Fuzzy logic multiobjective optimization for stand-alone photovoltaic plants
The power generation by renewable energy sources involves a wide series of technical and economic problems, which condition its applications on a vast scale. Photovoltaic power generation presents many problems hardly to solve, such as: high cost in generating power and the power quality. In this background it is to insert the topic of optimal dimensioning of the PV power plants, meaning the achievement of an acceptable compromise between the power quality and the plant costs. This problem affects above all the small and medium size plants, such as: stand-alone PV domestic supply, where an incorrect dimensioning may cause difficulties to the functionality of the plant or higher costs. In this paper a method of optimal dimensioning of a PV power plant with battery storage is shown, but it is suitable to optimise also hybrid plants, which are based on the simultaneous presence of other and different energy sources. The project variables are the area and tilt of the PV modules and the accumulator capacity, whereas the project quality indexes (the objects to optimise) are the total plant cost and the supplied ratio of the electrical load. The calculation of the total ratio of load supplied was tackled using the availability method, which seems to be the one which best allows to make a long-term forecast, because of the systematic experimental studies over the last forty years and because of it correlates the solar radiation variability in the course of the day and of the year with the producible power. The economic cost has been calculated considering the plant's technical life, referring to current money all the future costs (by LCC, Life-Cycle Costing, method) and annualising them (by ALCC, Annualise Life-Cycle Costing, method) in order to obtain a total cost per kWh to compare with other power source costs. Particularly, the PV plant's cost has been related to the ALCC cost in case of supplying the electrical load connected to national grid. Since the objects of optimisation compete, it is applied a multiobjective optimisation technique, based on the fuzzy-logic theory. This technique requires to represent every optimisation object by a fuzzy-set which expresses the connection between the objects' value and the corresponding degree of satisfaction. In conclusion, the definition of a global fuzzy-set, which expresses the confluence between these values, allows to fix a single quality index to every project configuration. The discretion of the planner's selection has been fixed by the belonging functions to fuzzy-sets. These functions try to weigh, for every object, the judgement's classes, by themselves inaccurate, such as the concepts of satisfaction (referring to the power quality object) and of acceptable (referring to the cost object). The quality index, obtained in this way, reaches its maximum value using a deterministic scalar optimisation procedure, which leads the evolution of the project variables towards the best configuration. The optimisation method has been tested considering different kinds of site configurations with different values of the electrical loads, of the yearly power demand, of the distance from the grid and of the variable solar cells cost.
- Research Organization:
- Universita di Catania (IT)
- OSTI ID:
- 20000335
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 33rd Intersociety Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, Colorado Springs, CO (US), 08/02/1998--08/06/1998; Other Information: 1 CD-ROM. Operating system required: Windows 3.x; Windows95/NT; Macintosh; UNIX. All systems need 2X CD-ROM drive., PBD: 1998; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 33. intersociety energy conversion engineering conference, by Anghaie, S. [ed.], [2800] pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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