Atanda Kamoru Raji

By Arno Vosloo and Atanda K. Raji

Rural communities are often unable to access electrical energy as they are located away from the national grid. Renewable energy sources (RESs) make it possible to provide electrical energy to these isolated areas. Sustainable generation is possible at a local level and is not dependent on connection to a national power grid.

Part of the book: Energy Management of Distributed Generation Systems

By Atanda K. Raji

Distributed generation technology based on diesel generators often has been considered as a viable solution to providing power to remote areas, but the sky‐rocketing of diesel fuel price and the increasing cost of delivery to such remote sites have called for providing a sustainable solution that is environmentally friendly, economical, affordable, and easily accessible. To this end, the use of locally available energy resources is accepted as a sustainable solution in providing electricity for rural and remote settlements. The system cost of wind and solar energy systems is continuously decreasing because of the increase in the acceptance and deployment of the energy systems based on these renewable energy resources. A standalone hybrid AC/DC electric power system is designed, modeled, simulated, and optimized in HOMER Pro. HOMER is a Hybrid Optimization Model of Electric Renewable that enables the comparison of electric and thermal power production technologies across an extensive variety of applications. Both cycle‐charging and load‐following dispatched strategies are investigated. Plausible selected system components ratings are chosen for the simulation to ensure that there is enough search space for HOMER Pro to obtain an optimal system configuration. Net present cost (NPC) is used as an economic metric to assess the optimal configuration that is technically feasible.

Part of the book: System Reliability

By Ian Kuiler, Marco Adonis and Atanda Raji

Vigilant fault diagnosis and preventive maintenance has the potential to significantly decrease costs associated with wind generators. As wind energy continues the upward growth in technology and continued worldwide adoption and implementation, the application of fault diagnosis techniques will become more imperative. Fault diagnosis and preventive maintenance techniques for wind turbine generators are still at an early stage compared to matured strategies used for generators in conventional power plants. The cost of wind energy can be further reduced if failures are predicted in advance of a major structural failure, which leads to less unplanned maintenance. High maintenance cost of wind turbines means that predictive strategies like fault diagnosis and preventive maintenance techniques are necessary to manage life cycle costs of critical components. Squirrel-Cage Induction Generators (SCIG) are the prevailing generator type and are more robust and cheaper to manufacturer compared to other generator types used in wind turbines. A statistical model was developed using SCADA data to estimate the relationships between winding temperatures and other variables. Predicting faults in stator windings are challenging because the unhealthy condition rapidly evolves into a functional failure.

Part of the book: Fault Detection and Diagnosis

By Akindele Olufemi Abegunde, Doudou Nanitamo Luta and Atanda Kamoru Raji

Environmental awareness, current trends in the power market, the quest for energy efficiency, and the progressive transformation of electricity consumers to prosumers are the primary drives for the gradual shift from the old power grids into the smart grids. The deployment of renewable dispersed generation systems and energy storage units uncovered the need for smart metering to oversee and control those generation systems. This chapter presents the design and development of a robust, efficient, multi-functional, and low-cost smart meter. The proposed metering system has added features that enabled the utilities to recover the meter energy measurement data remotely. The system allows monitoring and transmission of energy consumed in real-time. It considers using a microcontroller board as the controlling unit to execute control and monitor activities. A liquid crystal display displays standard electrical measurements such as current, voltage, power, and energy consumption. The external communication device is required in the unit’s actualization, in conjunction with the control unit based on the existing mobile technology. It stands as the intermediary between the nearby available utility station and consumers or end-users. In conclusion, liquid crystal display displays real-time based data for the end-user to visualize. The usage data billing is done within thirty seconds, stored, and trans-received the process for data collection, keeping, and billing generation.

Part of the book: Smart Metering Technologies