Energy management scheme for buildings subject to planned grid outages

Abstract EN

A huge attention is paid to integrating buildings with renewable energy resources (RES) as a key factor to act on increasing demand.

Meanwhile, utilizing different power resources can be a viable alternative for communities suffering from frequent and planned power outages.

Conventionally, diesel generators are utilized as emergency backups to lessen the impact of power outages, but they consume a massive amount of fuel in case of extended outage periods.

In this context, the work proposes an alternative microgrid power supply system incorporates photovoltaic solar array and lead-acid battery bank in addition to the conventionally utilized diesel generator for buildings experiencing frequent power outages.

Besides, an energy management scheme is proposed to carry out the proposed supply.

The main components of the system are modeled in MATLAB and the simulation is performed over a relatively long period (two weeks) to capture the pertinent dynamics of the system.

The work is conducted using the example of Al-Shifa’ Hospital in Gaza-Strip to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Moreover, different operation scenarios are tested from different perspectives with respect to the planned outages in Gaza-Strip.

Simulation results indicate significant fuel savings in addition to a reduction in the total operation time of the diesel generator set (GenSet).