A Model Predictive Control Strategy for Grid-Connected Solar-Wind with Pumped
Hydro Storage
M. W Siti*, R. Tiako* and R.C Bansal †
* College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science, University of KwaZulu Natal,
†
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa
willysiti@yahoo.com, Tiako@ukzn.ac.za, rcbansal@ieee.org
Keywords: Energy management, Model predictive
control, solar plant, Time of use Tariffs.
Abstract
Renewable energy today is seen as an effective alternative
energy source for meeting the exponential growth in the
energy demand of the world. The application of wind or
PV alone as energy sources is not fully reliable due to
IE
their intermittent characteristics. In this paper a pumped
hydro storage (PHS) system is introduced to support the
hybrid system, and a mathematical model is developed in
response to a multi-objective challenge. This model
EV
develops a closed loop optimal control strategy for the
grid-connected solar wind pump used as a storage system
in renewable energy. The energy generated by the
renewable energy sources is injected into the grid during
the peak period of the day. The model takes the time of
use tariff (TOU) as input into the control system. The
model of the predictive control techniques is applied in the
PR
management and the control of the renewable system and
its dynamics. The renewable energy system can encounter
disturbances during its operation and to overcome these
disturbances, a closed loop optimal control can be applied,
because it is robust with respect to disturbances in both
the renewable energy system and the sale of the energy
into the grid.
1 Introduction
Electrical energy is one of the important components in the
economic development of any country in the world. With the
fossil fuel being the main energy source for most of the
energy generation plants, its negative impact on the
environmental sector is being seriously taken into
consideration. There is a need for clean and sustainable
sources of energy such as wind, solar, tidal, small hydro, etc.
However, the operation of the hybrid system may lead to poor
economic performance if an optimal management action is
not considered.
Nowadays, demand-side management (DSM) based on time-
of-use (TOU) tariffs (pricing) is being introduced in several
countries such as South Africa, aimed at influencing
customers to shift their loads from peak periods to off-peak
and standard periods. In this manner, both the power utility
and the customers will benefit from the aforesaid scheme. On
one hand, the utility will observe that their generators are not
overloaded and therefore meet their reserve constraints. On
W
other hand, the customers can adapt their energy consumption
based on TOU tariffs by shifting the times of (thus reducing)
their energy consumption.
The concern of the design is to develop an optimal solution
in the energy management, in this case, of the real time to
satisfy the load demand, when the system is connected at the
local load and as well as the grid. Much research has been
conducted on the optimization of the hybrid system [1-4].
However, they did not take into consideration the
optimizations of the sale of energy into the grid in the real
time in order to solve the actual performance of the model.
This work, therefore, focuses on the optimal dispatch of the
various renewable sources while maximizing the sale of the
energy into the grid and minimizing the use of the renewable
energy sources while considering the improvement of the
pump and turbine life span by minimizing their working
conditions.
The advantage of this study, using the model predictive
control (MPC) in the open loop control, is that the MPC will
be able to respond to external disturbances or inaccurate
supply sources. The MPC is able to adjust to the changes in
the output when there are disturbances and the system will be
re-optimized during its control horizon [3-4]. The benefit of
this paper is to demonstrate the advantage of the closed-loop
optimal control model with the renewable energy sources
which will be connected to the grid with the aim to sell the
energy into the grid during the peak periods with the use of
TOU. The introduction of the MPC as a control tool in the
system allows for the periodic re-optimizations characteristic
that will demonstrate the stability of the system control when
external disturbances occur in the system. The re-optimization
is carried out by each sampling time as defined for the control
horizon. Also, the re-optimization is able to compensate for
inaccuracies of the flow of the energy into the grid [4-5].
In this paper, a pumped hydro storage (PHS) system is
introduced for a hybrid solar/wind system to replace the
batteries which are considered to be harmful to the
environment due to their containing lead and sulphuric acid.
Some of the studies on PHS systems focused on the
development models of the main components of a hybrid