Joannes I. Laveyne

Solar Commercial Virtual Power Plant

Installed photo voltaic energy grew exponentially during the last decade. One of the driving forces was the often generous governmental support. In Belgium (Flanders) for example, investors could acquire green power certificates worth €450/MWh during several years. However, due to the large boom of solar plants and hence rising subsidy cost, governments are dropping this support (eg. €450/MWh in 2009 to €90/MWh in 2012 for Flanders). In this paper the authors investigate if solar energy can become more profitable if forces are joined in a Commercial Virtual Power Plant to sell the solar power on the wholesale market. The numbers are based on the Flemish region, however, the same procedure can be applied to other markets as well. It turned out that for existing installations the potential benefits are marginal due to the small share of the energy revenue compared to the subsidy revenue in the total income of a solar plant. However, lower subsidies and coupling with other production resources and (flexible) consumers promise to be more profitable, although this needs more investigation.

Solar commercial virtual power plant day ahead trading

During the past years, a large amount of photovoltaic (PV) capacity has been installed in Belgium. The main driver for this was the abundant government support (Green Power Certificates). However, during the last few years, the support for new installations has been withdrawn and new PV capacity ceased. In previous research, it has been proven that selling PV energy of existing plants directly on the wholesale market is not feasible due to the large share of green power certificates awarded to these plants. However, the price of green power certificates has dropped significantly and hence the balance between certificate and commodity revenue is restored. This paper investigates the risks and challenges of leaving the fixed rate system and trade directly on the more volatile day ahead markets while facing penalties resulting from wrong forecasts. It will be proven that nominating to much or not enough energy can be positive, but also yield large risks.

Increasing Economic Benefits by Load-shifting of Electrical Heat Pumps

Electrical heating is still widely used in the process industry. While the use of immersion heaters for the production of hot water or steam is declining, the adoption rate of electrical heat pumps is increasing rapidly. Heat pumps show great flexibility and potential for energy savings, e.g. through low temperature waste heat recuperation. In combination with thermal storage they also allow for load shifting. Because their main power source is electricity, which up to now cannot be stored efficiently, heat pumps can transpose their thermal load shifting ability to the electrical grid. Today, more and more industrial electricity consumers are adopting energy supply contracts with variable pricing parameters strongly coupled to the energy trading market. Some large consumers even buy and sell on this market directly. In this paper it is proven that for customers with (hourly) variable electricity pricing, the use of electrical heat pumps can lead to additional cost savings without influencing the industrial process. The yield of the heat pumps can be increased during hours with low energy cost, with the thermal buffer absorbing the heat surplus. During hours with high energy cost the heat pump yield is lowered and stored heat is used by the industrial process. Considering that heat can be stored much more efficiently than electricity, the load shifting ability of heat pumps can also be utilised to provide stability on electrical smart grids and to increase electrical self-consumption on microgrids. This paper will also explore the potential of thermal storage through heat pumps for these electrical smart grid applications.

Potential of domestically provided ancillary services to the electrical grid

In this paper we explore some methods to offer ancillary services by domestic demand response on a low voltage grid. These grids are becoming more and more inundated with decentralized renewable energy production, often leading to congestion issues. We show how domestically provided ancillary services can mitigate these problems. While demand response is already becoming established on large-scale installations, integration on a residential level poses some challenges toward cost and ease of integration. We present a solution that is both economic and non-intrusive and apply it on domestic electric water heaters. A project are where these solutions will be tested and verified is presented.

Development of a cloud-based renewable energy monitoring platform

Obtaining and maintaining large-scale datasets of actual measurements of a variety of different parameters typically requires significant effort by researchers or individuals. The monitoring of distributed renewable energy production across a wide geographical area is no different in this aspect. The increasingly pervasive availability of digital communication makes it possible to develop a computer system to automate these tasks. This paper describes the architecture of a large-scale multi-parameter Distributed Energy Monitoring System (DEMS) developed by Ghent University, which is currently being deployed in Flanders. Preliminary experiences with the rollout of this system are given, as well as relevant insights into the development and deployment of a general Wide-Area Measurement System (WAMS) for all kinds of energy production and consumption.