Technical RTD Priorities and New Concepts

The objective of WP1 is to thoroughly assess the status-quo of RE and hybrid system utilisation in Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia, and to identify the currently most pressing requirements for technical RTD activities for RE and hybrid system applications in order to support the development of new concepts and integrated models for renewable energy supply in Mediterranean regions.

Based on the results of the country studies, the currently most important “performance gaps” of RE and hybrid systems have been identified with respect to key applications for rural electricity supply, national and regional infrastructures, sustainable tourism and commerce as well as for increased water supplies.

A number of hardware developments are required to achieve further performance improvements, including static power converters, system controllers and battery charge controllers. Most importantly power-conditioning devices need to be designed to be more efficient at the low end of their operating range. Important problems in hybrid installations are load restrictions, generator fumes and noise, maintenance and lack of technical support. Other issues such as power quality, supply reliability, insurance, or safety, are identified as less important concerns.

The provision of adequate maintenance and technical support will remain a difficult logistic problem given the remoteness of many locations. This leads to the demand of systems that are highly reliable over their entire lifetime, as well as requiring minimum maintenance, preferably by untrained operators.

Regarding energy storage, there are requirements for further improvements, i.e. more efficient and less maintenance of the lead-acid batteries while hydrogen sub-storage systems and fuel cells still have a long way to go.

The progress in the information technology allows adopting highly sophisticated management techniques and technologies to optimize the operation of hybrid energy systems. System maintenance may be also improved by applying distant operation supervision. And also fault identification can be further improved.

The next generation of decentralized power supply structures are expected to include several types of grids that operate parallel to each other and communicate with service centers for control supervision and remote maintenance purposes. These types of grids form supply structures that can be expanded step by step as the demand for electricity increases. A broad expansion of the decentralized electrification would automatically lead to the interconnection of local grids to form regional or trans-regional grids.

The full report on Technical RTD Requirements, New Concepts and Integrated Models for Renewable Energy Supply is available here.