The expansion of photovoltaic plants has increased significantly within the EU and in Sweden, where a contributing cause has been a higher environmental thinking and lower prices for solar cell installations. Interest in installing solar cells has increased in society as a whole and an increasing number of municipalities are interested in solar cells. One of these municipalities is Forshaga municipality, which strives to be climate neutral until 2030. This study examined whether a number of selected municipal properties in the Forshaga municipality were suitable for installing solar cells based on the degree of self-use and the degree of self-sufficiency and the electricity cost of produced electricity (LCOE - Levelized cost of energy). The study also examined whether these selected properties would be suitable for solar cells if certain conditions were changed to simulate that they were located in another location with different conditions. Of the properties included in the study, there was a care home, two schools, Forshaga municipal house, a wastewater treatment plant and a waterplant. Of the examined municipal properties, a school, the nursing home and the municipal house were considered most suitable for solar cells based on the above criteria. The property that was considered most suitable was the Grossbolskolan which was the smaller of the two schools. Grossbolskolan had a self-utilization rate and a self-sufficiency rate of 87 and 15 percent respectively and the lowest cost for the produced electricity by about 0.88 SEK/kWh. The municipal house and the care home had a slightly higher production cost for the produced electricity. Some conclusions could be drawn from the part of the study that examined whether the properties were suitable for mounting solar cells if they had been placed in another location with other conditions. One conclusion was that the properties should have a similar electricity consumption as the investigated properties in this study, with a higher electricity consumption daytime when the solar cells produce the most to obtain a high self-use. The degree of selfuse was highest for the plants that were located in the east / west direction, which indicates that the electricity consumption in these type properties was more suitable for solar cell installations whose production is more widespread throughout the day. In order for the repayment period not to exceed the assumed life expectancy of the solar cell plant of 25 years, the self-use rate should not be less than 50 to 60 percent. Finally, the study also found that the properties recommended as suitable had between 1 - 3.5 m2 solar cells / MWh annual electricity use in the property, which can be used as a guideline value to see if the property is suitable for solar cells. If this value were lower, the self-sufficiency rate was low, if it was greater, the self-utilization rate was low.

In a risk situation the flow through a hydropower turbine must be reduced under a short amount of time. The reduction in flow causes low pressures in the region called draft tube under the runner in the turbine. If the pressure drops below vapor pressure the water in the turbine may evaporate and form large cavities. The phenomenon called water column separation describes the situation when these cavities of vapor forms and eventually collapses which may damage the unit and canbe a danger to personnel at site. Different types of flow reducing maneuvers are tested before commissioning turbines in order to detect dangerously low pressures but these measurements can be difficult to interpret. The measured draft tube pressure can be filtered numerous ways and in addition other measured or calculated parameters must be studied to fully understand the consequence of a measured emergency stop. In this paper the different ways of filtering and interpreting the measurements from stops in Kaplan turbines were analyzed. The results show that the choice of filtering method can significantly impact the interpretation of a stop and that the filter parameters often used do not result in equivalent results. The standard way to filter draft tube pressure with moving average filters is shown to result in much higher draft tube pressures than low-pass filters and the filter parameter used needs to be further investigated to correctly isolate pressures caused by water column separation. The main difference between different companies when it comes to these measurements are the used cutoff frequency when using low-pass filters and the sampling frequency of measurements.

This thesis will investigate possible energy storages in Luleå Energi’s power grid within a five-year period. The transition to a more sustainable and efficient energy system, in response to climate change, creates new challenges for the power grid. Energy storage has, according to many sources, the potential to contribute to meet the challenges that arise from a larger share of intermittent renewables, a growing number of electrical vehicles and increased demands for reliability and stability. Several reports conclude that currently energy storages are most profitable in customer applications, especially in combination with micro-production, e.g. solar cells. Therefore, this report will investigate if battery storages could be installed in three multi-residential properties with solar cells, with the purpose to increase self-use of electricity generated from the solar cells and peak-shaving. Batteries have been chosen as storage technology, since they currently seem to be the technology with the most potential. Possible savings for the customer as well as potential benefits for the grid will be considered. Based on data for the properties’ consumption and solar power production, an analysis has been made to see how much excess electricity the solar cells generate and to identify peak demands. Regarding the solar cells, data has only been available for a few months. For other days, the production has been estimated base on measurements of global radiation over Luleå municipality. A simulation in MATLAB has then been carried out to dimension the battery. When customers connect micro-production to the grid, the voltage may rise above permissible limits, especially in weaker rural grids. As a result, reinforcements of the grid may be necessary, which means expenses for the grid owner. Installation of a battery, that can store energy and keep the voltage within permissible limits, could be an alternative. The report considers such a case and makes a comparison between reinforcements of the grid and installation of a battery.   The results of the report show that energy storages have several potential benefits, both for customers, grid owners and system operators. Forecasts point to a strong growth, as well as lowered battery prices, which could lead to investments that are more profitable. The study of installing a battery in properties with solar cells shows that an increased self-use and peak shaving is possible. However, the economic results show negative net values. This means that currently the investment is not profitable. Approximately, battery prices must be cut in half to reach profitability. The calculation concludes that power tariffs enables most savings for the customers and gives them incentives for peak-shaving. The report also shows that the amount of micro-production in a rural grid can be limited by the strength of the grid. If five customers in the investigated part of the grid each would install 8.6 kW solar power, the voltage rise at the point of common coupling would go above permissible values, and the grid would have to be reinforced. The economical comparison between investing in new cables and installing a battery storage shows that currently, a battery storage is more expensive than a new cable. The overall conclusion from the report is that energy storage has the potential to contribute to the transition of the energy system. However, regulations and battery prices currently limit the possibilities for profitable investments. It is recommended to do an oversight of regulations and new business models to enable more investments in energy storage. Studying alternative tariffs is also important, to create incentives for a more efficient use of the power grid.

This thesis studied the possibilities to monitor disconnectors’ operating times to indicate when maintenance needs to be performed. The main hypothesis of this study was that the operational time in a disconnector manoeuvre, open or close, correlates with the resistance in the mechanical components. If the operational time deviates too much from the baseline duration, then this may indicate that the disconnector needs to be maintained. Five substudies were conducted to study if it was possible to monitor the operating time and if the logged operating times had been affected by external conditions. Together they illustrated it might be possible to monitor operating times, but this study cannot state it with certainty based on the available data. From the results, it was possible to see that normal operating times for disconnectors varied within a group of disconnectors of the same type and manufacturer. Why it differed within groups of the same type and manufacturer might be explained by the effects of external conditions. It was shown that a varying transfer time occurred when logging the operation times in the front end processor. Furthermore, the year of production of the disconnector affected the median operating time, but it did not affect the operating time in an intuitive way, that is the operating time did not get longer for older disconnectors. Also, the geographical position of the disconnector may affect the operating time. When these external conditions were considered, disconnectors were concluded necessary to be studied individually. If disconnectors would be studied individually condition monitoring might be possible, although, it is not possible at the moment because of the lack of observations per disconnector.

Fjärrvärme är den vanligaste uppvärmningsformen i Sverige. Mer är 50 % av alla lokaler och bostäder använder fjärrvärme som värmekälla. Fjärrvärmens grundtanke är att centralisera värmeproduktionen och producera värme storskaligt vid ett eller flera värmeverk. Värmen från värmeverken distribueras till lokaler och bostäder med värmebehov via fjärrvärmeledningar som ligger nedgrävda i marken. Hos varje kund som är ansluten till fjärrvärmenätet finns en fjärrvärmecentral med en värmeväxlare. I värmeväxlaren överför fjärrvärmevattnet värme till fastighetens interna värmesystem. Det avkylda fjärrvärmevattnet pumpas tillbaka i en returledning till värmeverket för att värmas upp igen. Fjärrvärmens distributionssystem utvecklats genom åren. I Sverige är systemen förlagda med andra och tredje generationens fjärrvärme. Tredje generationen fjärrvärme som är den metod som används idag. För att sänka utsläpp från produktionsanläggningar och uppnå nationella och globala miljömål jobbar energibolagen för att uppnå effektivare energianvändning. Ett sätt att effektivisera energianvändningen är att minimera värmeförlusterna i fjärrvärmens distributionssystem. Det här examensarbetet har för avsikt att undersöka skillnader i värmeförluster hos fjärrvärmesystem av andra generationen och fjärrvärmesystem av tredje generationen. Arbetet undersöker om det lönar sig ekonomiskt att byta ut de äldre ledningarna mot nyare med avseende på värmeförlusterna. Simuleringar av de olika systemen redovisar energiförlusterna i framledningen i systemet i watt per meter. Återbetalningstid och miljöpåverkan beräknas med hjälp av indata från energibolagen. Energibolagen har bistått med indata genom en strukturerad intervju. Resultatet visar sig att värmeförlusterna inte kan motivera utbyte av ledningarna på egen hand. Tillsammans med andra faktorer så som vattenläckage och reparationskostnader kan värmeförlusterna vara en viktig faktor att ta hänsyn till i en reinvesteringskalkyl. Med tanke på fjärrvärmeproduktionens främst använder förnybara bränslen går det inte heller att se några positiva miljöeffekter genom att byta ut ledningarna. / District heating is the most common type of heating in Sweden. More than 50% of all premises and homes use district heating as a heat source. The concept of District heating is to centralize heat production and produce heat on a large scale at one or more heating plants. The heat from the heating plants is distributed to premises and houses with heat demand via district heating pipes that are buried in the ground. At each customer who is connected to the district heating network, there is a district heating center with a heat exchanger. In the heat exchanger, the district heating water exchange heat to the property's internal heating system. The cooled district heating water is pumped back into a return line to the heating plant to be reheated.   The district heating distribution system has developed over the years. In Sweden, the sytems in use is second-generation district heating and third-generation district heating, which is the method used today. In order to reduce emissions from production facilities and achieve national and global environmental goals, the energy companies work to achieve more efficient energy use. One way of making energy use more efficient is to minimize the heat losses in the district heating distribution system. This thesis aims to investigate differences in heat losses of second-generation district heating systems and third-generation district heating systems. The work investigates whether it is economically feasible to replace the older lines with regard to heat losses.   Simulations of the various systems calculates the energy losses in the supply system in watts per meter. Repayment time and environmental impact are calculated using input data from the energy companies. The energy companies have assisted with input through a structured interview.   The result shows that the heat losses cannot justify the exchange of the pipes on their own. Along with other factors such as water leakage and repair costs, heat losses can be an important factor to consider in a reinvestment calculation. Considering district heat production mainly using renewable fuels, it is not possible to see any positive environmental effects either by replacing the pipes.

Intermittent nature of renewable energy sources like the wind and solar energy poses new challenges to harness and supply uninterrupted power for consumer usage. Though, converting energy from these sources to useful forms of energy like electricity seems to be promising, still, significant innovations are needed in design and construction of wind turbines and PV arrays with BS systems. The main focus of this research project is mathematical modelling and control of wind turbines, solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays and battery storage (BS) systems. After careful literature review on renewable energy systems, new developments and existing modelling and controlling methods have been analysed. Wind turbine (WT) generator speed control, turbine blade pitch angle control (pitching), harnessing maximum power from the wind turbines have been investigated and presented in detail. Mathematical modelling of PV arrays and how to extract maximum power from PV systems have been analysed in detail. Application of model predictive control (MPC) to regulate the output power of the wind turbine and generator speed control with variable wind speeds have been proposed by formulating a linear model from a nonlinear mathematical model of a WT. Battery chemistry and nonlinear behaviour of battery parameters have been analysed to present a new equivalent electrical circuit model. Converting the captured solar energy into useful forms, and storing it for future use when the Sun itself is obscured is implemented by using battery storage systems presenting a new simulation model. Temperature effect on battery cells and dynamic battery pack modelling have been described with an accurate state of charge estimation method. The concise description on power converters is also addressed with special reference to state-space models. Bi-directional AC/DC converter, which could work in either rectifier or inverter modes is described with a cost effective proportional integral derivative (PID/State-feedback) controller.

This report was written as an examination thesis at Mälardalen University in Västerås, Sweden. The subject of the report is to research whether a theoretical single-family home with already installed district heating system for heating and hot water supply should keep it, replace it with a geothermal heat pump or keep it and use it in combination with a smaller air to water heat pump. The report is uses data from the Swedish government institute of Boverket (Literally: Living institute), along with other sources, to construct a model of an average Swedish house and simulate it in the energy simulation program IDA-ICE. This simulation yielded the data needed to conclude which system would be the cheapest in the long run. Thereafter LCC calculations on said data was used to the determine the cost over a 20-year period for the given systems. The report concludes that the model corresponds with the results from Boverket and is therefore an accurate representation of an average single-family home and that the district heating should be replaced with a geothermal heat pump.

Commercial Buildings and complexes are no longer just national heat and power network energy loads, but they are becoming part of a smarter grid by including their own dedicated local heat and power generation. They do this by utilising both heat and power networks/micro-grids. A building integrated approach of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) generation with photovoltaic power generation (PV) abbreviated as CHPV is emerging as a complementary energy supply solution to conventional (i.e. national grid based) gas and electricity grid supplies in the design of sustainable commercial buildings and communities. The merits for the building user/owner of this approach are: to reduce life time energy running costs; reduce carbon emissions to contribute to UK’s 2020/2030 climate change targets; and provide a more flexible and controllable local energy system to act as a dynamic supply and/or load to the central grid infrastructure. The energy efficiency and carbon dioxide (CO2) reductions achievable by CHP systems are well documented. The merits claimed by these solutions are predicated on the ability of these systems being able to satisfy: perfect matching of heat and power supply and demand; ability at all times to maintain high quality power supply; and to be able to operate with these constraints in a highly dynamic and unpredictable heat and power demand situation. Any circumstance resulting in failure to guarantee power quality or matching of supply and demand will result in a degradation of the achievable energy efficiency and CO2 reduction. CHP based local energy systems cannot rely on large scale diversity of demand to create a relatively easy approach to supply and demand matching (i.e. as in the case of large centralised power grid infrastructures). The diversity of demand in a local energy system is both much greater than the centralised system and is also specific to the local system. It is therefore essential that these systems have robust and high performance control systems to ensure supply and demand matching and high power quality can be achieved at all times. Ideally this same control system should be able to make best use of local energy system energy storage to enable it to be used as a flexible, highly responsive energy supply and/or demand for the centralised infrastructure. In this thesis, a comprehensive literature survey has identified that there is no scientific and rigorous method to assess the controllability or the design of control systems for these local energy systems. Thus, the main challenge of the work described in this thesis is that of a controller design method and modelling approach for CHP based local energy systems. Specifically, the main research challenge for the controller design and modelling methodology was to provide an accurate and stable system performance to deliver a reliable tracking of power drawn/supplied to the centralised infrastructure whilst tracking the require thermal comfort in the local energy systems buildings. In the thesis, the CHPV system has been used as a case study. A CHPV based solution provides all the benefits of CHP combined with the near zero carbon building/local network integrated PV power generation. CHPV needs to be designed to provide energy for the local buildings’ heating, dynamic ventilating system and air-conditioning (HVAC) facilities as well as all electrical power demands. The thesis also presents in addition to the controller design and modelling methodology a novel CHPV system design topology for robust, reliable and high-performance control of building temperatures and energy supply from the local energy system. The advanced control system solution aims to achieve desired building temperatures using thermostatic control whilst simultaneously tracking a specified national grid power demand profile. The theory is innovative as it provides a stability criterion as well as guarantees to track a specified dynamic grid connection demand profile. This research also presents: design a dynamic MATLAB simulation model for a 5-building zone commercial building to show the efficacy of the novel control strategy in terms of: delivering accurate thermal comfort and power supply; reducing the amount of CO2 emissions by the entire energy system; reducing running costs verses national rid/conventional approaches. The model was developed by inspecting the functional needs of 3 local energy system case studies which are also described in the thesis. The CHPV system is combined with supplementary gas boiler for additional heating to guarantee simultaneous tracking of all the zones thermal comfort requirements whilst simultaneously tracking a specified national grid power demand using a Photovoltaics array to supply the system with renewable energy to reduce amount of CO2 emission. The local energy system in this research can operate in any of three modes (Exporting, Importing, Island). The emphasise of the thesis modelling method has been verified to be applicable to a wide range of case studies described in the thesis chapter 3. This modelling framework is the platform for creating a generic controlled design methodology that can be applied to all these case studies and beyond, including Local Energy System (LES) in hotter climates that require a cooling network using absorption chillers. In the thesis in chapter 4 this controller design methodology using the modelling framework is applied to just one case study of Copperas Hill. Local energy systems face two types of challenges: technical and nontechnical (such as energy economics and legislation). This thesis concentrates solely on the main technical challenges of a local energy system that has been identified as a gap in knowledge in the literature survey. The gap identified is the need for a controller design methodology to allow high performance and safe integration of the local energy system with the national grid infrastructure and locally installed renewables. This integration requires the system to be able to operate at high performance and safely in all different modes of operation and manage effectively the multi-vector energy supply system (e.g. simultaneous supply of heat and power from a single system).

This thesis develops an analytical model of a small-scale solar central receiver power plant located at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California at 35.28° N, 120.66° W. The model is used to analyze typical energy output at any time during the year. The power plant is designed to produce an output of 100 kW electrical power, and is supplemented by the combustion of natural gas. Methodologies for determining the proper size and layout of heliostats, optimal tower height, receiver size, and turbine engine selection are developed. In this specific design, solar shares of up to 73.2% and an annual average of 44% are possible through the use of a gas-solar hybrid microturbine engine. Larger solar shares are not possible due to the limited size of land (about 0.5 acres used for this project) which limits the number of possible heliostat installations.

Energy company Vattenfall AB has set an ambitious goal in trying to transform their business into a climate neutral and more resource effective company - all within thetime frame of one generation. Through the business concept “SamEnergi” within the heat sector, Vattenfall looks for district heating customers who are willing to sell heat at a price corresponding to Vattenfall’s own production cost. This report examines the change in ordinary heat production in the partially Vattenfall-owned district heating system in the city of Ludvika, Sweden, arising from the delivery of waste heat from a data center to the system. The data center delivers 1 MW heat at 60 degrees Celsius which is lower than the desired temperature in the district heating grid. The change in ordinary heat production is evaluated in four different scenarios where each scenario represents a way to connect the heat source to the district heating grid, so that the delivery temperature to the costumer is not affected. In two of the scenarios, the data center is placed on site of the main heat production units. For all four scenarios, the ability to deliver heat during normal annual fluctuations in flow and temperature in the district heating grid are assessed. Also, in one scenario the effecton a flue gas condenser is considered. The heat production for a normal year is then modelled and simulated using an optimization software called BoFiT, with and without the excess heat. The results show that the 1 MW excess heat is worth between 0,9 and 1,8 million SEK depending on how the heat is delivered. The lowest value of the excess heat source comes from the scenario requiring a heat pump. The other three scenarios yield similar savings on the ordinary production. The best scenario is when the waste heat is delivered together with the main production unit.