Technoeconomic Assessment Study for a Smart Grid Station in Dubai

In Dubai, a grid connected smart grid station (SGS) is designed to supply power to a single location. In this context, the SGS is conceptualized as a system for grid peak shaving or reduced energy consumption by the site orchestrating the use of distributed energy resources. This approach has garnered substantial interest owing to its potential technical and economic advantages, including enhanced energy efficiency, reliability, and flexibility, coupled with reduced costs and carbon dioxide emissions. This paper presents a technoeconomic assessment study for an SGS in Dubai. Here, the grid connected SGS consists of solar photovoltaic, wind turbine, battery energy storages, and electric vehicle charging stations. The site is also equipped with building load power demand (LPD), and advanced metering infrastructure. This study aims to build an SGS model in MATLAB/Simulink environment. This model can be used to demonstrate how SGS can support the concept of a smart city. Moreover, this model has been used for the assessment of the technoeconomic value of the SGS to the site owner and to the utility. In this context, the SGS energy sources, converters, and grid connections have been modelled technically at the system level, then, the model has been used to estimate the economic benefits of the SGS. Furthermore, an energy management system has been implemented to control the energy sources using multiple modes of control. Four years of historical real-time data from weather and LPD have been used to estimate the benefits that can be achieved using the SGS model. The simulation study show that the implementation of the SGS provided significant cost savings to the site owner, and benefits to the grid operator.