2020 International Conference on Electrical and Electronics Engineering (ICE3-2020)

Hybrid Energy Storage for a Microgrid

Prashant Tiwari Anav Katwal Sahil Bhatta
Kathmandu University Kathmandu University Kathmandu University
Dhulikhel, Nepal Dhulikhel, Nepal Dhulikhel, Nepal
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Eliza Giri Shailendra Kumar Jha

Kathmandu University Kathmandu University
Dhulikhel, Nepal Dhulikhel, Nepal
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— The paper presents the study and analysis of consumption time, the ESS discharge and provide energy to
rural microgrid in Hariharpurgadhi, Nepal and the proposed the loads. But a battery cannot fulfill the power requirement
laboratory-based model on a ‘Hybrid Energy storage for a of the microgrid every time[4].
Microgrid. A hybrid energy system comprises more than one
type of energy storage system. The paper presents the model of
The main difference between a battery and a
a hybrid energy storage system using a lead-acid battery and
supercapacitors for a rural microgrid that can resolve the
supercapacitor is that the battery has a higher energy density
issues of energy as well as the instantaneous power of the but a lower power density and a supercapacitor has a higher
microgrid. Supercapacitors have a significantly lower energy power density but a lower energy density. Due to such
density and a higher power density compared to batteries characteristics, a supercapacitor can be applied to provide
which are sufficient to provide high current for a short uniform power to a load even during power surges. When
duration of time-solving the issues to run water pumping used in a hybrid energy storage system with a battery bank,
motors and agricultural mills in microgrid areas. the battery can provide a low amount of current to the load
for a longer period and when needed the supercapacitor can
Keywords—hybrid, energy storage, supercapacitors, provide the high current for a short duration of time [5-7].
microgrid, rural-electrification
II. METHODOLOGY
I. INTRODUCTION
The research was carried by identifying the problem of a
With the increase in electrical energy demand, the rural microgrids in Nepal. The field survey of the largest
supply of such energy also needs to be increased and this existing solar PV-wind microgrid system and the users was
brings the need to upgrade the power system in both urban done first. The problem for the use of induction motor was
and rural areas. Increasing load means that there must be a identified and then the solution was proposed.
significant increase in the generation and transmission The use of supercapacitor for hybrid energy storage system
capacity of a power system. There are many isolated in the rural micorgrid was as proposed. Software simulation
settlements in rural areas of Nepal that are not connected to of system was then done for validation and finally hardware
the main electrical grid and thus these areas require a unique was designed for the hybrid energy storage system and the
solution to their energy problems. The answer to this circuit required. The comparison of the existing system
problem is the construction of a microgrid[1]. outputs and the proposed design was then done.

Microgrids handle power in the range of a few hundreds III. RURAL MICROGRID AT HARIHARPURGADHI,
of kilowatts (kW) which is sufficient to power small SINDHULI
villages. Such grids utilize distributed Renewable Energy The rural microgrid was installed in 2017 at
Sources (RES) such as wind energy and solar energy rather Hariharpurgadhi village of Sindhuli district of Nepal. The
than energy from fossil fuels. Some could also utilize hydro power plant consists of two wind turbines (WT) each of 10
energy but such power plants are expensive to construct and kW power, 50 solar photovoltaic (PV) modules of 300Wp
are not so feasible in most of the areas. RES is intermittent that in total generate 15kWp. The energy storage system
and microgrids connected to these sources cannot be consists of 120 numbers of 2V/1000 Ah batteries that can
connected to the main grid as it can cause stability, store up to 240 kWh of energy. The power is distributed in
reliability and power issues to the main grid [2]. Also due to single-phase and in three-phase as well. The major system
their intermittency, the load connected to the grid face components installed at Hariharpurgadhi microgrid is
fluctuation of power and might not be operational during illustrated in Table I.
that time of the day when the sources cannot generate The estimated energy production by the system is 110
energy. Thus, to cope with this problem energy storage kWh per day having an energy demand of 87kWh per day.
system (ESS) can be used. ESS employ batteries, fuel cells, The block diagram of the interconnection of wind turbines,
flywheels, supercapacitors, etc. to store energy [3]. Most photovoltaic systems, batteries and loads is as shown in
microgrids have an ESS that uses a lead-acid battery that Figure 1.
can help meet the energy requirement of the area. Energy
stored in the cells is in the form of chemical energy. During
the low power consumption time, these batteries are charged
and when the sources do not generate energy or high-power

978-1-7281-5846-4/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE

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39
TABLE I: HYBRID MICROGRID COMPONENTS AT HARIHARPURGADHI supply and demand. In the microgrid, VRLA batteries are
Components Quantity Unit Total used to make the microgrid more reliable and stable. Having
high energy density but inferior power density, lead-acid
Wind Turbines 2 10 kW 20 kW
batteries can only be used to provide a low value of currents
Solar 50 300 Wp 15 kWp to the load for a more extended period. To get a high amount
Photovoltaic of current even for a short duration, a large number of
modules
batteries must be connected in parallel which significantly
VRLA tub gel 120 2V/1000Ah 240 kWh makes the system very expensive. The operation of grinding
batteries mills and water pumping motors in the microgrid at
Inverter 1 45 kW 45 kW Hariharpurgadhi draws a high amount of current while
starting. With the use of sporadic hybrid power sources (PV
Distribution 1.12km(1-P) 1.8 km (3-P) 2.92 km
System and WT) and VRLA batteries, the grinding mills and water
pump at the hybrid power plant microgrid of
Hariharpurgadhi take several attempts to start and sometimes
become inoperable.
With sporadic hybrid power sources (wind turbines and
photovoltaic systems), valve-regulated lead-acid (VRLA)
batteries are being used as a backup supply when the power Therefore other energy storage options along with VRLA
sources are not able to operate. The batteries are charged batteries are required in the microgrid. Thus, a
during the low power demand in the microgrid whereas in supercapacitor can be implemented in the system which will
the case of inaccessibility of power sources or during the provide a high value of starting current.
peak load time, the energy stored in the batteries is used to
supply the load maintaining the proper ratio of IV. LABORATORY MODEL OF HYBRID ENERGY STORAGE
SYSTEM

A. System Description
Fig. 2 shows the overall system diagram of a typical
microgrid. It consists of Photo Voltaic array and wind
turbine as a hybrid energy source. The energy storage
system consists of a lead-acid battery and a supercapacitor.
The DC output from the PV array is converted into AC
output using an inverter. The output current from the
inverter and wind turbine is measured which is depicted by
M in the figure. Also, the current to the load is measured
and the measured currents are compared using a micro
controller, depicted by MC in the figure. The MC is
connected to DC/DC converter which controls the charging
and discharging current of the battery and supercapacitor.
B. Hardware Description
The output from the photovoltaic cell and the energy storage
system is in DC form. This output must be converted to AC
in order to be connected to the main grid. In the case of

Fig. 1 Block diagram of a hybrid power plant at Hariharpurgadhi

Fig. 2 System Diagram

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40
the energy storage system, the inverter must be bidirectional side MOSFET) in the bridge inverter configuration. The two
rather than unidirectional as it is required that the energy output pins in IR 2112 are LO and HO drive the low side and
storage system be charged as well as discharged. The time of high side MOSFETs respectively. The input pins are LIN
charge and discharge is determined by the load profile. and HIN that control the LO and HO outputs. The complete
circuit diagram of the inverter is illustrated in Fig.4.
The simulation of a square wave inverter is done using
MATLAB. In the simulation, the two pulse generators have a The main problem encountered at the Hariharpurgadhi
frequency of 50 Hz and a duty cycle of 50%. They have a microgrid faced by the local persons was to operate the
phase delay of 180o (0.01 second for a pulse of frequency 50 grinding mill. Due to this reason, in the laboratory model of a
Hz and time period 0.02 second). Each pulse drives HESS, a single-phase induction motor was taken as a load.
(diagonal of each other’s) two metal oxide semiconductor The image of the induction motor used in the laboratory is
field effect transistors (MOSFET). The waveform of an shown in figure 5. The induction motor was chosen as a load
inverter obtained in a laboratory as seen from oscilloscope is because of a fact that it requires high starting current and
depicted in Fig.3. In figure 3, the first half of the screen battery alone cannot fulfill its requirement. The description
shows the waveform of an inverter, and second half of the of the motor is described below.
screen shows the triggering pulse of a positive signal
MOSFETs. Rated voltage: 42 V
Rated power: 80 W
Rated current: 6 A
Unlike a bipolar junction transistor (BJT), a MOSFET Rated speed: 2600 RPM
requires high voltage between its Gate and Source terminals. Rated frequency: 50 Hz
The logic level output of a PWM signal might not be
sufficient to drive the MOSFETs in the inverter circuit. Thus, In accordance with the requirement and rated condition of
a MOSFET driver is used. ICs IR 2110 or IR 2112 can be load, the capacitance of the capacitor bank (supercapacitors)
used to do the task. These ICs are designed to provide is calculated with the use of equation 1.
sufficient voltages to two MOSFETs (one high and one low

Fig. 3 Waveform of an H-bridge inverter

Fig. 5 Induction motor used in a laboratory model of HESS

Fig. 4 Circuit Diagram of an H bridge inverter with gate drivers Fig. 6 Laboratory-based model of HESS

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41
 70
= (1)
Load curve with
capacitor bank
60
The required additional current is 1A to start the motor at no- Load curve
load condition. The operating voltage of the capacitor is 20 V 50 without capacitor
and the required time to discharge is 1second. Therefore, the

Power (in Watts)

bank
capacitance is obtained to be 0.05 F. Thus, three capacitors 40
have been used in the prototype each having 10,000uF giving
an equivalent capacitance of 0.033F.
30
In substitute to the lead-acid battery a variable voltage
DC supply of maximum current 2 A was used to supply the 20
inverter in the laboratory. This source acts as an infinite
energy density source and is not capable to provide the
starting current required for the motor. The supply was 10
operated at 18V.The laboratory working model of a hybrid
energy storage system is presented in figure 6. 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Time (in Seconds)
C. Block Diagram
Figure 7 shows the block diagram of the laboratory
Figure 8 Load curve of a laboratory model HESS
prototype of a hybrid energy storage system consisting of a
battery (dc voltage source) and a capacitor bank. The dc
electrically isolates the Arduino from an inverter. Thus, at
voltage of a battery is converted to an ac voltage through an
inverter. An H-bridge inverter is a bidirectional rather than last, the output of an H-bridge inverter is connected to the
unidirectional as it is required that the capacitor bank must load.
be charged as well as discharged in accordance to load
profile. The charging and discharging time is controlled by
V. RESULT
setting up the delay, with the use of Arduino
(microcontroller). The MOSFET driver drives the inverter by Initially, without the capacitor when the motor is
providing sufficient voltage to the MOSFETs. To prevent the switched on the higher starting current results in higher
backflow of a voltage, an optocoupler is used which power demand which cannot be fulfilled by the battery and
the motor fails to start. This can be seen in the graph as
shown in figure 8, as the peak value of the load curve
without the capacitor is about 30 W which is insufficient to
start the motor at no load and the motor continuously draws
this current from the battery even in standstill condition.
When started with the capacitor bank connected with the
battery, the motor draws a power of about 64 W. The peak
power here is provided by the capacitor and after about 5
seconds the load decreases to about 25 W and the motor is
run by the battery only.

VI. CONCLUSION
With the survey at a standalone microgrid located at
Hariharpurgadhi, Sindhuli, the importance of a hybrid energy
storage system has been studied as the instantaneous power
requirement has not been considered in the microgrid. Most
of the rural microgrids have to consider, both the energy as
well as the instantaneous power requirement, which results in
need of the hybrid energy storage system.

The laboratory-based model of a hybrid energy storage

system comprises an H-bridge inverter that converts the dc
voltage of a battery to an ac voltage to operate an induction
motor. A supercapacitor (capacitor bank in the prototype) is
combined with the lead-acid battery (dc voltage source in the
prototype) to fulfill the instantaneous power requirement of
an induction motor. Thus, when the motor starts, the
Figure 7 Block Diagram capacitor bank delivers the starting current and fulfills the
instantaneous power required to get it to start. After a few
seconds when the motor runs in its rated speed, the dc

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42
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