Exploring Alternative Energy Sources to Supplement and Cover the Downtime of Wind and Solar to Improve the Resilience of Smart Grids

Abstract

This technical paper, based on engineering application aiming to promote secure and cost effective energy solution to all whoever connected to Smart Grid in general and in particular to those who are in solar or wind powered communities. At present, the solar technology has some issues at implementation level. In order to gain more popularity and to increase the customer confidence, the main key points need to be addressed and fixed. Some of the key points that are degrading the performance are like (1) The inability of solar panel to deliver consistently at varying higher temperatures, (2) Accumulation of dust specifically in places like Rajastan (India) where it demands frequent cleaning, (3) Hard water issues for cleaning purpose and difficulties in maintaining soft water plants at solar powered communities, (4) Frequent clouds and rains. To overcome these lapses and compensate, at BEES we are exploring the possibilities to utilize other renewable sources. For instance, how the threats like rains / stored water will be put to use and convert to our advantage and compensate the solar losses and other lapses. As per the initial investigation into this, we understand that our integrated system can comfortably achieve 4 h lead in 8 h span of expected solar power having capacity of 5 KW. In this paper we are describing few methods to show how one can generate extra power which can either extend the number of energy available hours or compensate the circumstantial losses in Smart Grid because of environmental conditions.