Optimized Design of Mini-grid System for Hilly Region

Abstract

In the hilly regions of India, hydro power potential is available, but it is not completely utilized for power generation till date due to the unavailability of proper electrical structure. Nine micro/mini hydro power plants have been developed in the bageswar district in Uttarakhand. The development of the optimized Mini-grid structure is an effective and reliable solution for the full utilization of these MHPs potentials. Although Ajit Singh et al. proposed some Mini-grid structures for this area, their work is not appropriate due to their calculation method of reliability. For the determination of reliability (failure and repair time), they have considered only the line length. However, its demographic situations such as elevation level of MHPs, availability of roads, the presence of obstacles like streams will also affect the failure and repair time. This paper proposes an optimized Mini-grid structure for interconnection of these nine MHPs and load substations. All the MHPs are spreads in two blocks, namely Kapkote and Bagheswar, so two substations (load canters) are considered. These MHPs and substations are mapped through the Google Earth software and the optimization data such as distances between MHPs and substations, their elevation levels, the highest and lowest elevation in the connecting path and the path profile are collected through it. The Mini-grid structure is optimized through the Genetic Algorithm using the MATLAB tool. The optimization is performed by making the cost function as an objective function considering the line lengths and reliability of the path for its parameters.

KEYWORDS:

• Distributed generation (DG)
• Genetic algorithm (GA)
• Google Earth (GE)
• Mini-grid (MG)
• Micro/Mini Hydro Power Station (MHPs)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jaynendra Kumar

Jaynendra Kumar received the bachelor's degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Harcourt Butler Technological Institute, Kanpur (now Harcourt Butler Technological University) and master's degree from Alternate Hydro Energy Centre, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. He is currently pursuing the PhD degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad. His current research interests include minigrid, a.c. and d.c. microgrid, DGs, storage devices, and power management in islanded systems. Email: [email protected]

Anshul Agarwal

Anshul Agarwal graduated from the Uttar Pradesh Technical University, Lucknow, India with BTech degree in electrical and electronics engineering in 2007 and completed his MTech (Gold Medalist) in power electronics and ASIC design at MNNIT, Allahabad, in July 2009 and 2013, respectively. He is working as assistant professor in the Electrical Engineering Department, NIT Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, India. His research interests include power electronic devices, converters, inverters and AC to AC converter. Email: [email protected]

Vineeta Agarwal

Late Prof Vineeta Agarwal (M'05–SM'09) had received the master's degree in electrical engineering with specialization in power system from Allahabad University, Allahabad, India, in 1984 and the PhD degree in power electronics from the Motilal Nehru Regional Engineering College, Allahabad, in 1993. She had joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, Motilal Nehru Regional Engineering College, as a lecturer in 1982. She had worked as a professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad. Her research interests included single-phase to three-phase conversion, ac drives and renewable energy grid integration. She had authored a number of publications in journals and conferences in her field.