Print Email Facebook Twitter Optimal Configuration of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems for Islands' Energy Transition Title Optimal Configuration of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems for Islands' Energy Transition Author Fuchs Illoldi, Jorge (TU Delft Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science) Contributor Blok, K. (mentor) Degree granting institution Delft University of Technology Programme Electrical Engineering | Sustainable Energy Technology Date 2017-10-30 Abstract The world’s greenhouse gas emissions have steadily increased as a result of the continued use of fossil fuels, causing climate change. Nevertheless, sustainable energy technologies implementation has increased steadily in the last decade as society attempts to transition to a sustainable, zero emission energy system. The consequences of climate change are plentiful and represent a huge challenge for the whole world, but for islands they represent a threat to their existence.Islands rely on expensive imported fossil fuels for their energy supply, which not only contribute to climate change but represent a threat in terms of energy security. Nonetheless, they also have all the possibilities and incentives to become the world's leading example on how to transition to sustainable energy systems. Generally, islands possess abundant renewable resources which can be exploited and have smaller (less complex) systems compared to mainland grids. Moreover, many islands have set targets for renewable energy integration.However, in order for a transition to a sustainable energy system to happen there are multiple challenges that need to be overcome. One of the most important is lack of knowledge on the global potential of various sustainable energy technologies and their potential impact on the energy system. This thesis has investigated the potential effect that different conditions on power supply and electricity demand have on the cost-optimal configurations of hybrid renewable energy systems of islands. This was done by studying the roles of various generating technologies (PV, Wind, OTEC, tidal, WEC and biodiesel) on the supply side and scenarios regarding residential heat electrification and commercial cooling on the demand side. For this purpose, a general model was developed on which the proposed loads and the power system performance was evaluated. The system was optimized using multiobjective optimization with economic (LCOE) and renewable integration (coverage) objective functions by means of a non dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II). Eleven islands spread throughout the world were used as case studies. It was found that there is a strong business case for renewable energy on islands as LCOE decreases with their implementation. Mature technologies such as wind and PV often have an important role in the first stages of the transition with wind always being part of the cost-optimal configurations and favoured in the 0%-50% range of renewable integration and PV starting at 30\% and up to 70%. At higher levels their deployment is limited by the cost of storage and required overcapacities. Ocean technologies, particularly OTEC due to its baseload power generation, proved to have a potential role at higher integration shares starting in the range of 60% - 80%, greatly reducing energy curtailment. Finally, biodiesel was found to be important at the last stages limiting the cost and reducing overcapacity of generating and storage technologies.***This thesis was carried out at the Engineering, Systems and Services department of the Technology, Policy and Management Faculty. *** Subject Renewable energyOptimal ConfigurationislandSIDSenergy transitionocean energyOTECGenetic Algorithmoptimal sizing To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:9115fc4a-8589-4f6a-baa7-b4d868fdb5a8 Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights © 2017 Jorge Fuchs Illoldi Files PDF Final_thesis_report.pdf 19.22 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:9115fc4a-8589-4f6a-baa7-b4d868fdb5a8/datastream/OBJ/view