Design of a smart control system for the management of sustainable energy supplies in remote areas: A case study

ABSTRACT

Many remote areas, such as camps located in war-torn regions, suffer from a lack of essential needs such as electricity. This paper offers a solution for an electricity shortage in remote areas. This solution depends on developing a control system for supplying and distributing the electrical power from sustainable energy sources to the load, in addition to monitoring, controlling, and supervising operations. This system is applied to a refugee camp located beside a riverbank. The system depends on a novel electricity generation technique using hydropower without building dams. Since hydropower is sometimes not enough to provide power, it is necessary to incorporate other sustainable energy sources such as wind and solar power. The required energy in the camp is between 100–110 kW. The maximum generated value of hydro, solar, and wind powers are 110 kW, 10 kW, and 55 kW, respectively. The use of several power sources with other electric and electronic components creates a hybrid energy system that needs management of the energy flow. Therefore, a control system with a novel technique is suggested to use the entire generated power from sustainable energy sources as much as possible. In addition, the excess generated power is used in other tasks or stored. So, the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system represents the core of this system. The use of the sensors with the proposed method is one of the novelties of this research, which improves the system’s performance and extends its life. The proposed control system involves employing the programs that emulate, test, and represent the system. As a result, this control operation provides continuous and reliable electricity to the load using sustainable energy sources at a rate that may reach 100% and optimally exploits the generated power.

KEYWORDS:

• PLC
• SCADA
• hydropower
• sustainable energy
• remote area
• control system

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).