Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Renewable energy conversion systems are a growing energy technology in the world. Canada has vast untapped renewable energy resources that can be exploited to meet the increasing energy demand without additional CO2 emissions. Canada is lagging on research and deployment of renewable energy systems. The objectives of the proposed research are to design control systems and components of small renewable energy conversion systems and in this process produce a number of highly qualified personnel. The proposed research program will contribute the following: (1) a new controller design and an optimum control strategy for small doubly fed induction generator based wind turbines; (2) a new optimal sizing and control method of adding pumped hydro energy storage to hybrid power systems for remote isolated sites; (3) a novel design of a magnetic harmonic gear system with an integrated permanent magnet generator for small hydrokinetic energy conversion system; (4) a new d-q load flow based control method for micro-grid system with energy storage; and, (5) a novel control scheme and design of a cost effective supervisory controller and data logger system for small remote hybrid power systems. The proposed research program will lead to new knowledge and innovative designs of small renewable energy systems. It is expected that the developed designs will be used in Canada. Hence this research will help enhance the application of renewable energy in Canada. This research will also help train five graduate students on renewable energy conversion systems.