Author(s)

RAFAEL OMAR BATISTA, RUBEN DARIO RAMOS CIPRIAN, NESTOR FRANCISCO GUERRERO, JOSE MIGUEL SALAVERT, IDALBERTO HERRERA MOYA

Abstract

Remote coastal communities in developing countries face significant challenges for access to both electricity and freshwater. Water desalination systems emerge as a potential solution to provide freshwater, however their high energy requirements have been one of the main limitations for the deployment of such systems. Electrical microgrids are a decentralised alternative which can provide access to electricity for these communities. The impact of the integration of the water desalination systems to these electrical microgrids must be explored, to extend the auxiliary services that can be provided by a microgrid. This work seeks to analyse, by using numerical simulations, the design, integration and management of an electrical microgrid, where a part of its energy demand will be used by a desalination system. The developed methodology presents the creation of a model in MATLAB/Simulink^® with photovoltaic generation, residential loads, critical loads and the desalination system. A fuzzy logic controller is implemented for the energy management system, with the objective of maintaining the production of fresh water based on the electric energy demand of the various loads within the microgrid. This fuzzy logic model takes into consideration solar power production, variable electrical energy demand and critical loads with constant electrical energy demand. The simulation results demonstrate how it was possible to define a set of rules that allowed regulating the operation of the desalination system connected to the microgrid, making decisions to shape the demand curve handling the freshwater flow provided by the desalination system.

Keywords

desalination systems, microgrids, photovoltaic generation