also known as the Prime Meridian. This is a
24-hour system, according to which the day lasts 24 hours and midnight marks 0:00 hours.
The hour angle (ω), is introduced to describe the earth revolution around the sun. As shown in
figure 2.3, this angle represents the angular distance between the meridian where the observer is
located and the meridian whose plane contains the sun. The solar noon occurs when the sun reaches
the highest point in the sky, corresponding to the zero hour angle that increases 15º each hour.
The solar time is based on the 24-hour system, with 12:00 as the time that the sun is exactly due
south. This concept is used to predict the direction of sunrays relative to a point on the earth.
At this point, the hour angle ω is calculated through ([4]):

ω = 15 (ts − 12) [◦ ] (2.1)

7
Figure 2.2: Earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun showing variations in the earth-sun distance and the
equinoxes and solstices. (From [4]).

where ts represents the solar time and is expressed in hours.

The declination angle (δ) is another important concept and is defined as the angle formed between
the line that unites the center of the earth to the sun, and the earth’s equatorial plane. As one can see
in figure 2.4, this angle has one maximum point, one minimum point and two zeros during the year.
The maximum point is reached at June 21 with δ=+23.45◦ and is known as summer solstice, setting
the beginning of this season in the Northern Hemisphere. By this time the sun reaches its highest point
at 12:00 hours. In December 22nd, winter solstice, nights are bigger than days, with δ=-23.45◦ and
the sun reaches its lower point at 12:00 hours. The zeros, or equinoxes, mark the beginning of spring
(March 22) and autumn (September 23), where the number of daylight hours equals the darkness ones
(12 hours).
One such approximation for the declination angle is ([4]):

δ = arcsin(0.39795 cos[0.98563(N − 173)]) [◦ ] (2.2)

where the argument of the cosine here is in degrees and N is the number of days since January
1st.

8
 Figure 2.3: Hour angle (ω) and its evolution during the day. (From [4]).

Figure 2.4: Declination angle (δ) and its evolution during the day. (From source [4]).

9
2.1.3 Observer - Sun Angles

The time that the earth takes to complete one rotation relative to the position of the Sun is 24
hours. During this period the sun position may be described through three angles: the solar altitude
or elevation angle (α), the zenith angle (θz ) and the azimuth angle (Ψ). These angles are referred to
a specific coordinates system of the earth surface, which consists on a vertical line and a horizontal
plane containing two other lines: one represents the North - South direction and the other the East-
West direction.

Figure 2.5: Coordinate system adopted for observer Q located on a certain point of the earth surface.
A is the solar azimuth angle, α is the altitude angle and θz is the solar zenith angle for a central sun ray
along direction vector S. The unit vectors are shown along the respective axis i, j and k.

As shown in figure 2.5, the solar altitude angle (α) is defined as the angle between the central
ray from the sun and the horizontal plane containing the observer. The solar zenith angle (θz ) is an
alternative to α, defined by ([4]):

θz = 90◦ − α [◦ ] (2.3)

The other angle required to define the position of the sun is the azimuth angle (Ψ), which is clock-
wise measured on the horizontal plane, from the north-pointing coordinate axis to the projection of the
sun’s central ray. These angles: solar altitude (α) and azimuth (Ψ) are extremely important in solar
energy systems design and can be obtained using the three angles: latitude,Φ (see section 2.1.1),
hour angle, ω, and declination, δ (in section 2.1.2).
So, the solar altitude α is given by:

α = arcsin(cos(Φ) cos(δ) cos(ω) + sin(Φ) sin(δ)) [◦ ] (2.4)

Depending on location, season and time of the day, the solar azimuth angle can be in any of the
four trigonometric quadrants. So, to ascertain the proper quadrant a test is required. The appropriate
procedure for solving this matter is to test the result to determine whether the time is before or after

10
solar noon, or in other words, determine if solar azimuth is north or south of the east-west line. No such
test is required for the solar altitude angle, since this angle exists in only one quadrant. The untested
result, Ψ0 , for the azimuth angle, Ψ comes as:
µ ¶
0 − cos (δ) sin (ω)
Ψ = arcsin [◦ ] (2.5)
cos (α)
where if:
tan (δ)
cos(ω) ≥ , then: Ψ = 180◦ − Ψ0 [◦ ]
tan (Φ)
otherwise:
tan (δ)
cos(ω) < , and: Ψ = 360◦ + Ψ0 [◦ ] (2.6)
tan (Φ)
The details of this derivation were skipped, since they are not relevant for the general understanding
of this matter. For further information check [4].

2.2 Solar Energy

The sun is the center of the solar system and emits energy as electromagnetic radiation at an
extremely large and relatively constant rate, 24 hours per day, 365 days of the year. A typical solar
radiation plot for a sunny day is shown in figure 2.6. This figure also shows the influence of clouds in the
levels of radiation (for example the periods between 10-11 hour and 12-13 hour). The daylight evolution
corresponds to an arc of sinusoid with fast, small amplitude variation due to scattered moisture and
bigger amplitude sudden changes due to passing clouds.
This section explain the characteristics of sun’s radiation first outside the earth’s atmosphere and
then on the earth’s surface.

950

900

850

800
Radiation (W/m2)

750

700

650

600

550

500
7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Day Hour (hrs)

Figure 2.6: Example of sun radiation level during a 5 hours period (from source [8]).

2.2.1 Extra-Terrestrial Radiation

The sun radiation intensity, in a certain point, decreases with the distance to the solar surface. The
solar radiation that reaches 1 m2 outside the earth’s atmosphere is about 1367 W, setting up the solar

11
constant Gsc =1367 W/m2 . Because the earth’s orbit is elliptical this value will vary between ±3.4 %,
and maximum at perihelion (January 3rd), and minimal in aphelion (July 3rd). An approximation is
given by:
· µ ¶¸
360
G0 = Gsc 1 + 0.034 cos N [W/m2 ] (2.7)
365.25
where G0 is the extra-terrestrial solar radiance, existent outside the atmosphere and N is the year day
number.
Another important concept is the horizontal surface incidence of solar radiance. Consider a flat
and parallel to the ground surface outside the atmosphere. If the surface is normal to the solar central
radius, the incident radiance is the maximum available. However this value is reduced by the cosine of
zenith angle when this surface isn’t normal to the solar central radius.

Figure 2.7: The cosine effect of solar radiance on the horizontal surface A above the atmosphere (from
source [3]).

As shown in figure 2.7, the amount of radiance received in the surface B is higher than the one
received in the surface A. So the solar radiance received by an horizontal surface is given by:

G = G0 cos(θz ) [W/m2 ] (2.8)

where θz is the zenith angle.

2.2.2 Solar radiation incident on a surface

Due to the atmosphere, the amount of radiation that reaches the earth surface may be reduced
between 30% in clear days and 90% in very nebulous days. The total amount of radiation results on
two components of radiation: the direct which comes straight from the sun, and the diffuse that seems
to come from every direction of the sky. Despite of the major power captured is provided by the direct
component, photovoltaic systems are able to obtain power from these two types of radiation.

12
 Although the major existing photovoltaic systems are in fixed structures, new self-oriented systems
starts now to appear. These systems aim at find the optimum position, in elevation and azimuth in
order to capture the maximum radiation available. Compute the incident angle of solar radiation in
each surface position it is of extremely importance to achieve this purpose. Let α be the solar altitude,
Ψ the solar azimuth angle, both defined in section 2.1.3, E the surface elevation angle and A the
surface azimuth and define θ as solar radiation incident angle in the surface:

θ = arccos(sin(α) cos(E) + cos(α) cos(A ± Ψ) sin(E)) [◦ ] (2.9)

Table 2.1 summarizes the angles described in this chapter along with their zero value orientation,
sign convention and range.
The knowledge of solar geometry and the angles of incident radiation on a surface are important for
some sensorless solar systems. The control system proposed for Girassol-E in this report, does not
need to compute this information. However it was required to perform and confirm the results achieved
in simulation experiments.

13
 Table 2.1: Sign Convention for important angles (adapted from source [4]).

Angle Symbol Zero Positive Direction Range Equation nr.

Earth - Sun Angles

Latitude Φ Equator Northern hemisphere 90◦ -

Declination δ Equinox Summer 23.45◦ 2.2

Hour Angle ω Noon Afternoon 180◦ 2.1

Observer - Sun Angles

Sun Altitude α Horizontal Upward 0◦ to 90◦ 2.4

Sun Zenith θz Vertical Toward Horizon 0◦ to 90◦ 2.3

Sun Azimuth Ψ Due North Clockwise 0◦ to 360◦ 2.5, 2.6

Observer - Surface Angles

Surface Elevation E Horizontal Upward 0◦ to 90◦ -

Surface Azimuth A Due North Clockwise 0◦ to 360◦ -

14
Chapter 3

Power from the Wind

Wind is the flow of air due to pressure differences along the earth’s surface. The air heated by
the sun rises and cool air rushes to occupy the area from which the hot air has just moved. It occurs
because a larger amount of solar radiation is received in the globe’s equatorial area than the one
received in North and South Poles. So, wind is a consequence of solar radiation.

3.1 Wind structure

The most persistent, constant and strongest winds take place at 10 km above the earth surface.
However it’s not physically possible to instal wind converters at this hight. So the interesting highs are
limited to a few meters over the surface, where the floor’s friction directly affects the wind speed. In
fact, it is required to know the wind behavior at these highs in order to keep a realistic view over the
future location.

3.1.1 Variation in time

Wind speed and direction are constantly varying over time. Figures 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 exemplify
some graphic results obtained by an anemometer located in a center west region of Portugal, illustrating
speed and direction in different time periods: 24 hours, a week and a month in July 2008.

Figure 3.1: Example of an anemometer record over a 24-hour period (from source [18]).

Another important wind characteristic is the turbulence. The atmospheric turbulence is mainly
caused by the sudden changes in wind direction and affects the energy conversion. However it has

15
 Figure 3.2: Example of an anemometer record over a 7-day period (from source [18]).

Figure 3.3: Example of an anemometer record over a month period (from source [18]).

more impact on the wind turbine effort, so the turbulence factor should be considered when projecting
the wind turbine.
The wind inconstancy means that the electric power is also variable but in a more restricted range,
because turbines work as low-pass filters. The non-deterministic wind characteristic requires the study
of processes capable of explain this behavior in a statistical approach.

3.1.2 A wind model

In order to explain the wind behavior, the two different wind components may be treated separately,
where turbulence is considered as a flow disturbance to the almost stationary wind characterized by
it’s average speed. Defining the wind speed, u(t):

u(t) = ū + u0 (t) (3.1)

where, ū is the average speed of the wind and u0 (t) represents the turbulence. The average speed
represents the almost stationary regime of energy available to the turbine. Although in an indirect
way, turbulence also affects the available energy, once the turbine does not react to sudden changes
in wind’s speed or direction. Considering only the annual average wind’s speed in a certain location,
mystifies all slow and quick deviations. Since power depends on the cube of wind’s speed (as will be
seen ahead in section 4.3.2), this simplification may seriously affect the estimates of electric energy
produced.

16
3.2 Stationary Wind characteristics

For slow variations, the problem may be solved using statistical distributions such as density of
probability, representing the likelihood of the wind speed be equal to a certain value.
To obtain the statistic description of wind behavior in a certain location, it is required to gather the
number of each average hourly speed occurrences and express it as a function of total number of hours
of respective period review. The existent data registers, record average hourly rates, in other words,
this is a set of discrete values. So, the density of probability represents the likelihood that the wind’s
speed be between two values.
When defining the interval limited by these two values, one must choose the range width very
carefully. If the width is too tight, it might take into account excessive wind speeds that occur rarely.
Instead, if it’s too large it’s probable that some significant values in speed’s distribution be wrongly
neglected.
In specialized literature, it is common to find 1 m/s for this range width, often referred as wind class
([6]). Figure 3.4 exemplifies average hourly speed’s wind occurrence, obtained from an anemometer
located in a center west region of Portugal, during 1997.

Figure 3.4: Wind’s speed frequency of occurrence (%) (From source [6]).

Many probabilistic distributions have been suggested in order to describe the density of probability
wind distributions through analytic expressions ([6]). Among them there is the Weibull distribution which
is normally considered as the most adequate, and it reads as follows:
½ · ³ ´k ¸ ¾
k ³ ū ´k−1 ū
f (ū) = exp − (3.2)
c c c
where ū is the wind’s average speed, c is a scale parameter with speed dimensions and k is a dimen-
sionless form parameter.
The wind’s annual average speed is calculated through:
Z ∞
ūa = ū f (ū)dū (3.3)
0

17
3.3 Measuring the wind

Measuring the wind requires specific instruments: anemometers and sensors for wind direction.
Anemometer is the device that measures wind speed. There are a few types of anemometers,
including cup and sonic anemometers. Cup anemometers (see figure 3.5) are mainly used in meteo-
rological stations and normally consist on three or four cups mounted symmetrically at right angles to
a vertical axis. The rate of rotation is directly proportional to the wind speed and thus the wind speed
is measured.

Figure 3.5: Cup anemometer and direction sensor([19]).

When measuring the wind, the anemometer should be mounted at an high where the turbine’s rotor
will be installed. Another issue that one must be aware of, is the sample frequency which depends
on the use of collected data. These sample frequencies order of magnitude are usually set at a few
Hertz and the average hourly wind speeds are calculated through measures with ten minutes interval
between each one of them.
Sonic anemometers (figure 3.6) give simultaneously information about speed and wind direction
and are also used to get turbulence data. However these type of wind devices are more expensive.
Since the sample frequencies are higher (about 50 Hz), storage systems achieve rapidly it’s total ca-
pacity, so data can’t be recorded in a continuous way. Data collected by measurement instruments is
send to a data acquisition system know as datalogger and locally stored or remotely transferred by
phone line.
The control algorithm proposed for this project requires information about wind’s direction, as it will
be explained in the following sections.

3.4 Prandtl’s Law

Friction between the earth surface and wind causes wind’s delay. Air lower layers delay the above
ones, so the average wind’s speed varies with the height to the ground. Friction force effect tends to
disappear with the height to the ground. At an height of 2000 meters this effect is practically null.
At the soil level, the boundary condition imposes a null flow rate. Since wind’s speed varies with

18
 Figure 3.6: Sonic anemometer ([21]) and acquisition system ([6]).

height, this atmosphere region is known as the limit atmosphere layer. Above this region the atmo-
sphere is free.
The limit atmosphere layer region extends until an hight of 100 meters approximately, known as
logarithmic layer, being the preferable region for wind turbines. Despite soil topography and roughness
affect wind’s speed profiles, it is possible the proper representation through Prandtl’s logarithmic law:

u∗ z
ū(z) = ln( ) (3.4)
k z0
where ū(z) is the average wind’s speed measured at an hight z, u∗ is the friction speed, k is the Von
Karman constant (k = 0.4) and z0 represents the typical value of roughness length of the soil.
The friction speed, u∗ , that varies with soil roughness, wind’s speed and with atmosphere forces, is
difficult to obtain. The use of the following simplified expression resulting from extrapolation of 3.4 is
usual:

ū(z) ln( zz0 )

= (3.5)
ū(zR ) ln( zzR0 )

where ū(zR ) is the average wind’s speed at the reference high zR . Table 3.1 shows typical values for
roughness lengths of soils, z0 .

Table 3.1: Typical values of z0 (from source [6]).

Type of soil z0 [m] Min. z0 [m] Max.
Mud / Ice 10− 5 3 × 10− 5
−
Calm sea 2 × 10 4 3 × 10− 4
−
Sand 2 × 10 4 10− 3
−
Snow 10 3 6 × 10− 3
−
Grain field 10 3 10− 2
−
Low grass 10 2 4 × 10− 2
−
High grass 4 × 10 2 10− 1
−
Field with trees 10 1 3 × 10− 1
−
Forest 10 1 1
Suburbs 1 2
Center of the city 1 4

19
 The roughness length of a certain place may vary with wind’s direction and also with winter and
summer months. This must be taken into account when analyzing the characteristics of a location.

20
Chapter 4

Girassol-E

The system proposed in this document aims at launching a patentable advance in the renewable
energies field. The Girassol-E device combines the efficient and rentable extraction of energy from two
resources: sun and wind. Apparently the extraction of energy from these two resources in one single
device is incompatible, however this system goal is to ensure the continuous extraction of energy even
when one of the resources is not available. The system proposed relies on scientific studies performed
on photovoltaic and eolic energies. This mechanism main objective is the improvement of an already
existent technology - the photovoltaic panels, that appear with a 10-15% performance in what concerns
the solar energy conversion into electric energy. Besides, it also appears as an expensive technology
demanding an huge investment in the beginning, when facing its modest performance. There are
already in the market some self-oriented mechanisms that improve the capture of sun radiation, but
also more expensive. The analysis of these equipments was omitted from this report since there are
not much data available for its detailed study.
Looking to add some contribution to the photovoltaic technology, Girassol-E appears as a new
concept in renewable sources extracting systems.

4.1 System constitution and description

Since the main concept of Girassol-E is the photovoltaic technology improvement, this system
includes a rotation mechanism in which the photovoltaic panels are mounted, allowing the extraction
of power from both sun and wind resources. The version of Girassol-E (see figure 4.1) studied in
this document includes 8 photovoltaic panels of 175 Wp (providing a total of 1400 W of total power
installed), each aerodynamically conceived and mounted in a structure that allows the rotational motion
of the system. This structure includes also a control mechanism managing the whole decision system.
This decision system comprises two modes: the solar mode and the wind mode, depending on the
moment of the day. The decision of the system is based on the rotor orientation in the moment. The
switch between modes is performed looking to extract power from the most powerful resource present
at the current moment of the day. The inclusion of a rotational system has another advantage since it
allows panels to cool down during the rotational motion. This contributes to the best operation of the
photovoltaic system when capturing power from sun radiation.
Figure 4.1 illustrates Girassol-E, where:

21
 Figure 4.1: Girassol-E main components.

A: Continuous actuator motor for the horizontal axis (azimuth angle);

B: Electromagnetic magnet;

C: Discrete actuator motor for the blades pitch angle;

D: Continuous actuator motor for the vertical axis (elevation angle);

E: Nacelle, housing wind turbine’s equipments as will be explained in section 4.4.2;

F: Photovoltaic panel incorporated in the blade;

G: Free blade attached to the photovoltaic panel.

Besides the photovoltaic panels mounted on the rotational system (rotor), Girassol-E includes also
other devices:

Variable speed generator operated by a servomotor: responsible for the conversion of mechanic
power into electric power. An integrated servomotor ensures the continuous variable speed of
the generator allowing the eolic mode start-up and the establishment on the generator’s nominal
speed.

Two continuous actuator motors: one is used for the vertical axis, allowing the elevation orientation
and the other is used for the horizontal axis control in order to guarantee the azimuth orientation.

One discrete actuator motor: this motor controls the blades pitch according to the decision on the
best of two positions (eolic or solar pitch).

22
Eight free blades attached to the photovoltaic panels: when the system is oriented to the sun (so-
lar mode), these blades are released and allow the rotational motion from whatever is the wind’s
direction. The system’s revolution in this mode can be assimilated to the vertical axis wind tur-
bines motion.

Electromagnetic magnet: the purpose of this piece is to attach the free blades to the photovoltaic
panels in the eolic mode and release them in the solar mode so the lateral wind may be used to
cool-down the photovoltaic panels while the system revolves.

Wind’s direction sensor: gives information about the wind’s direction.

Small photovoltaic module: small device used as a sensor, indicating the presence of solar radiation.
The system proposed does not use a tracking solar sensor, however the control algorithm needs
this device to provide information to switch from eolic to solar mode.

Data acquisition system: used to storage the information collected by the measurement instruments.

Maximum Power Point Tracker device (MPPT): used to adapt the voltage applied to the load in order
to achieve the maximum sun’s power available at every instant.

Depending on the application, grid-connected or isolated systems, Girassol-E also requires more
power electronic circuits such as inverters and batteries. However this report concerns only with track-
ing methods for MPPT inverter and to the orientation algorithm for the system’s blades.
The system proposed doesn’t require a solar tracking sensor giving information about sun’s position
or the radiation available. Girassol-E is itself a solar radiation tracker, since it tracks a few positions, in
elevation and azimuth, and finds the best orientation measuring only the power produced at each step
of the algorithm. The only sensor required to Girassol-E is the wind’s direction sensor. This sensor
allows the system orientation to the wind when the radiation level available is no longer powerful enough
to produce energy.

4.2 Photovoltaic Panel Model

The direct conversion of solar electric power is obtained by solar cells. Figure 4.2 shows the
equivalent circuit of a photovoltaic module.

Figure 4.2: Photovoltaic module equivalent circuit connected to a load through MPPT (extracted from
[8]).

Here,

23
Is : Photocurrent [A]

Id : Unidireccional current [A]

Rs : Series resistance [Ω]

Rp : Parallel resistance [Ω]

V : Output voltage applied to the load [V ]

I: Output current produced by the photovoltaic panel [A]

Z: Load applied to the photovoltaic panel [Ω].

For the sake of simplicity, and since low values of Rs and Rp do not change much the shape of the
characteristic, the losses in these resistances are neglected hereafter.
The current source represents the photocurrent which is produced due to the radiation incidence.
This current produced is constant for a certain value of radiation.
The diode represents the p-n junction of a photovoltaic cell 1 which is crossed by the unidireccional
Id internal current depending on the voltage V applied.
The current Id is given by [7]:
· µ ¶ ¸
V
Id = I0 exp − 1 [A] (4.1)
m VT
Where,

I0 : Cell reverse saturation current [A]

m: Ideality factor
KT 2
VT : Defined as thermal voltage (VT = q )

K: Boltzman constant (K = 1.38 × 10−23 J/◦ K)

T : Absolute cell temperature [K] (0◦ C = 273.16◦ K)
q: Electron charge (q = 1.6 × 10−19 C).

The output current, I, produced by the photovoltaic cell is then calculated through:
· µ ¶ ¸
V
I = Isc − I0 exp − 1 [A] (4.2)
m VT
Where the Isc parameter represents the short circuit current in Amperes. The short circuit current
is the maximum current supported by the load Z and it equals the current produced through the pho-
r
tovoltaic effect, Is . This value, Isc is provided by the producer for certain conditions of radiation and
temperature (reference conditions). Equation 4.3 shows the dependence of short circuit current with
the incident radiation on the panel:

r G
Isc = Isc [A] (4.3)
Gr
On the other hand, the cell reverse saturation current I0 depends mainly on the temperature (equa-
tion 4.4:
1 The p-n junction is required to create an electric field between the two cell regions. This region results from the junction of

two layers: p and n. Boron is normally used as the p material and phosphorus is the material used to create the n region.
2 For t = 25◦ C, T = 298.15◦ K, the thermal voltage comes as V = 25.7 mV
T

24
 µ ¶ · µ ¶¸
T ε 1 1
I0 = I0r exp − [A] (4.4)
Tr m0 VTr VT
Where m0 is the ideality equivalent factor (m0 = m n ), n is the number of the series connected cells
and ε is the silicon band gap (ε = 1, 12 eV).
Another important feature is the open circuit voltage, Voc , which is the maximum voltage value
that can be set at the photovoltaic panel output and is achieved when no load is connected to the
module. This value is also a cell characteristic given by the photovoltaic panel producer under specific
atmospheric conditions. Open circuit voltage is given by:
µ ¶
Is
Voc = m VT ln 1 + [V ] (4.5)
I0
Since Girassol-E has 175 Wp photovoltaic panels capacity, the photovoltaic module considered for
this study has Pnom = 175W p and n = 50 series connected polycrystalline cells. Annexes sect includes
section includes more information about the photovoltaic panels catalog used to perform this study.
Besides atmospheric conditions and panel characteristics, the power delivered to a load Z depends
on the voltage applied to the load connected to the photovoltaic module. Since the output current
(see 4.2) depends on atmospheric conditions (temperature and radiation), the power/voltage (P(V))
characteristic of a photovoltaic cell is non-linear and time varying due to changing weather conditions.
For given values of voltage V, the P(V) characteristic equation is obtained by:

P = V I [W ] (4.6)

where, in turn, I and V are related through 4.2.

In order to study the algorithm performance and achieve some simulation results, it’s necessary to
compute the following calculus sequence:

Constant parameters: determine the module ideality factor, which doesn’t depends on temperature
and radiation;

r r
Vmax − Voc
m= ³ r
´ (4.7)
I
VT ln 1 − max
I r
sc

r r
where, Vmax and Voc are catalog values for given atmospheric conditions.

Radiation dependent parameters: determine the short circuit current Isc through equation 4.3.

Temperature dependent parameters: compute the module reverse saturation, I0 current through
equation 4.4.

Current as a voltage function: write the output current equation, 4.2;

Maximum Power: determine the maximum power through 4.6, where Pmax = max{V I}.

Figures 4.3, 4.4, 4.5 and 4.6 illustrate the influence of temperature and radiation in one of the
photovoltaic panels used in Girassol-E simulations.
Remark that this model is only used for testing the optimization algorithms. The algorithms used
aren’t model dependents.

25
 800W/m2
7
t=10ºC
t=20ºC
6 t=25ºC
t=35ºC

5
Current (A)

5 10 15 20 25 30
Voltage (V)

Figure 4.3: Temperature effects on I(V) curves for a 800 W/m2 radiation and different temperatures.
(From source [8])

25ºC
8
G=600 W/m2
G=750W/m2
7 G=800W/m2
G=950W/m2
6

5
Current (A)

5 10 15 20 25 30
Voltage (V)

Figure 4.4: Radiation level effect on I(V) curves for a 25◦ C temperature and different values of solar
radiation. (From source [8])

26
 800W/m2

140
10ºC

120 20ºC

25ºC
100
35ºC
Current (A)

80

60

40

20

0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Voltage (V)

Figure 4.5: Temperature effect on P(V) curves for a 800 W/m2 constant radiation and different temper-
atures. (From source [8])

180
1000 W/m2
160
900 W/m2
140
800 W/m2
2
120 700 W/m
Power (W)

100
500 W/m2
80

60
300 W/m2

40

100 W/m2
20

5 10 15 20 25 30
Voltage (V)

Figure 4.6: Radiation level effects on P(V) curves for a 25◦ C constant temperature and different values
of solar radiation. (From source [8])

27
4.2.1 MPPT - The Adaptive Optimization Algorithm

In order to achieve the maximum power, in P(V) curve, photovoltaic systems require a Maximum
Power Point Tracker (MPPT) device. MPPT aims at operating the solar array near that point at every
time instant. There are several algorithms that implement this functionality. Ahead an algorithm based
on adaptive optimization is described to implement this functionality.
The adaptive optimization algorithm stands by observing that [11], close to V ∗ , the P (V ) curve can
be approximated by a parabola P (t):

P (t) = P ∗ + a(V (t) − V ∗ )2 + ē(t) (4.8)

where a and V ∗ are parameters to estimate from the observed data and ē is a residue that accounts
for the fact that the characteristic curve P(V) is not exactly a parabola.
The algorithm progresses as follows:
Given an estimate obtained by RLS of the optimum voltage V ∗ , a parabola is fitted to data. From
the basis of this new parabola, a new estimate of V ∗ is obtained and the process is repeated. In order
to explain how to implement this procedure, let V1 and V2 be two different values of tension, with the
corresponding values of the power being P1 and P2 , respectively.
Define the increments:

4 4
∆P = P1 − P2 , ∆V = V1 − V2 (4.9)

4
∆V 2 = V12 − V22 (4.10)

with these definitions, it follows that 4.8 yields for ē(t) = 0:

∆P = a∆V 2 − 2V ∗ a∆V (4.11)

Defining:

4 4
θ1∗ = −2V ∗ a, θ2∗ = a, (4.12)

the vector of parameters to estimate

4
θ∗ = [θ1∗ θ2∗ ]T (4.13)

and the regression vector

4
ϕ = [∆V ∆V 2 ]T (4.14)

equation 4.12 may be written as

∆P = θ∗T ϕ (4.15)

which is a linear regression model. The estimates θ̂ of θ∗ can be propagated in time using the recursive
least squares (RLS) estimation algorithm and, from them, the value of the voltage V ∗ maximizing the
power is estimated by:

28
 θˆ1
V̂ ∗ = (4.16)
2θˆ2
The algorithm reads as follows:
Let t be an integer index that indicates the iteration marker. This array is taken as discrete time
when samples of V and P are considered sequentially. Make t = 1 and perform recursively the following
steps:
1. Apply V (t) to the system and measure P (t), which is computed through 4.2 and 4.6 for
simulation results:
2. Compute:
∆P (t) = P (t) − P (t − 1) (4.17)

∆V (t) = V (t) − V (t − 1) (4.18)

∆V 2 (t) = V 2 (t) − V 2 (t − 1) (4.19)

and define:
ϕ(t) = [∆V (t)∆V 2 (t)]T (4.20)

3. Adjust the parameters of the new approximating parabola using the RLS formulas:

Σ(t − 1)ϕ(t − 1)
K 0 (t) = (4.21)
λ + ϕ0 (t − 1)Σ(t − 1)ϕ(t − 1)
[I − K(t)ϕ0 (t − 1)]Σ(t − 1)
Σ(t) = (4.22)
λ
where Σ is the covariance matrix, K 0 represents the Kalman gain and λ is the forgetting factor.
4.The coefficients θ, are estimates of the optimum parabola parameters θ∗ . The updated θˆ1 and
θˆ2 are given by:

" # " # ½ " #

θ̂1 (t) θ̂1 (t − 1) h i ∆V (t − 1) ¾
= + K(t) ∆P (t) − θ̂1 (t − 1) θ̂2 (t − 1) (4.23)
θ̂2 (t) θ̂2 (t − 1) ∆V 2 (t − 1)

5.The estimation of the maximum point is updated by:

θˆ1 (t)
V (t + 1) = − + η(t) (4.24)
2θˆ2 (t)

where θˆ1 and θˆ2 are the current estimates of θ1∗ and θ2∗ and η(t) is a dither noise injected in order to
improve parameter identifiability.
6. Set t + 1 → t and repeat the algorithm from the beginning.
To run the algorithm it is first required to initialize several parameters: the estimates, θˆ1 and θˆ2 ;
the covariance matrix Σ; the initial estimate voltage V that leads to the maximum power, the forgetting
factor, λ and the dither power. The choice of these parameters determine the performance of the
algorithm in what concerns the precision to tune at the optimum voltage and the ability to track slowly
time varying systems. Section 5.1 shows this algorithm performance.

29
4.3 Wind Turbine Model

The maximum mechanic power of a wind turbine depends on the cube of the air flux that crosses it.
So the wind’s power extraction experience lots of variations due to constant changes of wind’s speed
and direction. However the inertia associated to wind turbines attenuates wind’s unstable behavior, but
also makes turbine’s shaft speed be less affected by air flux changes.

4.3.1 Wind turbine components

Figure 4.7 shows a schematic with the main components of a typical wind turbine.

Figure 4.7: Wind generator scheme. (Adapted from [22]).

Rotor

As already said in section 4.1, the rotor of Girassol-E has 8 blades each one of them with a
photovoltaic panel incorporated. The design of wind turbines blades are the most complex and they’ve
been inspired on airplanes wings technology. In order to control the system nominal power (or in other
words ensure that the generator doesn’t exceed it’s nominal power) one may choose between two
project options:

Stall control: blades are conceived in such a way that when wind’s speed equals a certain value, the
rotor comes into aerodynamic loss.

Pitch control: another way to control the power is by varying the angle that revolves the longitudi-
nal blade axis (which is known as β angle). With this control, rotor’s blades come into a more
controlled aerodynamic loss and steady power region control is more efficient.

When facing wind’s direction, wind systems have two options:

Upwind option: wind crosses the blades through the front side. This is the most frequently adopted
solution since incident wind is less affected by the tower.

30
Downwind option: wind crosses the blades through the backside, allowing the turbine’s self-alignment
with wind’s direction. This solution has been abandoned because wind’s flow is disturbed by the
tower before achieve the rotor.

Nacelle

Nacelle is the engine house structure and incorporates other equipments such as the main shaft,
the brake disk, the gear box transmission and the generator.

Main Shaft

The main shaft with low rotation motion transfers the rotor’s torque to the gear-box transmission.

Gear-box Transmission

The gear-box transmission is required to adapt rotor’s angular speed to the generator’s speed,
characterized by a factor Gb . The relation between rotor (ωt ) and generator (ωm ) angular speeds is
given by:

ωm
ωt = [rad/s] (4.25)
Gb
The relation between turbine’s torque (Tt ) and machine’s torque (Te ) is also related to the gear-box
transmission:

Te
Tt = (4.26)
Gb

Generator

The generator converts mechanic energy available in the main shaft in electrical energy.

4.3.2 Aerodynamics

Power extracted from the wind

Extracting wind energy requires a permanent and relatively strong wind flux. Modern turbines are
projected to achieve the maximum power when wind’s speed equals a certain value in a range of 10
to 15 m/s. The project of this turbine predicts that this condition is set at a 12 m/s wind’s speed. The
energy available for a wind turbine is the kinetic energy associated to a air cylinder with mass m that
moves at a constant and uniform speed u (m/s) [6]:

1
Ek = m u2 [W ] (4.27)
2
31
 In time’s unit, this air cylinder crosses the area region described by rotor’s motion, A (m2 ), moves
a mass ρ A u (Kg/s), where ρ is the density of the air (ρair = 1.225 Kg/m3 ), in normal temperature and
pressure conditions.
The available wind’s power is then proportional to the cube of wind’s speed:

1
Pwind = ρ A u3 [W ] (4.28)
2
As one can see from expression 4.28 the power available is strongly dependent on wind’s speed.

Power coefficient - Cp

Expression ( 4.28) indicates the maximum power available in wind. Nevertheless, this hole power
isn’t converted into mechanic power in the main shaft, once after crossing the rotor, the air must come
out with speed. Mechanic fluids demonstrate the existence of a maximum theoretical value for the
wind-mechanic conversion efficiency. In literature this limit is known as Betz Limit [6] and it’s value is
59.3%.
The effective efficiency of wind-mechanic conversion depends on wind’s speed and it’s given by:

Pe
Cp = (4.29)
Pwind

Blade acting forces

Every rotor’s blade have a certain shape that determines the amount of energy that is extracted
from each wind’s speed. Figure 4.8 shows the airfoil forces system

Figure 4.8: Airfoil forces system. (From source [6])

Where,

32
 • W is the wind’s speed relative vector that acts in the blade and results from two components: the
wind’s speed Up and blade’s tangential speed Ut ;

• α is the angle of attack, defined as the angle formed between the chord line (straight line con-
necting the leading and trailing edges of the airfoil, at the ends of the mean camber line) and
relative speed of the wind W ;

• β is the angle between the rotational motion described by the blade and the chord line;

• f is the flow angle, given by f = α + β

• F represents the vector of force and results in two components:

– the drag force D which acts in same direction of wind’s relative speed;
– the lift force L that is perpendicular to wind’s relative speed.

In fluid dynamics, drag is the force that resists the movement of a solid object through a fluid (a
liquid or gas).
The overall drag of an object is characterized by a dimensionless factor called the drag coefficient.
Assuming a constant drag coefficient, drag force will vary as the square of velocity:

1 2
D= ρ u Cd A [N ] (4.30)
2
where,

• ρ is the density of the air (ρair = 1.225 Kg/m3 );

• u is the wind’s speed;

• Cd is the drag coefficient (Cd = 0.2);

• A is the reference area.

The reference area A is related to the area of the projection of the object on a plane perpendicular
to the direction of motion (cross sectional area).
The resultant power needed to overcome this drag will vary as the cube of velocity:

1 3
Pd = D u = ρ u Cd A [W ] (4.31)
2
In order to guarantee that the system is animated with constant angular speed, the drag force must
equal the lift force.
Aiming to predict the power produced by each blade, a free software (FoilSim) capable of investigate
how each blade produces lift by changing the values of different factors that affect lift was used ( [13],
[14]).
FoilSim was developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center and is an interactive simulation soft-
ware that determines the airflow around various shapes of airfoils. The user is allowed to change the
position and shape of the wing by entering the inputs of airspeed, altitude, angle of attack, thickness
and curvature of the airfoil, and size of the wing area. The software displays plots of pressure or air-
speed above and below the airfoil surface. A probe monitors air conditions (speed and pressure) at a
particular point on or close to the surface of the airfoil. The software calculates the lift of the airfoils.
The version of FoilSim II (Version 1.5a) allows also simulations in stall model for the airfoil.
The input characteristics of the airfoil shape are described in annex section.
33
 Power/wind’s speed characteristic is obtained when introducing several values of wind’s speed as
input, in FoilSim which produces the corresponding output lift force. From this value blade’s tangential
speed is calculated through expression ( 4.30), and applying equation ( 4.31) the power produced by
each blade is obtained, Pblade (in W). The total power produced by the system formed with 8 blades is
then given by:

Ptotal = 8 Pblade (4.32)

Several simulations were performed in Stall Model and for the Wind Mode of Girassol-E, the pitch
angle (β) that optimizes the wind-mechanic power conversion is equal to 12.25◦ .

Figure 4.9: Power/Wind’s speed characteristic for β = 12.25◦ .

When Girassol-E is oriented to the sun, Solar Mode, the free blades attached to the photovoltaic
blades are released and the system is able to take wind advantage to refresh the photovoltaic panels
and produce a residual power, according to the following characteristic.
In this mode the power extracted from the wind results on the effort made by one free blade, Pblade ,
at each time because the force is tangential to the rotational motion. So this is equivalent to a single
blade effort, when converting wind’s power into mechanic.

4.4 System operation

Girassol-E is a sensorless solar tracker in Solar Mode during daylight periods and when the power
available in the wind is superior than the power available in the sun, in nebulous days or during night
periods, the system switches its operation mode to Wind Mode. At each moment of the day the system
evaluates current atmospheric conditions and, if the level of radiation is less than 100 W/m2 , the system
adjusts the blades pitch and orients itself to the wind.
When the system is in Solar Mode, the radiation available is converted into photovoltaic power
by the whole set of panels. If radiation level decreases the barrier of 100 W/m2 the decision system
switches to Wind Mode. Similarly, when the system is in Wind Mode, the switching occurs when the
34
 Figure 4.10: Power/Wind’s speed characteristic for β = 90◦ .

level of sun’s radiation is superior to 100 W/m2 . Since the system is not sun oriented, it is not possible to
measure the power that would be produced if the system was in Solar Mode. So the system needs the
inclusion of a small photovoltaic module indicating light presence. For example, since sun’s radiation
is absent, during the night let the system be in Wind Mode. When the sun rises the small photovoltaic
module starts to indicate the presence of sun’s radiation. When the power achieved by this small
photovoltaic module equals a certain value of power corresponding to 100 W/m2 , the system switches
to Solar Mode.
A simple illustration in figure 4.11 shows how the system operates and which modes can be chosen.

4.4.1 Solar Mode

When Girassol-E is in Solar Mode the blades are oriented to the sun with the pitch angle set at 90◦
and the system behaves like a solar tracker (figure 4.12). Most solar trackers use sensors indicating the
sun’s position which makes the product more expensive. However it is possible to follow sun’s motion
during the day without making use of sun sensors. In this project, the system itself is the solar sensor
since it converts the power available in the sun and decides at each algorithm step a new position in
elevation, E, and azimuth, A angles.
Power produced depends on the angle formed between the surface and the incidence angle of
sun’s radiation:

G0 = G cos(θ) (4.33)

where, G is the total sun’s radiation available and G0 is the radiation incident on the set of photovoltaic
panels surface that is affected by the incident angle θ (described in 2nd chapter, section 2.2.2). In 2.9
is shown the radiation incidence angle’s dependence on surface’s azimuth, A, and elevation E angles.
So, depending on Girassol-E’s azimuth and elevation angles the power produced varies: P =
f (E, A). The peak of power is achieved when the system is oriented to the sun.

35
 Figure 4.11: Girassol-E decision scheme.

Since the system aims at finding the best orientation in order to maximize the power produced at
every instant, it is required to implement an algorithm that perform the optimization. The Gradient’s
Algorithm was applied to the system to solve the unconstrained problem:

max P (E, A) (4.34)

where P is the power produced by the set of photovoltaic panels depending on Girassol-E orientation
angles E and A.

Solar Tracker - The Optimization Algorithm

Wolfe’s rule

In unconstrained optimization, the Wolfe conditions ( [15]) are a set of inequalities for performing
inexact line search. Inexact line searches provide an efficient way of computing an acceptable step
length α that reduces the cost sufficiently, rather than minimizing the cost over α ∈ R exactly.
Consider the optimization problem:

min φ(α) (4.35)

α>0

where φ : R → R is a smooth function. Assume that φ̇(α) < 0 (which means that φ is strictly decreasing
at the origin) and that φ is bounded below (there exists m such that φ(α) > m for all α > 0). This
problem appears as a subproblem in unconstrained optimization algorithms. So, the goal is to minimize
the objective function f : R2 → R. As shown in figure 4.13 the objective function is non-convex. Since

36
Figure 4.12: Girassol-E - Solar Mode (A: Girassol-E azimuth angle; E: Girassol-E elevation angle; α:
Sun altitude; Ψ: Sun azimuth.

this optimization is formulated for convex functions, the maximization problem was reformulated into a
minimization problem where f is the objective function that is the symmetric of P (P = f (E, A)). At
iteration k, the function φ is given by:

φ(α) = f (xk + αdk ) (4.36)

where xk ∈ R2 represents Girassol-E current orientation in elevation and azimuth iteration angles(xk =
[Ek ; Ak ]) and dk ∈ R2 is the descent direction at xk (dk = [dE A T
k ; dk ]): 5f (xk ) dk < 0. Note that:

φ̇(α) = 5f (xk + αdk )T dk (4.37)

for all α.
Since the primary function to minimize is f and not φ, it is not important to exactly solve the problem
(4.35). It is sufficient to solve it approximately, which means that it is sufficient to find in R+ = [0, +∞]
a point α which is acceptable in a certain sense. To solve this problem it is considered Wolfe’s rule.
Wolfe’s rule establishes a partition of R+ in 3 disjoint subsets: A, D and E. These three subsets
have the following meaning: A is the set of acceptable points (near a local minimizer of φ), D is the set
of points too large and E is the set of points too small (note: this terminology does not mean necessarily
that, for example, all points in D are greater that the points in A) (see figure 4.14). More precisely,
Wolfe’s rule defines:

A = {α > 0 : φ(α) 6 φ(0) + c1 φ̇(0) and φ̇(α) > c2 φ̇(0)}

D = {α > 0 : φ(α) > φ(0) + c1 φ̇(0)α} (4.38)

37
Figure 4.13: Power produced by the set of photovoltaic panels as function of Girassol-E orientation
(elevation, E, and azimuth, A) for certain atmospheric conditions.

E = {α > 0 : φ(α) 6 φ(0) + c1 φ̇(0)α and φ̇(α) < c2 φ̇(0)}

where 0 < c1 < c2 < 1 are constants. Typical values: c1 = 10−4 and c2 = 0.99.
To construct an acceptable point the algorithm reads as follows:
Let k be an integer index that indicates the iteration marker and the internal variables e and d define
an interval ]e, d[ which can be shown to contain an open interval of acceptable points.
Initialization:
1. Choose α0 > 0 and 0 < c1 < c2 < 1, the algorithm consecutively test points until it finds an
acceptable one;
2. Initialize variables: e = 0, d = +∞ and k = 0;
Loop:
3. Test αk :

• if αk ∈ A: stop;

• if αk ∈ D: d = αk ;

• if αk ∈ E: e = αk .

4. Test dk :

• if d = +∞: choose αk+1 > αk , where is assumed that αk+1 = η αk (η is a constant: η > 1);
e+d
• if d < +∞: choose αk+1 ∈]e, d, [, where is assumed that αk+1 = 2 .

Each change in d, results in decreasing d and each change in e, results in increasing e. So, each
change in e or d squeezes the interval ]e, d[.
4. k ← k + 1 and return to loop.
38
 Figure 4.14: Wolfe’s rule: construction of an acceptable point.

Gradient’s Algorithm

To find a local minimum of a function using gradient descent, one takes steps proportional to the
negative of the gradient (or the approximate gradient) of the function at the current point. Gradient
descent is also known as steepest descent, or method of steepest descent ( [15]). Consider the
unconstrained minimization problem:

min f (x) (4.39)

x∈R2

Let k be an integer index that indicates the iteration marker and assume that f is smooth and
bounded below and consider the line search algorithm described below:
Initialization:
1. Choose x0 ∈ R2 and tolerance e > 0.
2. Initialize k = 0.
Loop:
3. Compute gk = ∇f (xk ).
4. If kgk k < e: stop
5. Determine search direction dk = −gk .
6. Search along dk using wolfe’s rule to obtain xk+1 .
7. k ← k and return to loop.
Remark that these algorithms are not model dependent. The model is only used for testing the
optimization algorithm. The value of function f is obtained directly from the photovoltaic system at
each step. The value of ∇f (xk ) is obtained through:

f (xk + h) − f (xk − h)
∇f (xk ) = (4.40)
2h
where h is a constant such that h → 0.
Each step of the Gradient’s Algorithm corresponds to a new position for the Girassol-E and based
on the power produced, the system finds the optimal position that maximizes the extraction of power

39
from the sun.
Despite of being optimized for the sun’s position, the system is able to extract power from the wind
according to expression in figure 4.10 depending on wind speed and due to free blades:

Pwind = 1.9853 u3 − 1.5099 × 10−4 u2 − 1.7695 × 10−3 u + 2.4177 × 10−3 (4.41)

4.4.2 Wind mode

Girassol-E switches from Solar to Wind Mode when the power available in the sun is lower than
the power available in the wind at the moment. The system evaluates the power available in the wind
converting the wind’s speed given by the anemometer into power through the expression given by the
curve fitted in figure 4.9:

Pwind = 52.209 u3 − 1.9429 u2 − 5.3909 u + 4.1975 (4.42)

At a given instant, if power extracted from the wind is higher than the power produced by the
photovoltaic panels, then the system switches it’s operation mode: free blades are collected, the blades
pitch is adjusted to 12.25◦ , the elevation angle is set at 90◦ and azimuth angle is adjusted according to
wind’s direction (given by the direction sensor).

Figure 4.15: Girassol-E - Wind Mode.

40
Chapter 5

Simulation Results

This chapter presents some results obtained in several simulations in order to illustrate the per-
formance of the optimization algorithms used in this project. Section 5.1 refers to the Adaptive Op-
timization Algorithm explained in 4.2.1. Section 5.2 depicts the results obtained when simulating the
algorithm explained in 4.4.1.

5.1 MPPT - The Adaptive Optimization Algorithm Performance

This section, shows a number of simulation examples in order to illustrate the effect of the choice
of different values of algorithm parameters in the convergence and tracking capacity of the algorithm
presented for MPPT.
Figure 5.1 shows the trace of Σ and the estimate of optimal voltage, for a reference case and
assuming constant atmospheric conditions (solar radiation equal to 1000 W/m2 and temperature equal
◦
hto 25 iC). The initial estimates of voltage and parabola coefficients are respectively : V0 = 10 V and
θˆ1 θˆ2 = [8 − 1]. A forgetting factor λ set at 0.92 is used and the dither noise, standard deviation (SD),
is set to 0.2 during 80% of total time. In all the examples, the initial value of the covariance matrix is
taken as Σ(1) = 1000 I with I the identity matrix.

Figure 5.1: Reference case: Trace of the covariance matrix and the voltage being optimized (λ = 0.92,
SD = 0.2 during 80% of time).

41
 Figure 5.2 illustrates the algorithm behavior when iterating towards the optimum voltage value V ∗ for
the reference case. Starting with the initial estimate of optimal voltage V ∗ equal to 10 V, the algorithm
approximates data locally as a parabola, estimates the coefficients of the parabola by Recursive Least
Squares algorithm (RLS) and compute a new optimum at each iteration step.

Figure 5.2: Reference case: Determining the optimal voltage V ∗.

The examples ahead are related and compared to this reference case. Note that the dotted line in
each example shows the optimum value of the voltage (unknown to the algorithm). Different parameter
choices are compared on the basis of the algorithm ability to estimate the optimum voltage.

42
5.1.1 Example 1 - Effect of the forgetting factor

Comparing the reference case illustrated in figure 5.1 with the situation presented in figure 5.3,
where the forgetting factor is altered from 0.92 to 0.5, it is apparent that, in this last case, Vˆ∗ tends to
exhibit faster convergence but it also exhibits more fluctuations around V ∗.

Figure 5.3: Example 1: Trace of the covariance matrix and the voltage being optimized.

5.1.2 Example 2 - Effect of dither

This example (figure 5.4) shows that the increasing of noise injected allows the adjustment of algo-
rithm convergence but also causes more fluctuations around the optimum value V ∗, when compared
with the reference case in figure 5.1.

Figure 5.4: Example 2: Trace of the covariance matrix and the voltage being optimized.

43
5.1.3 Example 3 - Attraction basin

In this example is studied how the initial voltage affects the convergence, by lowering V0 from 10
V to 9 V. Figure 5.5 depicts this situation: the picture at left shows the standard deviation adjustment
when λ = 0.92, the picture at right shows the forgetting factor adjustment when SD = 0.2.
Enlarging the attraction basin requires a combination of dither power and forgetting factor values to
guarantee the algorithm convergence towards the optimum.

Figure 5.5: Example 3: The voltage being optimized - standard deviation, SD, adjustment: λ = 0.92
and forgetting factor, λ adjustment: SD = 0.2.

5.1.4 Example 4 - Algorithm adaptation when facing sudden atmospheric changes

Figure 5.6 shows the algorithm behavior facing a typical situation of clouds appearance: supposing
that the radiation decreases from 1000 W/m2 to 100 W/m2 and the temperature falls from 35o C to
30o C at t=500. Initially, the estimates converge to a value close to the optimum when the optimum
changes at t = 500, the algorithm returns to a value close to the new optimum.

Figure 5.6: Example 4: The voltage being optimized facing a sudden climate change.

44
5.2 Solar Tracker - The Optimization Algorithm Performance

The following examples illustrate the Gradient’s algorithm behavior when searching the optimum
orientation of Girassol-E to extract the maximum power available from the sun (Solar Mode).

5.2.1 Example 1 - Algorithm performance for a high level of radiation

This example shows the algorithm search towards the optimum for a high level of radiation, G=1000
W/m2 , and 25◦ C of temperature during a Spring day (April 10th) at 3 PM. According to formulas in
chapter 2 the sun’s altitude (α) is 38.66◦ and the sun azimuth (Ψ) is 243.98◦ .
Figure 5.7 shows the power curve for the input conditions described ahead and the several iteration
steps towards the optimum. Then, figure 5.8 details how the algorithm behaves when searching the
optimum orientation by showing its progression on the level curves of the sun radiation. The starting
point for the search was set at 45◦ in elevation 180◦ in azimuth and as one can see the algorithm
converges to the optimum in few iterations.

Figure 5.7: Example 1 - Power surface as function of elevation and azimuth angles (algorithm search
for the position that maximizes power extracted from the sun).

45
Figure 5.8: Example 1 - Level curves of solar radiation power (algorithm search for the position that
maximizes the power extracted from the sun).

46
5.2.2 Example 2 - Algorithm performance for a medium level of radiation

This example shows the algorithm search towards the optimum for a medium level of radiation,
G=519 W/m2 , and 22.9◦ C of temperature during a Summer day (August 8th) at 10 AM. According to
formulas in chapter 2 the sun’s altitude (α) is 55.04◦ and the sun azimuth (Ψ) is 122.85◦ .
Figure 5.9 shows the power curve for the input conditions described ahead and the several iteration
steps towards the optimum. Then, figure 5.10 shows better how the algorithm behaves when searching
the optimum orientation. The starting point for the search was set at 45◦ in elevation 180◦ in azimuth
and as one can see the algorithm still converges to the optimum in few iterations.

Figure 5.9: Example 2 - Power surface as function of elevation and azimuth angles (algorithm search
for the position that maximizes power extracted from the sun).

47
Figure 5.10: Example 2 - Level curves (algorithm search for the position that maximizes power ex-
tracted from the sun).

48
5.3 One day operation

The simulations carried out in this section required real atmospheric data such as temperature,
level of radiation, wind’s speed and direction for a certain location. Data from source [18] was used to
accomplish this purpose.
Figure 5.11 shows levels of radiation and temperature. Figure 5.12 contain the observed data
relative to wind’s speed and direction. These records were registered during a summer day and were
applied to the system as input values to perform the simulations in this chapter. The samples were
obtained with a 10 minutes interval between each one of them. So, in these simulations, the orientation
algorithm searches for a new position in elevation and azimuth at every 10 minutes period.

Figure 5.11: Record of sun radiation and temperature levels of during the 24-hour period considered.

Figure 5.12: Record of wind’s speed and direction during the 24-hour period considered.

49
5.3.1 Example 1 - Girassol-E orientation during a daylight period (without wind’s
presence)

Since wind’s presence is not considered in this example, the blades pitch angle are always set at
90◦ (solar mode).
Figure 5.13 shows the system operation during the daylight period. Initially the system is oriented
to East (A = 90◦ ) and in horizontal position (E = 0◦ ). Then, the system continuously computes a
new optimum point at each 10-minute period, using the previously position achieved by the algorithm.
Girassol-E follows the sun as long as sun’s radiation is available. Table 5.1 shows the numerical results
obtained for the several positions computed by the algorithm during the day operation.

Figure 5.13: Example 1 - Girassol-E orientation during the day (presence of wind neglected).

50
 Table 5.1: Example 1 - Girassol-E positions during a daylight period.
Hour [h] Azimuth [◦ ] Elevation [◦ ] Hour [h] Azimuth [◦ ] Elevation [◦ ]
6,17 90 0 14 247,44 60,144
6,33 76,641 15,637 14,17 250,24 58,288
6,5 76,025 18,655 14,33 252,67 56,512
6,67 76,736 20,79 14,5 255,07 54,6
6,83 78,173 23,246 14,67 257,31 52,667
7 79,775 25,467 14,83 259,29 50,833
7,17 81,296 27,508 15 261,29 48,872
7,33 82,69 29,382 15,17 263,18 46,9
7,5 84,159 31,362 15,33 264,88 45,037
7,67 85,643 33,344 15,5 266,62 43,053
7,83 87,063 35,213 15,67 268,29 41,065
8 88,603 37,202 15,83 269,82 39,192
8,17 90,181 39,192 16 271,4 37,202
8,33 91,708 41,065 16,17 272,94 35,213
8,5 93,382 43,053 16,33 274,36 33,344
8,67 95,119 45,037 16,5 275,84 31,362
8,83 96,822 46,9 16,67 277,3 29,385
9 98,714 48,872 16,83 278,66 27,53
9,17 100,71 50,833 17 280,09 25,567
9,33 102,69 52,667 17,17 281,52 23,612
9,5 104,93 54,6 17,33 282,85 21,781
9,67 107,33 56,512 17,5 284,27 19,846
9,83 109,76 58,288 17,67 285,69 17,924
10 112,56 60,144 17,83 287,03 16,127
10,17 115,62 61,96 18 288,46 14,231
10,33 118,79 63,626 18,17 289,9 12,352
10,5 122,51 65,339 18,33 291,26 10,598
10,67 126,66 66,977 18,5 292,73 8,7531
10,83 131,02 68,437 18,67 294,22 6,9277
11 136,21 69,878 18,83 295,63 5,2292
11,17 142,05 71,18 19 297,16 3,4466
11,33 148,18 72,251 19,17 298,71 1,6884
11,5 155,38 73,191 19,33 300,2 0,057499
11,67 163,24 73,891 19,5 301,81 -1,6483
11,83 171,14 74,302 19,67 303,45 -3,3243
12 179,81 74,453 19,83 305,03 -4,8728
12,17 188,52 74,302 20 306,74 -6,4852
12,33 196,5 73,891 20,17 308,49 -8,0617
12,5 204,45 73,191 20,33 310,17 -9,5106
12,67 211,72 72,251 20,5 312 -11,011
12,83 217,9 71,18 20,67 313,88 -12,467
13 223,76 69,878 20,83 315,68 -13,794
13,17 228,97 68,437 21 317,61 -15,139
13,33 233,34 66,977 21,17 319,47 -16,373
13,5 237,49 65,339 21,33 321,1 -17,398
13,67 241,21 63,626 21,5 323,23 -18,64
13,83 244,37 61,96 21,67 325,38 -19,803

51
5.3.2 Example 2 - Girassol-E orientation during day and night (considering
wind’s presence)

In this example, Girassol-E is simulated considering night periods and the eventual decrease of
sun’s radiation to a level lower than 100 W/m2 (i.e. cloud appearance).
Since Girassol-E is mainly a photovoltaic system, during the daylight period it follows the sun with
the blades pitch set at 90◦ - Solar Mode. However, when the level of radiation is less than 100 W/m2 ,
which occurs in very nebulous days or during the sunset and night periods, the system switches its
operation mode to Wind Mode. In this mode, the rotor is oriented to the wind, with elevation angle
equal to 90◦ and pitch angle set at 12.25◦ .
Figure 5.14 shows the system operation during the daylight and night periods. Initially the system is
oriented to East (A = 90◦ ) and in vertical position (E = 90◦ ) and blades pitch in Solar Mode (β = 90◦ ).
Once the system starts to operate at midnight, Girasssol-E switches to Wind Mode: blades pitch are
adjusted to 12.25◦ , elevation angle is maintained in 90◦ and azimuth angle is given by the wind’s
direction sensor. Then, the system is continuously oriented to the wind until the small photovoltaic
module detects presence of sun’s radiation. At this moment the system orients itself to East, where
the sun rises, the blades pitch switch to 90◦ and a new position in elevation and azimuth is computed.
Once in Solar Mode, a new optimum point at each 10-minute period is computed, using the previously
position achieved by the Gradient’s algorithm. Girassol-E follows the sun as long as sun’s radiation is
available. Table 5.2 shows the numerical results obtained for the several positions computed by the
algorithm.

Figure 5.14: Example 2 - Girassol-E orientation during day and night.

52
 Table 5.2: Example 2 - Girassol-E positions during a day and night periods.

Hour [h] Azimuth [◦ ] Elevation [◦ ] Pitch [◦ ] Hour [h] Azimuth [◦ ] Elevation [◦ ] Pitch [◦ ]
0 90 90 90 7,83 85,992 34,481 90
0,17 247 90 12,25 8 86,766 35,106 90
0,33 247 90 12,25 8,17 88,24 37,039 90
0,5 247 90 12,25 8,33 89,854 39,081 90
0,67 247 90 12,25 8,5 91,439 40,999 90
0,83 247 90 12,25 8,67 93,148 43,015 90
1 247 90 12,25 8,83 94,905 45,015 90
1,17 247 90 12,25 9 96,624 46,887 90
1,33 247 90 12,25 9,17 98,499 48,863 90
1,5 247 90 12,25 9,33 100,42 50,823 90
1,67 247 90 12,25 9,5 102,45 52,665 90
1,83 247 90 12,25 9,67 104,66 54,598 90
2 247 90 12,25 9,83 107,02 56,511 90
2,17 247 90 12,25 10 109,42 58,288 90
2,33 247 90 12,25 10,17 112,12 60,144 90
2,5 247 90 12,25 10,33 115,07 61,962 90
2,67 247 90 12,25 10,5 118,12 63,629 90
2,83 247 90 12,25 10,67 121,6 65,343 90
3 247 90 12,25 10,83 125,47 66,984 90
3,17 247 90 12,25 11 129,62 68,445 90
3,33 247 90 12,25 11,17 134,32 69,891 90
3,5 247 90 12,25 11,33 139,56 71,201 90
3,67 247 90 12,25 11,5 145,17 72,28 90
3,83 247 90 12,25 11,67 153,57 73,201 90
4 247 90 12,25 11,83 161,44 73,901 90
4,17 247 90 12,25 12 169,22 74,313 90
4,33 247 90 12,25 12,17 177,8 74,466 90
4,5 247 90 12,25 12,33 186,75 74,312 90
4,67 247 90 12,25 12,5 195,02 73,898 90
4,83 247 90 12,25 12,67 201,11 73,224 90
5 247 90 12,25 12,83 208,43 72,285 90
5,17 247 90 12,25 13 215,39 71,201 90
5,33 263 90 12,25 13,17 221,94 69,89 90
5,5 270 90 12,25 13,33 227,76 68,443 90
5,67 270 90 12,25 13,5 232,59 66,98 90
5,83 270 90 12,25 13,67 236,99 65,34 90
6 270 90 12,25 13,83 240,91 63,627 90
6,17 255 90 12,25 14 244,2 61,961 90
6,33 232 90 12,25 14,17 247,32 60,144 90
6,5 225 90 12,25 14,33 250,17 58,288 90
6,67 227 90 12,25 14,5 252,63 56,512 90
6,83 239 90 12,25 14,67 255,05 54,6 90
7 225 90 12,25 14,83 257,3 52,667 90
7,17 259 90 12,25 15 259,28 50,833 90
7,33 286 90 12,25 15,17 261,28 48,872 90
7,5 286 90 12,25 15,33 263,17 46,9 90
7,67 87,011 42,291 90 15,5 264,88 45,037 90

53
 Table 5.3: Example 2 - Girassol-E positions during a day and night periods (continuation).

Hour [h] Azimuth [◦ ] Elevation [◦ ] Pitch [◦ ] Hour [h] Azimuth [◦ ] Elevation [◦ ] Pitch [◦ ]
15,67 266,62 43,053 90 20,17 306,64 -6,3997 90
15,83 268,29 41,065 90 20,33 308,38 -7,9677 90
16 269,82 39,192 90 20,5 310 -9,373 90
16,17 271,4 37,202 90 20,67 311,7 -10,781 90
16,33 272,94 35,213 90 20,83 313,36 -12,091 90
16,5 274,36 33,344 90 21 292 90 12,25
16,67 275,84 31,362 90 21,17 292 90 12,25
16,83 277,3 29,385 90 21,33 292 90 12,25
17 278,66 27,53 90 21,5 300 90 12,25
17,17 280,09 25,567 90 21,67 292 90 12,25
17,33 281,52 23,612 90 21,83 292 90 12,25
17,5 282,85 21,781 90 22 292 90 12,25
17,67 284,27 19,847 90 22,17 288 90 12,25
17,83 285,69 17,924 90 22,33 292 90 12,25
18 287,03 16,127 90 22,5 296 90 12,25
18,17 288,46 14,232 90 22,67 298 90 12,25
18,33 289,9 12,352 90 22,83 295 90 12,25
18,5 291,26 10,599 90 23 288 90 12,25
18,67 292,73 8,7542 90 23,17 292 90 12,25
18,83 294,21 6,93 90 23,33 292 90 12,25
19 295,63 5,2323 90 23,5 313 90 12,25
19,17 297,16 3,4516 90 23,67 340 90 12,25
19,33 298,71 1,6963 90 23,83 292 90 12,25
19,5 300,19 0,069121 90 24 296 90 12,25
19,67 301,79 -1,6298 90 24,17 323 90 12,25
19,83 303,42 -3,2956 90 24,33 292 90 12,25
20 304,98 -4,8302 90 24,5 292 90 12,25

54
5.4 Estimates of Energy Produced

Figure 5.15 shows the power produced by the system (total power) at each moment of day and
night taking wind advantage in both operating modes for the case presented in section 5.3.2. This
figure shows also the power produced by an equivalent solar tracker (power from the sun) and the
increase of power produced due to the existence of a micro-turbine taking wind advantage during night
periods (power from wind) 1 .

Figure 5.15: Power produced considering the whole system (photovoltaic panels gather with micro-
turbine - total power), power produced considering only the set of photovoltaic panels (power from the
sun) and power produced when the system is oriented to the wind (power from the wind).

The estimate of energy produced during this day of operation is given by:

n
X
E= P (u, G, T )∆ti (5.1)
n=1

where,

• n is the number of periods considered;

• ∆ti is time interval considered;

• P (u, G, T ) is the maximum power produced by the system as a function of wind’s speed, sun’s
radiation and cell temperature during time the corresponding time interval.

The value of energy achieved by Girassol-E is EGE = 9.8958 kW h, during one operation day.
Considering the equivalent photovoltaic system (solar tracker) that doesn’t take any wind advantage,
the energy produced is: EP hV = 2.1604 kW h.
1 Despite of take some wind advantage when in Solar Mode, in this estimates this residual power was neglected

55
Chapter 6

Economic Evaluation

Micro-generation projects are an essential step towards decreasing carbon production and will help
the European Union meet its aim of cutting emissions recorded in 1990 by 8% between 2008 and 2012.
In order accomplish its targets, the Portuguese Government has been creating several incentives in
order to encourage the use of renewable resources to produce electricity.

6.1 Micro-generation Incentives

According to the Portuguese decree-law n◦ . 363/2007 ([2]), electricity micro-generation is classified

as the electrical production activity in low voltage that can be delivered to the electric grid. The largest
amount of electricity produced must be consumed by the owner, however the surplus produced may be
delivered to other consumers or injected in public grid. If injected in the public grid, the power delivered
is limited to 150 kW and producers can’t inject a power superior than 50% of total power hired to the
electric device.
Since previous incentives haven’t contributed to a significative increase of micro-generation in Por-
tugal, the present decree-law comes with the purpose of simplify the licensing process. An electronic
platform (SRM - Sistema de Registo da Microprodução) is created to improve the interaction between
producer and Administration.

6.2 Remuneration

The present decree-law creates two remuneration categories, the general type applied to general
electric installations and the subsidized category referred to renewable energy sources. The subsidized
remuneration is applied to micro-generation units with a maximum grid interconnection power of 3,68
kW. The system only remunerates the active energy delivered to the electric grid.
Article 11th explains how the remuneration system works and reads as follow:

1. For each producer in the subsidized category is defined a single tariff applied to the energy
produced in the year of energy unit’s installation and in the following five civil years:

56
 (a) The first 10 MW of interconnection power registered in Portugal, the reference tariff is of 650
C/MWh
(b) For each additional 10 MW of interconnection power registered in Portugal, the single tariff
applied is consecutively reduced in 5%.

2. After the five years period and in the following 10 years period, the single tariff is applied according
to the tariffs announced in January 1st of the present year.

3. When the period referred in the previous item finishes, the general remuneration type is applied
to the micro-generation installation.

4. The reference tariff depends on the type of renewable resource affected by the application of the
following percentages to the reference tariff:

(a) Solar energy: 100%

(b) Wind energy: 70%
(c) For the combination of energy renewable sources, the single tariff is calculated through
the weighted average calculus of each individual percentage using the maximum limits of
energy, referred ahead, as weighting factors.

5. Selling the electricity as referred in the previous item is limited to 2.4 MWh/year in solar energy
case and to 4 MWh/year for wind energy case for each kilowatt installed.

6. The interconnection power registered in subsidized remuneration is subjected to an annual limit.

7. The limit predicted for the present decree-law publication year was established at 10 MW, being
raised annually in 20%.

6.3 Girassol-E Evaluation

In order to make an economic analysis, it is first required to predict the annual amount of electric
energy produced by the device. Since atmospheric conditions and the place itself affects the production
of energy, in this preliminary study it is considered the installation of Girassol-E in the center of Lisbon
in Portugal.
After choosing the location it’s required information about sun’s radiation and wind’s speed during
one year. Figure 6.1 shows hourly averages of sun’s radiation frequency of occurrence in Lisbon during
one year grouped in classes of 100 W/m2 .
For this analysis it’s considered only one value of wind’s speed, the average wind’s speed annual
value : uaav . According to figure 6.2 the average wind’s speed at an hight of 60 m (zR ) in Lisbon is of
5.5 m/s. In order to get the equivalent wind’s speed at an hight (z) of 11 m approximately where the
ln z
rotor will be located, apply equation uaav (z) = uaav (zR ) ln zzR0 , making z0 = 1 m. So the average wind’s
z0
speed in Lisbon is uaav (11m) = 3.2214 m/s.
The calculus of energy produced during one year of operation is divided into two parts: the annual
energy produced during daylight periods, where the system tracks the sun maximizing the power pro-
duced by the photovoltaic panels at every instant taking also some wind advantage, E1a , and annual
wind energy produced during the night due to nonexistence of sun’s radiation, E2a .
For E1a calculus:

57
Figure 6.1: Hourly averages of sun’s radiation frequency of occurrence in Lisbon grouped in classes of
100 W/m2 (from source [7]).

• Consider the average sun’s radiation of each class from figure 6.1;

• Consider the annual average wind’s speed, uaav (11m) = 3.2214 m/s.

• Compute the power produced for each level of radiation and average wind’s speed defined in
previous items , P (u, G, T );

• For each level of radiation make ∆ti equal to the corresponding hours of occurrence during one
year;
Pn
• Apply equation: E = n=1 P (u, G, T )∆ti defined in section 5.4,

Consider that Girassol-E tracks the sun when sun’s radiation is larger than 100 W/m2 . According
to figure 6.1 the level of radiation is higher than 100 W/m2 for 3486 hours during one year period. So
Girassol-E works as a solar tracker (producing energy from sun’s radiation) during 3486 hours and as
a wind turbine for the 5274 remaining hours. This means that E1a = 2.3550 M W h.
For E2a calculus it’s also considered that the average wind’s speed is uaav (11m) = 3.2214 m/s and
that Girassol-E operates in wind’s mode for 5274 hours during a year which gives: E2a = 7.911 M W h.
The total amount of energy produced during one year by the system is given by:

ETa otal = E1annual + E2annual (6.1)

Which gives the total amount of: ETa otal = 10.266 M W h of electric energy produced per year or an
average of Eday = 28.13 KW h produced per day (considering that one year has 365 days).

58
Figure 6.2: Map of wind’s speed distribution in Portugal Continental (h = 60 m) (from source [16]).

59
 Tables 6.1 and 6.2 compare the technologies evolved and respective costs. Note that costs with
batteries, human resources or other accessories are not included.

Table 6.1: Comparison between technologies.

Solution Eolic (1) Solar(1)

Equipment Micro-turbine (2) Fixed photovoltaic panels of 175Wp
Quantity 1 8
Power [kW] 1,5 1,4
Start-up wind speed [m/s] 3,5 -
Nominal wind speed [m/s] 12 -
Rated wind speed [m/s] 14 -
Cost [ C] (without IVA) 4.152,74 C 7.606,30 C
Mechanic Accessories tower support
Cost [ C] (without IVA) 2.666,64 C 1.680,00 C
Electric Accessories Inverter 1.800W Inverter 1.800W
Cost [ C] (without IVA) 1.278,00 C 1.278,00 C
Total costs 8.097,38 C 10.564,30 C
Cost for achieved power [ C/Wp] (3) 5,40 7,55
Average energy produced per day [kWh] 0,06 7,96
Daily energy produced cost [ C/kWh] (3) 134.165,14 C 1.327,01

Table 6.2: Comparison between technologies (continuation).

Solution Eolic and Solar (4)
Equipment Girassol-E
Quantity 8 panels and a turbine
Power [kW] 5
Start-up wind speed [m/s] 2
Nominal wind speed [m/s] 12
Rated wind speed [m/s] 6
Cost [C] (without IVA) 11.759,04 C
Mechanic Accessories tower, sensors and motors
Cost [C] (without IVA) 4.500,00 C
Electric Accessories Inverter 5.000W
Cost [C] (without IVA) 2.500,00 C
Total costs 18.759,04 C
Cost for achieved power [ C/Wp](3) 3,75
Average energy produced per day [kWh] 28,13
Daily energy produced cost [ C/kWh](3) 666,96

(1)Acquisition values of 2005.

(2)Micro-turbine of 1,5kW, 2 blades, with voltage regulator.
(3)Related to the investment.
(4)Estimated values.

60
 In order to study the business plan two sceneries are presented. Tables 6.3 and 6.4 present the
first scenario where all the equipments are bought and all the human resources are contracted. Tables
6.5 and 6.6 shows an alternative scenario where assembly processes and mechanic components are
outsource services

Table 6.3: Scenario A - Business Plan.

Scenary A 1st year 2nd year 3rd year 4th year 5th year
Investigation Implementation Maturity Maturity Maturity
Human Resources 72.800,00 C 152.880,00 C 152.880,00 C 152.880,00 C 152.880,00 C
Equipments 100.000,00 C 2.500,00 C 2.500,00 C 2.500,00 C 2.500,00 C
Raw Materials 25.000,00 C 180.000,00 C 360.000,00 C 360.000,00 C 360.000,00 C
Rents and infrastructures 10.800,00 C 24.000,00 C 24.000,00 C 24.000,00 C 24.000,00 C
Total costs 208.600,00 C 359.380,00 C 539.380,00 C 539.380,00 C 539.380,00 C
Girassol-E production 2 12 24 24 24
Girassol-E costs 0,00 C 25.000,00 C 25.000,00 C 25.000,00 C 25.000,00 C
Sells 0,00 C 300.000,00 C 600.000,00 C 600.000,00 C 600.000,00 C
Profits -208.600,00 C -59.380,00 C 60.620,00 C 60.620,00 C 60.620,00 C
Balance -208.600,00 C -267.980,00 C -207.360,00 C -146.740,00 C -86.120,00 C

Table 6.4: Scenario A - Business Plan (continuation).

Scenary A (continuation) 6th year 7th year 8th year 9th year 10th year
Maturity Maturity Maturity Declination(?) Declination(?)
Human Resources 152.880,00 C 152.880,00 C 152.880,00 C 152.880,00 C 152.880,00 C
Equipments 2.501,00 C 2.502,00 C 2.503,00 C 2.504,00 C 2.505,00 C
Raw Materials 375.000,00 C 390.000,00 C 405.000,00 C 420.000,00 C 435.000,00 C
Rents and infrastructures 24.000,00 C 24.000,00 C 24.000,00 C 24.000,00 C 24.000,00 C
Total costs 554.381,00 C 569.382,00 C 584.383,00 C 599.384,00 C 614.385,00 C
Girassol-E production 25 26 27 28 29
Girassol-E costs 25.001,00 C 25.002,00 C 25.003,00 C 25.004,00 C 25.005,00 C
Sells 625.025,00 C 650.052,00 C 675.081,00 C 700.112,00 C 725.145,00 C
Profits 70.644,00 C 80.670,00 C 90.698,00 C 100.728,00 C 110.760,00 C
Balance -15.476,00 C 65.194,00 C 155.892,00 C 256.620,00 C 367.380,00 C

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 Table 6.5: Scenario B - Business Plan.

Scenary B 1st year 2nd year 3rd year 4th year 5th year
Investigation Implementation Maturity Maturity Maturity
Human Resources 72.800,00 C 109.200,00 C 109.200,00 C 109.200,00 C 109.200,00 C
Equipments 10.000,00 C 500,00 C 500,00 C 500,00 C 500,00 C
Raw Materials 25.000,00 C 180.000,00 C 360.000,00 C 360.000,00 C 360.000,00 C
Rents and infrastructures 10.800,00 C 10.800,00 C 10.800,00 C 10.800,00 C 10.800,00 C
Sub-contratações 8.000,00 C 8.000,00 C 8.000,00 C 8.000,00 C 8.000,00 C
Total costs 126.600,00 C 308.500,00 C 488.500,00 C 488.500,00 C 488.500,00 C
Girassol-E production 2 12 24 24 24
Girassol-E costs 0,00 C 25.000,00 C 25.000,00 C 25.000,00 C 25.000,00 C
Sells 0,00 C 300.000,00 C 600.000,00 C 600.000,00 C 600.000,00 C
Profits -126.600,00 C -8.500,00 C 111.500,00 C 111.500,00 C 111.500,00 C
Balance -126.600,00 C -135.100,00 C -23.600,00 C 87.900,00 C 199.400,00 C

Table 6.6: Scenario B - Business Plan (continuation).

Scenary B (continuation) 6th year 7th year
Declination(?) Declination(?)
Human Resources 109.200,00 C 109.200,00 C
Equipments 500,00 C 500,00 C
Raw Materials 375.000,00 C 390.000,00 C
Rents and infrastructures 10.800,00 C 10.800,00 C
Sub-contratações 8.000,00 C 8.000,00 C
Total costs 503.500,00 C 518.500,00 C
Girassol-E production 25 26
Girassol-E costs 25.001,00 C 25.002,00 C
Sells 625.025,00 C 650.052,00 C
Profits 121.525,00 C 131.552,00 C
Balance 320.925,00 C 452.477,00 C

Comparing the two sceneries presented it may be concluded that the scenario B presents a lower
initial cost and a payback period shorter than the previous scenario.

62
Chapter 7

Conclusion

This thesis proposes a new energy micro-generator system which extracts power from renewable
sources such as sun and wind.
In order to accomplish this purpose, studies about sun and wind characteristics were required.
For this purpose the whole system was described including its main components and operation
modes. Looking to improve the photovoltaic technology, this system relies on concepts of photovoltaic
and eolic performed studies.
For this project two optimization algorithms were studied, implemented and simulated in Matlab.
The first optimization algorithm studied - Adaptive Optimization Algorithm - was applied to the MPPT
device in order to optimize the power extraction from photovoltaic panels. The key point is to observe
that the P(V) relation can be approximated as a quadratic function and to perform a sequence of
quadratic optimizations. The algorithm convergence is illustrated in different simulation examples. The
increase of the forgetting factor, λ, makes the convergence slower but reduces the fluctuation effect.
The introduction of dither noise, η, in the algorithm improves the convergence but adds some fluctu-
ation. For a good selection of the configuration parameters, the convergence of the estimates to the
optimum is dependent of their initial value over a wide range. Other example shows the adaptation to
the optimum of the proposed MPPT algorithm when facing sudden atmospheric changes.
Since Girassol-E extracts power from both sun and wind resources, it was needed to create two
operating modes for the system. When sun’s radiation levels are lower than 100 W/m2 , which occurs
during night periods or in very nebulous days, the system is in Wind Mode and oriented to the wind
with appropriate pitch, elevation and azimuth angles. Otherwise, if sun’s radiation is above 100 W/m2 ,
the system is in Solar Mode, also with appropriate pitch, elevation and azimuth angles. The other
optimization algorithm studied was the Gradient’s Algorithm and is applied when Girassol-E is in Solar
Mode and aims at track the sun’s position, since doesn’t make use of solar sensors. The algorithm
performance was evaluated in several simulation examples showing how the algorithm evolves when
searching for the optimal orientation in elevation and azimuth angles.
A few estimates of energy produced were calculated proving that Girassol-E is a rentable extracting
power device.
The research that has been undertaken for this thesis has highlighted a number of topics on which
further research would be beneficial. Among them:
• Improve the orientation algorithm in order to include mixed modes where the system evaluates
the atmospheric conditions and computes the orientation angles (Azimuth, Elevation and Pitch),
looking to maximize the sum of sun and wind energies available;
63
• Study and choose of all the electronic equipments required to extract, store or grid inject the
energy produced (generators, batteries and inverters);

• Study the system connection to the electric grid and the analysis of energy quality.

64
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