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Research Scholar, Electrical Engineering Department, Integral University , Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh , India
Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department, Integral University , Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh , India
This article includes the design, performance assessment, and cost analysis of an 83.2 kWp rooftop solar PV-powered grid-integrated microgrid at a Government Girls Polytechnic institute in Lucknow, India. The evaluation of performance was based on PVsyst software and one year of net-metering real-time data according to the IEC-61724 requirements. Load profiling indicated that academic and residential blocks use more than 70% of the total electricity, and hence, a proficient management strategy is required. To overcome this, a priority-based energy management scheme (EMS) was built, which is based on using a Siemens PLC to dynamically alternate between critical and non-critical loads, depending on the day/night operating conditions. The comparison of the traditional base case with the proposed EMS with a 5-kW battery backup shows that technical and economic advantages have been made. These results are statistically validated, where the energy costs per day come down sharply (p = 0.0002), as do the peak load demands (p = 0.0007). Moreover, the implementation resulted in a high reduction in the reliance on Diesel Generator (DG) by an average of 90 kWh/day (p = 0.0001), which basically reduced the carbon footprint of the institution. The battery storage system helped increase reliability because it charged when the system was in peak demand, which guaranteed continuous power to high-priority areas without incurring penalty loads due to peak loads. The findings validate the fact that a priority-based switching with battery backup is the most efficient way of optimizing the performance of the microgrids, and it offers an affordable, scalable, and long-term solution to institutional energy systems.
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