May1727 - Standalone Hybrid Wind and Solar Generation System
As “Green” energy is a growing industry, implications are developing on the supporting architecture of the power grid. Building this hybrid power generation device will allow us to test the role renewable energy will have on peak loads and the necessary supporting architecture.
Project Statement
Our design project developed lab manuals and curriculum pertaining to hybrid wind and solar power generation. Specifically, EE 452, the Power Electronics class at Iowa State, has the means through hardware and software to give students this learning opportunity, but is lacking lab materials that cover important topics pertaining to renewable energy and microgrid environments. We accomplished this by first building simulations of a wind energy system, as well as a solar PV system in Simulink to gain a better understanding of our hardware. After we were certain that these simulations were working on an individual level, we integrated the two systems and documented the outcome to produce an array of lab manuals pertaining to:
An underlying goal of this project is to benefit the electrical engineering power department by leaving a usable lab document, as well as the hardware that goes along with it. We have the solar panel hardware functioning for the usage of the 452 lab and have gained access to a WESO wind turbine for future groups to use.
Objectives/Goals
- Design the hybrid system using software simulation in order to better understand its inner workings.
- Determine regulations and rules regarding wind turbine placement on campus. - Secondary: Work with WESO to gain access to a usable wind turbine for a portion of a semester.
- If possible or needed, upgrade the existing solar panel array with more efficient panels.
- Show through simulation that our wind and solar system would be a viable option for the EE 452 lab class.
- Create labs for EE 452 centered around the hybrid system so future ISU students can use the hybrid system as a learning tool.
