This research plan aims to study the impacts of coordinating wind farms and concentrated solar power (CSP) by using a simulation tool called System Advisor Model. The researchers will use the tool to understand the power generation patterns of each type and plot outputs for different situations by changing variables. They have already found that solar power provides more constant output in California due to more variable wind patterns compared to Miami and New York. Future work will include running more simulations and developing their own simulation model in MatLab.

1. ECE ILLINOIS
Renewable Power Systems Dynamics
Research Plan
Background Info
Patrick Wasilewski, Qian Chen, Suicheng Zhan, Tanmay Takle Mentor: Ti Xu
• Understand the graphs and power generation patterns of both types.
• Use System Advisor Model to find data for the outputs of both types.
• Use SAM program to change variables and find the outputs for
different types of situations.
• With these plotted outputs, we can study the impacts of coordination
of wind farms and CSPs.
Concentrated Solar Power:
• CSP is a power production technique focused on harnessing the
natural energy from the Sun. The most common technique for CSP
is the use of a large array of mirrors all concentrating on a single
tower.
• The tower is filled with some kind of molten liquid that holds heat
well, which is then piped away to be used for thermal power
generation.
• No power is generated at night, but because of the heated
material, the thermal energy can be stored up to several hours
after initially heated, though there is loss as time goes on.
Wind Farms:
• Wind turbines can generate power at any time of day, though
wind speeds tend to be higher overnight.
• Turbines also have a minimum wind speed needed to generate,
can only generate up to a maximum amount of output, and must
be shut off at a certain high wind speed, due to safety concerns.
• The power output of the wind turbines varies as shown by the
graph below.
Simulation Result
Progress to Date
Future Plans
Results
● The variances here are shown this way because Miami
and New York experience more constant wind
patterns, while wind patterns in California tend to be
more erratic and varied. Because of this we can
determine solar power would provide more constant
output in California
● This way, we can find the lowest point of variance,
which helps give us insight into the optimization point
between these two energy types may be.
• Run more simulations with System Advisor Model and
change variables.
• Create our own type of simulation model for wind and
concentrated solar power in MatLab.
• We have already looked at the equations needed, so
our goal is to become more familiar with MatLab.
Acknowledgements
• We would like to thank our mentor Ti Xu for his
continuous guidance as well as the PURE committee to
create the opportunity for us to research in our desired
sub-discipline.
Motivation
There are certain drawbacks to two important renewable energy
generation techniques. Wind farms can produce power during the day but
have higher outputs at night whereas concentrated solar power plants have
can not generate power at night. Our aim is to study the impacts of
coordinating both these methods.
• Changing input variables and using System Advisor Model to plot the
outputs to visualize how they change.
• The graphs below show some of the simulation results that we were
able take from the program.