Distributed Hybrid Renewable Polygeneration

for Indian Villages: Optimization Studies

Synopsis Submitted by

Avishek Ray

Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering)

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Faculty Council of Engineering & Technology
Jadavpur University
Kolkata, India

2018
1. Introduction

Energy and the growth of human civilization have close link. In every aspect of modern

human life there is a need of energy. With the industrial revolution the age of automation

evolved, i.e. the machines run on their own without any manual involvement in each step.

Then the demand of energy increased drastically and men was looking for more and more

energy resources. Energy has a direct relationship with the human development index (HDI).

The per capita energy consumption is an indicator of HDI.Over a long period, most of the

energy resources were harvested from fossil fuels like coal, oil etc. But these fossil fuels have

severe limitations of limited reserves.Also these fuels emit green house gases (GHG) on

combustion causinglocal pollution and other severeglobal environmental damage,say, global

warming. Till now in India electricity is mostly supplied from large centralized power plants,

mostly coal based. With several limitations of fossil fuel based power plants, renewable

options are also being explored. However, the renewable options are generally intermittent in

nature and needs either proper storage or hybridization of several resources to meet the

varying load. Hybrid polygeneration may be a suitable technology option for this purpose.

2. Literature Review

Presently, sustainable development is considered as the most rational goal. Energy

conversion and use is a very important aspect of this sustainable goal. Optimum uses of

resources, efficiency enhancement, demand side management etc are different aspects of

sustainable energy use. Both from the viewpoints of limited resource availability as well as

environmental impacts, use of fossil fuels are not sustainable in the long run. However,

during transition from fossil fuels to renewable options, efficient and environment-friendly

use of fossil fuels also has to be assured.

Polygeneration is considered as a possible sustainable energy solution that may use multiple

fuels with simultaneous delivery of several utilities. Overall efficiency increases significantly

if the system design and integration of sub-systems are done efficiently. Moreover several

alternative fuels may be used to improve resource utilization through proper fuel switching or

mixing with conventional fuels. Environmental impact also reduces with higher efficiency as

well as type of fuel used. Even CO2 capture is a natural option for delivering several utilities

in fossil fuel based polygenerations for liquid/gaseous fuel synthesis. Depending on desired

utility outputs and optimum use of available resources, hybrid systems integrating both

renewable and non-renewable resources with optimum capacity may be also sustainable.

3. Objectives

The objectives of this thesis are

 To design a polygeneration system delivering electricity and other utility outputs for

remote Indian villages

 Use of proper optimization algorithms for the design of the polygeneration systems

 Design of polygeneration system taking into consideration the constraints of resource

availability and other technical and socio-economic constraints

 Determination of the optimized capacities of the components

 Carrying out multi-objective optimization for optimized Levelized Cost of Electricity,

land requirement and Green House Gas emission

 Supplying power at 100% reliability meeting the load curve.

4. Organization of the thesis

In chapter 1, introduction of the thesis is presented. In this section, motivation and

background of the research is shown. In chapter 2, a brief literature review is presented to

show the present state of the art research which is already done in this area. The objective of

the work is decided accordingly. In chapter 3, single objective optimization for a remote

village in Sunderban area is carried out using linear programming where solar energy and

biomass are the inputs and electricity, ethanol and cooling are the utility outputs. In chapter 4,

another optimization is carried out with another set of inputs and output utilities. In this

chapter input of wind energy is considered along with the other forms of energy In chapter 5,

multi-objective optimization is carried out using metaheuristic algorithm (Cuckoo Search) for

a polygeneration system for a village located in a hilly terrain of India. A comparative study

of the performance of cuckoo search algorithm and other algorithms like genetic algorithm,

particle swarm optimization algorithm are performed. The objective functions were levelized

cost of electricity, land requirement and GHG emission. In chapter 6, optimization is carried

out to minimize the levelized cost of electricity using quantum inspired metaheuristic

algorithm. A brief discussion on the superiority of quantum inspired cuckoo search algorithm

and cuckoo search algorithm are performed.In chapter 7, conclusions and future scopes of

this study are presented.

4.Conclusions

The renewable energy systems have some limitations. The major difficulties are intermittency

and low capacity. Unlike fossil fuels, the renewable resources cannot be made available as

and when required i.e. following the demand according to the load curve. For this reason,

storage becomes inevitable for renewable energy systems. The most conventional form of

storage of electricity is using a battery. But it has serious limitations with respect to capital

cost, limited life and environmental impact regarding its disposal.

As polygeneration is a multi-input and multi-output system, so optimization of such systems

for proper capacity determination is an important issue. All the results show that addition of
more utilities into the integrated energy system i.e. polygeneration lowers the Levelized Cost

of Electricity. The study is carried out for villages of Sunderban deltaic region as well as for

a village of hilly Uttarakhand in India. Both these studies show that the Levelized Cost of

Electricity in polygeneration systems is competitive with grid power. The cost lies between

0.1 to o.3 USD/kWh. The increase in the reliability of power supply lowers the Levelized

Cost of Electricity which is an even better socially acceptable solution also.

 List of Publication

Book Chapters

1. Ray A, De S. Hybrid Renewable Multigeneration: Low Carbon Sustainable Solution

With Optimum Resource Utilization. Reference Module in Materials Science and
Materials Engineering (Elseivier) 2018. doi.10.1016/B978-0-12-803581-8.11036-7
2. Ray A, De S, Distributed Polygeneration Using Solar Energy: A Future Sustainable
Energy System for India; Applications of Solar Energy (Springer) 2018.doi
10.1007/978-981-10-7206-2_2
International Journal

1. Ray A, De S. Techno-economic optimization of a small scale distributed

polygeneration with local resources for a remote place of India. International
Journal of Ambient Energy (Taylor and Francis)(Under review)
2. Ray A, Jana K, Assadi M, De S, Distributed polygeneration using local resources for
an Indian village: multi-objective optimization using metaheuristic algorithm. Clean
Technologies and Environmental Policy (Springer) 2018. doi. 10.1007/s41660-
018-0053-2.
3. Ray A, De S. Polygeneration using renewable resources: Cost optimization using
linear programming. Process Integration and Optimization for Sustainability
(Springer) 2018. doi. 10.1007/s41660-018-0053-2.
4. Jana K, Ray A, Majoumerd MM, Assadi M, De S. Polygeneration as a future
sustainable energy solution- A comprehensive review. Applied Energy (Elseivier)
2017, 202, 88-111
5. Ray A, Jana K, De S. Polygeneration for an off-grid Indian village: Optimization by
economic and reliability analysis. Applied Thermal Engineering (Elseivier) 2017,
116, 182-196.

4. List of Patents: Nil

5. List of Presentations in National / International /

Conferences/Workshops/Symposiums:

1. Ray A, De S, Optimum design of a renewable based polygeneration using Flower

Pollination Algorithm,International Conference in Mechanical Engineering (INCOM
18), 4-6 January 2018, Kolkata, India.
2. Ray A, Assadi M, De S, Cost Optimization of a Polygeneration using Renewable
Resources, 6th International Conference on. Advances in Energy Research
2017(ICAER 2017), December 12–14, 2017, Mumbai, India.
3. RayA, Jana K, DeS,Assadi M, Optimum design of pv-wind-biomass-fuel cell based
polygenerationsystemby using meta heuristic algorithm, Proceedings of the
International Conference on Sustainable Energy and Environmental Challenges
(SEEC-2017), 26 – 28 February, 2017, Mohali, India.
4. Ray A, Jana K, De S.Optimum energy solution of a remote off-grid village with
polygeneration using local resources. International Conference on Renewable Energy
Extension and Outreach (REEO 2016) at ViswaBharati, Santiniketan, 20-21st March,
2016, India.