Design and simulation of a stand-alone wind-diesel generator with a flywheel energy storage system to supply the required active and reactive power

Abstract

This paper presents the design and simulation of a stand-alone generation plant, which combines a wind-diesel generator with a flywheel energy storage unit. Without any storage system, the diesel engine has to be continuously operating, resulting in high fuel consumption. The flywheel is designed to supply the rated power during 1.8 minutes. This time is enough to compensate regular wind oscillations and therefore to avoid a high number of motor diesel starting operations. The kinetic energy storage unit is based on a carbon-fiber composite flywheel rotating at 30,000 RPM and storing 4.5 MJ. The rotating system is driven by a switched reluctance motor and connected to the network through a double voltage source inverter. The design and simulation with SABER(R) of all the complete system is presented in this paper.