Applications and Wind Industry - Wind Energy: Renewable Energy and the Environment - page 205

Wind turbines
(induction, stall-regulated)
2 × 65 kW = 130 kW

Diesel #1
168kW

Diesel #2
75 kW

Battery bank
240 VDC 130 Ah

DC
machine

AC
machine
Rotary converter
156 kVA

Diesel #3
168kW

School
heating system

Load

Diesel plant
hydronic loop
Resistance
heaters

Secondary
load
controllers

FIGURE 10.3 Diagram of high-penetration, wind - diesel system with battery storage, Wales, Alaska.

10.5 VILLAGE POWER
Around 1.6*10 9 people do not have electric service because they are too far from transmission lines
of conventional electric power plants. Extension of the grid is too expensive for most rural areas, and
if extended, it has poor cost recovery. There is an effort to bring electricity to these villages using
renewable energy (wind, PV, mini and micro hydro, biomass). Other components to supply reliable
energy (limited) include controllers, batteries, and conventional diesel/gas generators. In windy
areas, wind is the least-cost component of the renewable power supply.
Village power systems provide power to the community from a central power source, a mini
grid. Village hybrid power systems [29] can range in size from small micro grids (100 kWh/
day, ~15 kWp) to larger communities (tens of MWh/day, hundreds of kWp). One or multiple wind
turbines may be installed, 10-100 kW range. There are software programs for modeling hybrid sys-
tems [30, 31]. Notice the primary difference between village power and wind-diesel is in the size of
the system, although there will be overlap.
There have been international conferences for village power, and NREL had a project database
with 146 projects (1994-2000), of which 14 included wind. Global Village Energy Partnership
provides information and publishes a newsletter [32]. Manufacturers' websites may show case stud-
ies; for example, Bergey Windpower has case studies of different types of installations that include
village power [33].
The village renewable systems are the following types:

r Fuel saver system, addition of renewable energy system to existing diesel power plant (see

Section 10.4 )
Renewable energy source, single or hybrid, with battery storage ( Figure 10.4 )

r