Microgrid Design and Component Replacement Analysis

Jose Trinidad Reyes Portillo, University of Texas at El Paso

Abstract

This study focuses on developing specific methods that can be friendly applied to obtain efficient usage and maintenance of electricity production in a micro-grid used in a residence or stand-alone building to determine long-term component replacement strategies for aging components. After designing the best option to produce electricity by installing green energies such as photovoltaic panels and their proper devices such as inverters and batteries, this work has developed electric power reliability models to approximate the most efficient component replacement accurately. Due to the nature of the components of this study, repair time is not a substantial part of the study; however, it is essential to consider two elements that directly affect the component replacement analysis: replacement cost and maintenance cost. Replacement cost is associated directly with the market cost at the time when the asset will be replaced. Additionally, maintenance cost is associated with three elements in the planned horizon: Maintenance cost planned (budget), maintenance cost due to not time-dependent failures (exponential distribution), and maintenance cost due to time-dependent failures (Weibull distribution). This study introduces the idea to plan an economic horizon according to the maintenance cost behavior against replacement cost by analyzing the relationship between reliability index and failure mode. Once the replacement times are specified for each of the micro-grid components, it is time to select the ideal component to be replaced from a finite number of suppliers. Each particular component has a certain number of characteristics that are considered essential for its operation, which is compared between the different brands.

Subject Area

Alternative Energy|Electrical engineering|Engineering

Recommended Citation

Reyes Portillo, Jose Trinidad, "Microgrid Design and Component Replacement Analysis" (2021). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI28863207.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI28863207

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