Electrical hubs : an effective way to integrate non - dispatchable renewable energy sources 1 with minimum impact to the grid

a Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (LESO-PB), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), 4 CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. 5 b Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Moratuwa, 10400, Katubedda, Sri Lanka. 6 c Division of Building Physics, Department of Building and Environmental Technology, Lund University, Lund, 7 Sweden. 8 Abstract 9 A paradigm change in energy system design tools, energy market, and energy policy is required to attain the target 10 levels in renewable energy integration and in minimizing pollutant emissions in power generation. Integrating non11 dispatchable renewable energy sources such as solar and wind energy is vital in this context. Distributed generation 12 has been identified as a promising method to integrate Solar PV (SPV) and wind energy into grid in recent literature. 13 Distributed generation using grid-tied electrical hubs, which consist of Internal Combustion Generator (ICG), non14 dispatchable energy sources (i.e., wind turbines and SPV panels) and energy storage for providing the electricity 15 demand in Sri Lanka is considered in this study. A novel dispatch strategy is introduced to address the limitations in 16 the existing methods in optimizing grid-integrated electrical hubs considering real time pricing of the electricity grid 17 and curtailments in grid integration. Multi-objective optimization is conducted for the system design considering 18 grid integration level and Levelized Energy Cost (LEC) as objective functions to evaluate the potential of electrical 19 hubs to integrate SPV and wind energy. The sensitivity of grid curtailments, energy market, price of wind turbines 20 and SPV panels on Pareto front is evaluated subsequently. Results from the Pareto analysis demonstrate the potential 21 of electrical hubs to cover more than 60% of the annual electricity demand from SPV and wind energy considering 22 stringent grid curtailments. Such a share from SPV and wind energy is quite significant when compared to direct 23 grid integration of non-dispatchable renewable energy technologies. 24