Study on Technical Feasibility and Design of Grid Connected Solar PV Based Power Supply System for the Ethio-Djibouti Railway Line
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Date
2020-10
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In this thesis work the technical feasibility, design, and simulation of a single-phase grid-connected PV system is studied. The aim is to design and simulate a single-phase grid-connected PV system for railway traction applications. The design of a single-phase grid-connected PV system now days is applicable for residential, commercial, and also for large scale PV farms. To design and simulate the system, solar radiation of the site should be estimated well. Solar radiation of the site Adama, Metehara, Awash Arba, and Asebe Teferi is estimated by using temperature method and the average obtained results are 6.62 kWh/m2, 7.26 kWh/m2, 6.891 kWh/m2 and 6.45 kWh/m2 respectively. The accuracy of the estimated solar radiation values was tested by computing the MBE, RMSE, and MPE. The value of MBE and RMSE should be small as seen from the obtained results the estimated shows that the obtained value is minimum. The estimated MPE value should be in the range of (±10%) to testify the estimated value is accurate or not then, the result shows that MPE value is between in the range. The designed system to harass energy from the PV system shows that the designed power is enough to run the trainload. And also it saves 124,980.44 tons of Co2 emissions during the lifetime of the project. The designed thesis will be applicable for railway traction of Ethio-Djibouti railway routes specifically around Awash Arba sections. Design will be designed and simulated by using well know software Matlab/Simulink. The design consideration for this thesis is 1 MW to run the trainload based on the technical proposal of ERC the train load is 815.4 kW.
Boosting converter is used to step-up DC voltage due to the drawback of PV system efficiency. The simple and very popular perturbed and observe MPPT method is used in this thesis works to increase solar system efficiency. This MPPT produces a duty cycle that is dependent on PV module voltage and power. The output voltage of the boost converter ranges from 1500-1600 V.
The feasibility of the designed system is studied and it takes 4.61 years of payback and which is feasible. Based on the technical proposal of Ethiopian Railway Corporation daily and annual energy consumption of the trainload is calculated and the result obtained is 3686.05 kWh and 1345.4 MWh respectively. For this thesis research energy generated from the single-phase grid-connected PV system is estimated monthly and annually and the obtained result is 884564.85 kWh and 10415.036 MWh respectively.
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Keywords
Grid, MATLAB, Carbon emission, Feasibility, PV, Solar radiation, Railway