EE final year project

-by project group 6

BBIT, diploma, 3rd

year

POWER SYSTEM REVOLUTION

This project is just a conceptual model of the future of our power system infrastructure, i.e. the infrastructure layout, parameters, devices and circuit equipments, shown in this model may be different form the reality. Nothing but the concept, shown in this model, should be compared with the real power system infrastructure. The theme of this project covers a huge part of electrical of electrical engineering. However, within the limited time and budget, we have managed to do enough studies and team work to try and make it possible to present this model in due time.

Declaration

Members of the group:

This project is made by a group of ten students of Electrical

Engineering (diploma) from Budge Budge Institute if Technology,

Budge Budge

• Dhrubojyoti Aich

• Arpan Ghosh

• Rahul Dalui

• Subrata Pal

• Rupak Das

• Arijit Basu

• Suman Pal

• Kaushik Das

• Souvik Gorai

• Sanjoy Bhandary

• Revolution in generation• Revolution in transmission• Smart operation control centre

• Unreliable availability of renewable sources• High capital cost of HVDC

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Contents

• Current power system infrastructure• Problems in our current power system

• Introduction to power system• Theme of the project

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Introduction

Starting from the conductors, wound up around the armatures of generators, ending at the sockets of our house, the alternating current has to face problems like corona effect, ferranti effect, power factor drop, skin effect etc. Upto 16% of power generated is lost in the grid like water from a leaking pipe. To counter this problem, many countries like China and USA are adapting HVDC system for transmission. It dramatically improves power factor flow, reliability and stability and reduces losses effectively. HVDC is the technology behind the trend towards super grids that interconnect countries, regions and even continents.It is a matter of concern that the present power system will not be the same in near future. In modern world, we use twenty thousand million, million watt-hours of electricity per year. It is expected to nearly double in the next twenty year. But unfortunately the natural sources (fuel) for this power are limited. Soon all the non-renewable sources on the earth will be used. We have to move on to the renewable sources as soon as possible.

But, are we prepared for the upcoming change in the Indian traditional power system?

Project report

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Human beings have known about electrical phenomena for thousands of years.

Yet when we speak about electricity today, the meaning is much more complex.

When we press a switch on the switch board, we access electricity. But this electric

power has to pass many different stages to serve us. It is first generated at the

power plants, then it is transmitted through long distance cables and finally it is

distributed to the consumers. This whole system is called “power system” & the

total network of electricity, starting from the power plants to the consumers’

houses, offices and large industries, is called “the grid”.

Our present

power system

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As we all know, India’s current power system is divided into three stages that

are power generation, transmission and distribution. Electric power is

generated in the power plants, then it is transmitted by the transmission lines

and finally distributed to the consumers.

Project report

Electric power is usually generated using the principles developed by Michele Faraday. Copper wire wrapped around a shaft or armature is spun in a magnetic field. The motion of the magnetic field relative to the copper wire causes the electrons to flow in the wire, creating electricity. The generating station, where electric power is generated, is also called power station or power plant or powerhouse. The generated electric power (usually 11-25 KV, AC) is then carried by the transmission lines.

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India became the world's third largest producer of electricity in the year 2013 surpassing Japan and Russia.Power plants, where the electricity is generated, are generally situated at a significant distance from the human habitats to avoid problems caused by pollutions and also for safety purposes. The voltage of the generated energy can be from 15 to 25 KV or greater depending on the plant capacity. The generated electricity is carried to the nearest substation by primary feeders which are generally under grounded.

After reaching the substation, the electricity is stepped up to a higher voltage, generally 132, 220 or 400 KV to achieve greater efficiency. Increase in the voltage causes decrease in the current resulting in lower loss in the transmission lines.The present transmission system is 3 phase, high voltage AC transmission. The line frequency is 50 Hz all over the grid. After transmission, the electricity reaches another substation where the voltage is stepped down using step down transformer.

The voltage is first stepped down to 11KV by the sub-station transformers and distributed to the high voltage consumers like Indian railways. The other part of the electricity is further stepped down to a lower voltage, that

is 440 or 220 Volt and distributed to secondary consumers. And thus we get electricity in the socket of our house whenever we switch it on.

Project report

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The total network of electricity, starting from the power plants to the consumers’ houses, offices and large industries, is called “the grid”. All the 5 major regional grids in India are inter connected to produce uninterrupted, stable and reliable supply to the consumers. If one of the grids face a sudden failure, the other active grids continues to supply the necessary electric power to the affected region. This is how a national grid system works.

Beyond national grid network, India is connected with the neighbouring countries Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh. India also has proposed links with Pakistan, and Sri Lanka through an international grid network to meet the ever growing energy demand in these countries.

Project report

This was a quick overview of our power system. Sadly, this infrastructure of power

system is going to be outdated soon as we have to face many problems due to the

ever growing energy demand, transmission and distribution losses, stability and

customer dissatisfaction issues.

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Project report

Energy( MU)

Peak (MW)

Requirements 933741 136193

Availability 837374 118676

Surplus -96367 -17517

Surplus % -10.3% -12.9%

Power supply shortage is a significant problem in Indian power system. The gap between demand and supply has always been huge for India.

About 67% of the total energy in India comes

from the non-renewable sources. But the

problem is, at the current rate of use, all the natural sources or

fuels will soon be finished. We have to

move on to the renewable sources for

power generation as soon as possible.

NATURAL SOURCES

RENEWABLE SOURCES

AC transmission line current has to face losses due to corona effect, ferrenti effect, power factor drop, skin effect etc. Up to 16% of power generated is lost in the grid like water from a leaking pipe.

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Revolution in our

power system

Our power system infrastructure hasn’t changed much in the past. But as

technology becomes more advanced and the demand for electricity is getting

higher day by day, we need to upgrade our power system. In our project, we

will try to have an idea about those upcoming changes through a model. We

will also try to guess the challenges to overcome, and of course, how to

overcome them.

For example, India has gifted us so many rivers. They are perfect for hydro electric plants. Also the sun rays fall on India almost perpendicularly. It is perfect for solar energy conversion. The large coastal areas are suitable for wind farms. And also the huge amount of crops and castles are perfect to produce enough waste products that can be converted into biomass and sources like solar, hydro & wind energy bio gas..

About 70% of total energy in India is generated in thermal power plants by burning fossil fuels. But unfortunately India cannot stay dependent on coal and natural gas for forever. Good news is that India has a large scope of utilising the renewable sources like hydro electric, solar and wind power. The sooner India adapts to the new energy format, the better for both us and our eco system. India has a large scope of utilising the core renewable

Project report

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Currently, high voltage AC transmission is the most dominating way for power transmission in India.But in certain cases, it makes sense to use HVDC.It’s not like HVDC should replace the HVAC, but we can use their combination, as they both have their own advantages and limitations. The concept of delivering renewable energy with HVDC transmission lines will bring more advantages to the power system as we can easily store the dc energy for future use.

In HVDC system, the power is converted from AC to DC before transmission. And inverted back to AC after transmission. This whole system brings us many advantages for bulk power transmission. As direct current has no reactive component, the transmission line losses due to inductance and capacitance are zero. By using HVDC technology, we can also get rid of other problems like skin effect, proximity effect, Ferranti effect etc. Moreover, only 2 conductors are required instead of 3 to transmit DC power.

Practically HVDC will allow us to use longer submarine cables to feed current from offshore wind turbines.In HVDC system, the power is converted from AC to DC before transmission. And inverted back to AC after transmission. This whole system brings us many advantages for bulk power transmission. As direct current has no reactive component, the transmission line losses due to inductance and capacitance are zero. By using HVDC technology, we can also get rid of other problems like skin effect, proximity effect, Ferranti effect etc. Moreover, only 2 conductors are required instead of 3 to transmit DC power.Practically HVDC will allow us to use longer submarine cables to feed current from offshore wind turbines to the substation; and also to use longer underground cables.And the best advantage of HVDC is that it can help us to interconnect with other nations as it has no frequency variation. The ability of international inter-connection will take the stability of our power system to a whole new level.

Project report

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In future, it will be easy for the utility companies to get advance warnings of a fault or power failure along with the location and cause of the fault. So they can get prepared and remotely repair the fault,so that the customers can enjoy uninterrupted, high quality power supply.This will be called smart grid technology. Through this technology, the utility companies can access the necessary information in real time. Information like energy that is being generated, energy stored in the storages and also the information about energy usage of individual consumers will be directly sent to the utility companies while it is happening.Not only the utility companies, also the consumers can access information about their energy usage, the cost of energy at that particular time, advance warnings about a power failure, also the cause and location of the faults through internet.

In future, it will be easy for the utility companies to get advance warnings of a fault or power failure along with the location and cause of the fault. So they can get prepared and remotely repair the fault,so that the customers can enjoy uninterrupted, high quality power supply.This will be called smart grid technology. Through this technology, the utility companies can access the necessary information in real time. Information like energy that is being generated, energy stored in the storages and also the information about energy usage of individual consumers will be directly sent to the utility companies while it is happening.Not only the utility companies, also the consumers can access information about their energy usage, the cost of energy at that particular time, advance warnings about a power failure, also the cause and location of the faults through internet. Now by analysing the data received from the consumers, energy plants, and power storages, they can manage the supply to meet the demand with great effectiveness.

Project report

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Project report

Challenges to

overcome

To make this project a reality we will have to face many challenges to overcome. We

will try to guess some of the most important challenges and also try find a way to

solve them.

A major problem with renewable energy sources is its fluctuating nature of availability. For example, the sun isn’t available 24 hours a day, also everyday may not be a sunny day. Same goes for wind and hydro energy also.

To encounter this problem, we have to give a considerable importance to energy storage systems. We have to store the energy that we generate. There is a large number of variants of energy storage systems. According to their constructional & operational features, they are situated in different sections of a power grid. But for our future grid model, we prefer batteries as the core energy storage to meet various advantages. The more energy storages we add to our grid, the more reliable our power system will be.

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Project report

The main disadvantage of HVDC is the high capital cost of converting stations and other substation equipment. However, for longer distances, the total cost of HVDC is much lower than HVAC. So, in future, more people in rural areas can get electricity as it can carry greater amount of energy to a long distance with much cheaper electricity cost.No doubt, HVDC will bring a new generation in our power system.

Conclusion

Thank you for your interest about this project. This project is made possible to present by the

dedication and hard work of our group members, and also the help & support of our instructors.

Special thanks to our lecturers for your valuable advices & support.

This report of our project “Power System Revolution” explains our concept about the future od our power system. Though the model made by our project group fails to demonstrate our concept completely, it can explain the need for smart operation control centre that can connect, disconnect various power plants very easily. Also we have tried to demonstrate how we can use HVDC to transmit the power underground.We believe that as future electrical engineers, we should have a clear idea about these upcoming changes in our power system. And this is why we are pleased to try and present this model to you.

Project report

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