Abstract:
Direct relation of economic growth in a country and its energy production has always been selfevident. Currently, Pakistan is exploring its renewable resources vastly including solar energy
potential, in order to achieve clean and reliable energy goals. This births the need for effective
simulation and modeling of solar power generation across the country. A reliable framework that
generates accurate energy profiles of renewable power generation projects is lacking. Such
framework would further aid in cost effective integration of renewable projects in energy mix for
Pakistan. This research proposes modeling and simulation of PV solar power plants in Pakistan
for effective forecasting of solar power generation. This framework is aimed to be scalable and
robust enough that it proves efficient against conventional approaches towards power generation
profiling. The framework presented in this thesis starts with initially developing a dynamic model
for a PV solar power plant and developing its power generation profile using agent based
modelling (ABM) approach. The ABM methodology adopted in this research, unlike discrete
event modeling uses individual components as active components of the system by identifying
them and defining their behavior. These active components are termed as Agents and are solar
cells, solar modules, solar arrays, solar strings, dc combiner terminals, DC-AC inverters and
transformers in this framework. This research framework is successfully validated for generation
data acquired from 100MW Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park phase-1 Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan. This
implemented and validated PV solar power plant model will prove to be of vital resource for
integrating renewable power generation in existing power grid. This scalable dynamic model of
100MW solar plant will further aid in realistic analysis of the future dynamics associated with
renewable power generation projects.
