Influence of the battery model in the optimisation of stand-alone renewable systems

Cristóbal Monreal, Iván Raúl ; Dufo López, Rodolfo ; Yusta Loyo, José María

Resumen: Stand-alone (off-grid) renewable systems are usually composed by photovoltaic panels and/or wind turbines, with batteries (usually lead-acid) and in some cases including diesel generator. In many cases the total cost of the batteries (including replacement during the lifetime of the system) is the highest cost.
The model of batteries used in simulation and optimisation of stand-alone renewable systems has a great importance as it allows the estimation of the lifetime of the batteries, which is one of the most important variables to calculate the Net Present Cost of the system and also the Levelised Cost of Energy.
The lifetime estimation of lead-acid batteries is a complex task because it depends on the operating conditions of the batteries. In many engineering works and research studies, the estimation of battery lifetime is error-prone, obtaining values much higher than the real ones.
In this paper we compare different models of lead-acid batteries, used in the simulation and optimisation of different stand-alone systems. We conclude that in many cases we obtain good results by using a complex weighted Ah-throughput model for the batteries, however using the classical models the estimation of the batteries lifetime is too optimistic.

Idioma: Inglés

Año: 2016

Publicado en: Renewable energy & power quality journal 1, 14 (2016), 185-189
ISSN: 2172-038X

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)