Kite power in a microgrid

Design and sizing of distributed energy resources for a microgrid solution based on kite power

Master thesis (2018)

Authors

R. de la Garza Cuevas Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Contributors

R. Schmehl (supervisor 1)
S. Izadkhast (supervisor 1)
Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Copyright: © 2018 Roberto de la Garza Cuevas
Microgrid Airborne wind energy Windenergy Microgrids Kite Distributed Energy Resources Storage System
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Published Date

26-01-2018

Language

English

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Abstract

Airborne Wind Energy is a promising technology that is becoming the point of interest for many applications. One market in which the AWE systems can open a path as a renewable distributed generator is in offgrid communities or camps. Nowadays, this market is dominated by fossil fuel energy like diesel generators. Even though the diesel is cheap, in some cases the complexity to transport the diesel can increase its price considerably. A military camp is an example of this cases. AWE systems designed by the start-up Kitepower can offer a solution to this type of application. Nevertheless, there are some points in the AWE mechanism that should be improved. The most important of these aspects is the cyclic power production that generates a power gap.

This thesis compares solutions as 2 KP systems, other distributed generators (DG) and storage systems (SS) to find the best option to mitigate the power gap. For the integration of the components with the KP system, microgrids designs and layouts were studied. This led to one of the most important things in a microgrid that is the SS sizing. Here, also a method to size the SS to fill the power gap is proposed based on the distribution of power generated by the KP system each cycle. To test the sizing and the operating of the system, a model was built in Simulink. The results show that the method finds a power balance between the power produced and the power generated.

Finally, an efficient integrated system is proposed to mitigate the power gap of the KP system. Additionally, a method is developed to start the design and size additional DERs for future offgrid microgrid projects.