Nano-Grid: Design, Simulation and Energy Efficiency Optimization

Abstract

With the exponential growth in population and increase in usage of technology being a variable of that, world energy demand is also increasing exponentially and is expected to be doubled by the year 2060 according to the studies. Energy usage and production has a direct proportional factor that is pollution. In order to meet this increasing energy demand in future by keeping the environment pollution free, the conventional energy sources must be replaced with renewable energy sources. Pakistan being a third world country in a sever energy deficient situation but gifted with an important geolocation, in terms of solar irradiance, needs to move toward energy conservation and distribution generation. In this thesis 12 buildings of National University of Science and Technology (NUST) connected to 1 of 3 feeders are taken as case study for designing and simulating the energy efficient scenarios. The first layer of achieving energy efficiency is working on optimizing current connected load for which the load analysis of buildings is done and suggestions for improvements are made for the building of US Pakistan Centre for Advance Studies in Energy (USPCASE). The 2nd layer becomes the deployment of Distribution Generation (DG) in software and then simulating the whole system called nano grid for which three type of PV systems were designed for all 12 buildings and then simulated for an environment in which buildings can exchange energy among each other and ultimately net meter the surplus energy back into the grid. Financial analysis for 3 types of PV systems and sizes was performed in order to see which system is most economically viable.