Abstract
Electricity is at the heart of modern economies and it is providing a rising share of energy services. Global demand for electricity is set to increase further as a result of rising household incomes, with the electrification of transport and heat, and growing demand for digital connected devices and air conditioning. Rising electricity demand was one of the key reasons why global CO\(_2\) emissions from the power sector reached a record high in 2018. In fact, as per the projections of International Energy Agency (IEA), electricity’s share in total final energy consumption is expected to increase from 19% in 2018 to at least 24% in 2040. One of the potentially effective approaches for providing universal access to electricity is community microgrids built on distributed energy resources (DER) such as photovoltaic (PV) systems and batteries. As DER can generate and store electricity locally, they can power microgrids. A microgrid is a group of interconnected loads and distributed energy resources within clearly defined electrical boundaries that acts as a single controllable entity. A set of microgrids can be interconnected together to form community microgrids. In a community microgrid (CM), prosumers and consumers can cooperate to generate, share and consume electricity. Such CMs minimise the use of fuels required by conventional power plants, reduce creation of waste, pollution and carbon emissions. Additionally, DERs such as solar panels reduce the need for fuels and manufacturing supplies for long periods as their expected lifetime is about 20 years. Moreover, in a CM, the excess energy generated by a producer can be shared with the other members of that CM thereby recycling the excess energy. In summary, community microgrids incorporate the principles of circularity or circular economy to enable universal access to electricity while reducing air pollution and thereby addressing the climate change.
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Notes
- 1.
A prosumer is a person (or entity) who consumes and produces a product [1].
- 2.
The phrases ‘electricity sector’ and ‘power sector’ are used interchangeably in this chapter.
- 3.
As this AC power system architecture is proven to be robust and reliable, power grids across the world are built based on this exactly same or similar architecture.
- 4.
When electric current flows through a material with finite conductivity, electrical energy is converted to heat. Joule’s first law states that the heat generated by such a material is proportional to the product of its ohmic resistance and the square of the current.
- 5.
Most recent data available is from the year 2014.
- 6.
Swanson’s law is the observation that the price of solar photovoltaic modules tends to drop 20% for every doubling of cumulative shipped volume [13]. It is important to note that Swanson’s law does not address the other costs such as labour costs and equipment costs.
- 7.
The comprehensive details of these and other characteristics are presented in the guide from MIT [14].
- 8.
It is defined as the current through the battery divided by the theoretical current draw under which the battery would deliver its nominal rated capacity in 1 h. The capacity of a battery is commonly rated at 1C, meaning that a fully charged battery rated at 1Ah should provide 1 A for 1 hour. The same battery discharging at 0.5 C should provide 500 mA for 2 hours, and at 2 C it delivers 2 A for 30 min.
- 9.
An electrochemical cell is a device capable of either generating electrical energy from chemical reactions or using electrical energy to cause chemical reactions.
- 10.
Power density is the amount of power (time rate of energy transfer) per unit volume [24].
- 11.
Fraction of radiation reflected to space by clouds and surfaces.
- 12.
A few illustrative tariffs are time-of-use (TOU) pricing, real-time pricing (RTP) and critical peak pricing (CPP).
- 13.
A few illustrative ones are direct load control (DLC), interruptible/curtailable (I/C) service, demand bidding/buyback (DB), emergency demand response programmes (EDRP), capacity market programmes (CMP) and ancillary services market programmes (ASMP).
- 14.
A set of solar panels connected in series is called a string, and a set of strings connected in parallel is called an array.
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Seetharam, D.P., Khadilkar, H., Ganu, T. (2021). Circular Economy Enabled by Community Microgrids. In: Liu, L., Ramakrishna, S. (eds) An Introduction to Circular Economy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8510-4_10
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