Electrical storage systems in cogeneration plants based on the solar energy source

The intermittent nature of most renewable energy sources makes the choice of appropriate storage systems crucial to ensure the required availability in standalone power systems. Moreover, when the electrical load is characterised by large variations in a short time, the lifetime of conventional batteries can be seriously affected, and the maintenance costs increase accordingly. In the paper, the complete dynamic model of a sawmill supplied by a standalone photovoltaic-thermal (PV-T) power plant is developed, and the case in which the electrical storage system consists only of conventional batteries is compared with the case in which a supercapacitor bank is included. Performance and costs of both cases are discussed.