Simulate DC battery storage system and define a different reactive power compensation strategy using capacitor banks.
pvDesign - backend v14.1.0, frontend v5.2.0
In September, we released the DC-coupled battery energy storage system which allows the users to have the basic engineering of the DC coupled BESS by customizing the battery’s containers' connection with the plant.
Also, we released the capacitor banks feature which makes it possible to choose to size the capacitor in the substation to compensate for the reactive power generated by the systems that the user decides on.
In addition, we have incorporated IRENA’s costs data for 2022 in our CAPEX templates for serval regions.
Lastly, we have been working on our testing processes to improve how we carry out the new features’ tests internally.
New Features
These features were released in September:
- DC-coupled battery Energy Storage System: pvDesign users can now perform the basic engineering of DC-coupled BESS. Using this configuration, DC/DC converters will be installed to connect the battery containers directly to the primary central inverters of the PV plant. Battery Containers will be placed next to the main Power Stations. Furthermore, the results will be reflected in the DC BESS report in addition to the bill of quantities and drawings. For more information, check out the BESS methodology.
- IRENA CAPEX templates 2022: IRENA’s global renewable power generation costs study is published yearly around August. This year's report shows that the competitiveness of renewables continued to improve despite rising materials and equipment costs in 2022. RatedPower has incorporated this data as CAPEX templates in pvDesign for 2022 and set them as default for all designs created from the 9/21 onwards in the regions available: Japan, Russian Federation, Cyprus, Ireland, Hungary, South Africa, Croatia, Netherlands, Greece, France, Denmark, United States, Poland, Germany, Portugal, Slovenia, Indonesia, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, United Kingdom, Estonia, Chile, Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, Brazil, China, Austria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and India.
- Capacitor banks: pvDesign’s users can now use a new strategy to compensate for the reactive power generated by the cabling and transformers using a capacitor bank. From the grid point, users can choose the strategy of compensation, to select the point of measurement, and to choose what systems they would like to compensate upon the strategy. The results of the capacitor bank sizing will be reflected in the interconnection facility report, the power flow model sheet, the interconnection facility SLD and drawing, and the bill of materials. For more information check out the interconnection facility methodology.
Bug fixes and improvements
We released the following minor bug fixes and improvements this month:
- Fixed the tool to upload multiple modules and multiple inverters.
- Fixed a bug that was causing a wrong power station location in the case of intersection with multiple roads.
- Fixed an error that was causing a wrong processing of the geometry of the MV lines.
- Fixed a bug which caused wrong topography calculation in the case of a batch design when using tilt angle.
- Fixed an issue related to site upload that led to undetected checks.
- Fixed a bug which caused the default simulations to have the wrong IAM profile.
- Allowed the upload of sites with inner rings.
- Fixed a bug where the zero-sequence impedance was not taking into account the overhead line’s length.
- Fixed a bug that caused simulations with secondary inverters to not run.
- Added a missing functionality for the AC point in the case of areas with inner holes.
- Fixed a bug which caused the meteorological data monthly values to be missing from the reports.
- Fixed an error that was caused by a malformed MV path connection between areas.
- Implemented a temporary solution to loading issue of the CAPEX templates.
- Fixed a bug which caused a recommendation value of zero for the number of string inverters per power station.
- Added a recalculate % in tooltip values in Statistics pie charts when some label is hidden.
- Improved the user’s experience by adding warnings.
- Fixed a bug that was causing power stations to cross the roads.