The share of renewable energy sources in energy production is growing steadily. Domestic homes can be equipped with solar panels, micro combined heat and power systems, batteries, and they can become adaptive consumers. They can also deliver energy to the grid and react to the energy supply. This paper presents a hybrid simulation approach for the analysis of a grid of domestic homes equipped with different technological options with respect to efficiency and costs. For energy storage and energy flows the system dynamics modeling paradigm is used whereas control decisions are modeled as statecharts. The highly intermittent solar irradiation and also the electric power and heat demands are implemented as stochastic models. The component-based design allows for quick creation of new case studies. As examples, different homes with batteries, micro combined heat and power systems, or energy carrier carbazole as energy storage are analyzed. In the transformation of the traditional energy system towards a more sustainable system it is commonly assumed that decentralized approaches will play a dominant role. To achieve this goal, various technological possibilities have been suggested. Choosing the right option becomes very difficult even for a single household but also on a larger scale, e.g., for national economies and related incentive systems. Relevant technologies comprise photovoltaics and wind turbines for a completely regenerative but volatile generation as well as micro combined heat and power systems based on, e.g., motors or fuel cells. Storage of energy is possible in water tanks for heat and in batteries for electricity. Furthermore, liquid carriers such as carbazole have been suggested (Teichmann et al. 2011) , which is similar to Diesel and can bind hydrogen at very good densities, leading to much larger storage capacities than batteries. To utilize carbazole as an energy storage, a fuel cell and catalyzers are required and at the hydrogenation of the liquid heat is produced, whereas for dehydrogenation heat is required. In all cases heat and power must be considered together in order to find efficient and profitable solutions. Additional degrees of freedom arise when houses with regenerative technologies cooperate. In this paper a flexible simulation framework is proposed in order to investigate such energy systems. For this purpose, basic components of decentralized energy systems are provided which can be connected in various ways. The basic components describe solar modules (as typically installed on house roofs) together with a stochastic model of fluctuating solar insolation, gas burners and water tanks as needed for conventional heating, micro combined heat and power systems based on fuel cells, batteries as well as carbazole storages. Two further basic components represent stochastic models of electricity and heat demand in typical European households. The basic components are then combined in order to form three prototype regenerative houses: a "battery house" (with a solar module, a battery and a conventional gas heating), a "µCHP house" (with a solar module, a battery and micro combined heat and power), and a 978-1-4673-4780-8/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
In REF the authors develop a model of a gas station micro grid which is connected to PV panels as well as storage devices.
Hybrid simulation of renewable energy generation and storage grids
WSC '12
Computer Science