Monitoring system of environmental stochastic characteristics and renewable energy units' efficiency in an extreme continental climate

Abstract

While solving renewable energy tasks, problems with the calculation of some statistical changes, important for the development of their structure and practical application, may arise. The following factors are stochastic: - Energy reception (solar, wind, water resources, etc.); - Energy consumption (domestic, municipal and industrial areas); - Changes in ambient temperature. These factors have a wide time scale, and periodic and random components. It is obvious that these groups of factors are correlated; the growth of the solar energy reception leads to the increase in temperature and illumination, which in turn reduces the need for heat and electricity consumption. In order to fulfill the detailed analysis of the correlation between climatic factors and their influence on the efficiency of the existing renewable energy equipment in the UrFU, a high-speed multi-channel monitoring system for climate and energy characteristics has been developed and put into operation. The system includes a distributed network of local devices connected to the central server which collects, accumulates and processes data of more than 100 measured parameters gathered every second. Based on a long series of observations, the system allowed one to assess renewable energy units' productivity in the conditions of variable ambient temperatures, typical for a region with an extreme continental climate. © 2015 WIT Press.