Standalone Photovoltaic (PV) Systems for Disaster Relief and Remote Areas

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Chapter 1

Photovoltaics for Disaster Relief and Remote Areas

Abstract

This chapter introduces the readers to types of natural disasters, their impact on electrical grid, causes, and cost of outages to the world and US economy. The need of energy in the aftermath of disasters both in developed and developing countries is discussed. Energy need in remote and off grid areas is also discussed. The chapter also discusses using photovoltaic energy for disaster relief and remote areas. The chapter concludes by describing the increased use of photovoltaic in the world, and the growth and forecast of photovoltaic markets.

Keywords

Natural disasters; causes of power outages; disaster relief; impact of disasters on power systems; energy need in the aftermath of disasters; photovoltaic for disaster relief and remote area; photovoltaic around the world; growth and forecast of photovoltaic markets

1.1 Introduction

Disasters are part of everyday life, impacting every region of the United States, and the world, in increasing number and severity. These often unpredictable events not only shatter the lives of a few people very quickly, but cause lingering problems in the aftermath for many. When a serious disaster strikes, local electrical power in most cases is the first utility to be affected, at least temporarily. Disruption of electricity can last for weeks on end as transmission lines are repaired, causing deaths from failed medical equipment, heat or cold, and lack of amenities for sustaining everyday living. For assisted living facilities and nursing homes, life safety is at risk and is critical to maintain. Many businesses and financial institutions suffer economic losses from the interruption and downtime of highly sensitive loads such as data centers and related services. Disruption of electricity also affects malfunctioning of gas stations, cell towers, and emergency call centers with far-reaching social impacts. In populated areas, after a small disaster, sagging electrical lines can affect large regions by triggering burning of utility poles, creating power outages and disrupting power to millions of people by a chain reaction.

In the aftermath of any disaster, photovoltaics (PV) has the potential to help bring natural, reliable power to places devastated by these events. The use of diesel-powered engines commonly used to provide emergency power can unfortunately be dangerous in the hands of untrained users and is reported to result in incidents of fire, fuel explosion, burns and problems of noise. Generating electricity from solar energy through the process of photovoltaics can be used to heat, cool, and light our homes and businesses. Photovoltaic power systems provide emission-free electricity fueled by the sun which is reliable, secure, noise free, and does not need refueling. It also helps to reduce consumption of fossil fuels in power plants, decreasing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

Photovoltaic systems in an off-grid mode can also be used for more than a billion people living in remote areas with no access to electricity. According to one statistic, roughly one out of every four people (about 1.6 billion) in the world do not have regular access to electricity. Because of the lack of electricity, billions of people use wood, biomass, or dung for cooking and heating their homes. Such traditional methods of generating energy results in serious environmental and health problems, including massive deforestation, sickness, and death. Photovoltaics can generate clean and sustainable electricity in remote areas that can improve health, provide cleaner environment and help in boosting agriculture, starting new businesses, and creating jobs that lead to greener economic development.

Energy demand continues to increase with the need for new and clean energy sources. Solar photovoltaic will definitely become a vital source of energy, particularly for meeting demand after disasters and in remote areas. On the industrial and business side, the price of PV systems has decreased by more than 50% and the global PV market has grown at a compound annual growth rate of about 40% for the past 10 years. In 2013, PV developers installed 37.5 GW of new panels, increasing to 38.4 GW in 2014. The cumulative worldwide capacity increased to 138.9 GW in 2013 despite the recent economic crisis. In 2014, the United States installed 1330 MW of solar PV, which was 79% more than 2013. There are now over 175,000 MW of cumulative solar electricity capacity with nearly 600,000 individual online systems; this sum is expected to reach 1,000,000 in 2015. China surpassed Germany to become the world’s largest solar market in 2013, and is predicted to install approximately 19.5 GW in 2016.

According to the NPD Solarbuzz Marketbuzz report, the global solar PV industry is headed to a 5 year growth in the cumulative installed capacity of 500 GW by 2018. The report also predicts 100 GW of solar deployment in 2018 with annual projected revenue of $50 billion.

1.2 Type of Natural Disasters

A disaster can be defined as a sudden, calamitous event that disrupts the functioning of a community and causes economic, environmental, human and material losses that exceeds the community’s ability to cope using its own resources. In term of human losses, an event is categorized as natural disaster if more than 10 people are killed or at least 100 people are injured, displaced, evacuated, and made homeless. The event is also classified as a natural disaster, if a particular country declares it as such or if a country declares it a natural disaster and asks for international assistance. The disasters can be divided in two broad categories: natural disasters and man-made disasters. Natural disasters include avalanches, earthquakes, forest fires, floods, hurricanes, landslides, tornadoes and others. Man-made disasters include airplane crashes, fires, nuclear power plant accidents, terrorism, and wars. Both categories of disasters are unexpected, sudden, and uncontrollable. The effect of natural disasters lasts much longer and is accompanied by disruptions to critical infrastructure systems including electrical power systems, transportation, and water. Natural disasters are naturally-occurring physical phenomena caused either by rapid or slow onset events which can include the following:

 Geophysical: Originating from solid earth and includes earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, landslides, dry rock falls, avalanche.

 Metrological: caused by short-lived/small to meso scale atmospheric processes (in the spectrum from minutes to days). This includes storms, tropical cyclones (hurricane), snow storms, heat/cold waves, drought and wildfires.

 Hydrological: caused by deviations in normal water cycle and/or overflow of bodies of water caused by wind set up such as floods and avalanches.

 Climatological: caused by long-lived/meso to macro scale processes (in the spectrum from intraseasonal to multidecadal climate variability). This includes extreme temperatures, droughts and wildfires.

 Biological: caused by the exposure of living organisms to germs and toxic substances. Include disease epidemic, insect/animal plagues.

Climate-related disasters include metrological events—these have greatly increased while the number of geophysical disasters has remained fairly stable since the 1970s. Tropical storms or hurricanes are among the most powerful natural disasters by virtue of their size and destructive potential. Tornadoes, on the other hand, are relatively short-lived but violent and can cause winds more than 200 miles/hour. Flooding is the most common natural hazard while tornadoes and earthquakes strike suddenly without warning. Wildfires are more prevalent in areas experiencing drought.

According to recent reports, the number of natural disasters worldwide has steadily increased since 1970. It is also reported that the number of natural disasters is highest in North America such as hurricanes, floods, snow storms, severe heat, tornadoes, and even drought. There were three times more natural disasters between 2000 and 2009 than between 1980 and 1989. The number of people affected by natural disaster have increased to 217 million every year since 1990 and almost 300 million people now live around the world with insecurity. The New England Journal of Medicine has reported that the scale of disasters has expanded because of increased rates of urbanization, deforestation, and environmental degradation. In addition, intensifying climate variables such as higher temperatures, extreme precipitation, and more violent wind/water storms contribute to more disasters.

When a disaster strikes, the whole infrastructure, including electricity shuts down for days or longer depending on the nature of the disaster. In the absence of electricity, all human activities and businesses are either damaged or ruined. According to a recent report by the World Bank, natural disasters have cost the world US$3.8 trillion during the 1980–2012 period. It is also estimated that the annual cost from these damages has increased from US$50 billion a year in 1980 to US$200 billion a year in the last decade including the era of Hurricane Katrina (2015) and Superstorm Sandy (2012) in the United States. The cost of natural disasters in 3 of the last 4 years in the last decade exceeded US$200 million. The majority of these losses (almost 75%) are related to extreme climate events.

Weather-related disasters affect people the same way whether they occur in developed or developing countries. The poor, vulnerable, and less-prepared nations suffers the most from the disasters. According to an estimate, 70% of the world’s disaster hot spots are located in low income countries and 33% of world’s poor live in multihazard zones which makes them highly vulnerable to disasters. As a result, low-income countries have accounted for 48% of fatalities with only 9% of disaster events since 1980. This can have a devastating economic impact for the developing countries. The World Bank Group and Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery analysis shows that the disaster’s impact on gross domestic product is 20 times higher in developing countries than in developed countries. As global climate continues to change, developing countries are more vulnerable to the losses from increased activity of disasters such as floods, storms, and drought. It is estimated that there could be 325 million people vulnerable to weather-related events and prone to poverty in sub-Saharan and South Asian regions by 2030. Many large coastal cities in the growing middle-income countries could face combined annual losses approaching $1 trillion from weather-related disasters by the middle of the century.

Natural disasters can cause severe damage to electrical power systems and disrupt electricity for distribution to the customers in affected areas. The damage occurs as a result of vibration, fire, or floodwater due to hurricanes, storms, and tornadoes packed with high winds which can lead to the malfunction of electrical equipment and power lines.

1.3 Electrical Power System/Grid

An electric power system is defined as a network of electrical components used to supply (generate), transmit, and consume electric power. An electric power system that supplies power to homes and industries for a sizeable region is called an electric grid. Electric grids can be divided into three-layered complex interconnected networks consisting of generation, transmission, and distribution components. An electric grid also contains control software and associated equipment to transmit electricity from the place of generation to residential, industrial, or commercial users. This is achieved by transporting electrical power from generation buses to distribution substations through transmission buses interconnected by transmission lines. The point of generation is usually located in a centralized point which is far removed from the place where it is consumed. Electrical energy is generated in the power plant by transforming other sources of energy. These sources include chemical, heat, hydraulic, mechanical, geothermal, nuclear, solar, and wind which can be used to produce electrical energy. Electrical energy produced from this conversion is then transformed to high voltage which is more suitable for efficient long distance transportation to the consumption locations using high voltage power lines. The high voltage electrical energy is stepped down to lower voltage by transformers at the substations so that it is suitable to distribute for residential, commercial and industrial consumption. The end user is connected to lower voltages which are obtained by a stepdown process using a transformer in several stages as network is reduced in capacity. The grid can be connected to a single power source or electricity generating plant but is usually linked with other plants to provide a more flexible and reliable network.

Depending on the national standard, typical voltage for domestic consumer is 120 or 220 V single-phase alternating current (AC). The majority of the power systems used to distribute and supply electricity directly to higher power equipment is three-phase AC which is the standard across the world. Power at the smaller scale is generated by smaller systems which are often used for hospitals, universities, industrial units, and commercial buildings. For factory and workshop machinery using high power equipment, 210 or 415 V three-phase electricity is used.

The US electric grid generates, transmits, and distributes electric power to 144 million end-user customers by delivering to homes, offices, schools, factories across the country. The grid consist of high voltage transmission lines, local distribution systems, power management, and control systems that connects Americans with 5800 major power stations. This includes over 450,000 miles of high voltage transmission. The total capacity of power generation from major power plants amount to approximately 1000 GW. The current US administration has been actively investing in a 21st century modernized electric grid which will be more efficient, secure, reliable, and resilient to external and internal causes of power outages.

1.3.1 Impact of Disasters on Power Systems/Grid

Electrical power systems are real-time energy delivery systems, which means that the power is generated, transported, and supplied when the power switch is turned on. These systems do not store electrical energy and instead generate electrical power as the demand calls for it. As a rule, the electrical power systems are designed to operate during relatively stable weather conditions and proper loading conditions. However, these design assumptions may be strained due to extreme weather. The most vulnerable electrical equipment to be affected by the disaster damage is high-voltage transformers located within and outside the substations. These transformers in the substations are an essential part of transmission lines and are large, heavy and difficult to move. Most of these devices are custom built, hence difficult to replace as the delivery might take a long time. Other vulnerabilities from natural disasters include threats to generators, transmission lines, substations and control centers. Natural disasters can disrupt fuel supply and can also damage transmission lines. The loss from disasters affecting a control center which coordinates the operation of the grid to maintain reliability can have serious impact on the operation of the grid.

Large centralized power stations including critical systems such as control software, communications, and sensors are vulnerable to man-made cyber-attacks through Internet connections or by direct incursion at remote sites. Any telecommunication link that is even partially outside the control of the system operators could be an insecure pathway into operations and a threat to the grid. Transmission lines and substations with high voltage transformers are particularly vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Transmission lines can be replaced easily but transformers takes a long time to replace.

Power lines can be downed or sagged by falling trees as a result of strong winds during hurricanes and storms. A sagging power line shorting out by a falling tree or vegetation can initiate cascading effects resulting into power outages. In Ohio in 2003, a blackout originated with the FirstEnergy power plants and transmission lines. The Northeastern blackout of 2003 originated in Ohio with FirstEnergy Corp which led to the loss of power for more than 50 million people in United States and Canada. The blackout started with the FirstEnergy power plants and transmission lines when three of its four lines carrying 345 kV sagged and touched the fallen trees and disconnected these lines by tripping their circuit breaker. In addition the alarm system that was intended to notify the utility about the failure of lines, also failed. The combined effect of these two failures resulted in a large drop in voltage across the entire power network. As a result the low voltage and high current on the nonfailed lines further tripped the circuit breaker on another 345 KV line (Sammis-Star), setting off the cascade. This kind of situation can be avoided either by burying power lines or cutting the vegetation and trees around power lines. According to the Energy Information Administration, constructing underground lines per mile is 5–10 times more expensive (US$500,000 to US$2 million per mile) than installing overhead lines. It costs more to repair underground lines as they do not last very long and need to be dug up when they get old or are broken. Underground lines are more vulnerable to floods, while overhead lines are more vulnerable to storms. In the United States only 0.5% of long distance transmission lines are underground and 18% of distribution lines are underground. This obviously leads to spending less money on cutting the trees to protect the overhead lines but still making it more vulnerable to storms and tornadoes.

1.4 Causes of Power Outages

A power outage or blackout is defined as power interruption during which a customer has lost access to electricity grid. It is measured in duration of time. In United States, the time for such an interruption of power is less than 5 minutes. In United Kingdom, this interruption is defined as more than 3 minutes and in Sweden it is 1 minute. A large power outage is normally referred to as a blackout affecting more than 1 million people. A recent example of large power outages include two severe blackouts in India in Jul. 30 and 31, 2012, where more than 670 million people, half of India population spread across 22 states in Northern, Eastern and Northeast India were affected. The power outage took off an estimated 32 GW of electricity.

Either types of natural disaster could damage many electric power system components, causing widespread outages or power shortages over a short duration or a longer period of time. The damages leading to longer time outages can happen only if significant components of generation and transmission are damaged. The most probable causes of such damage are hurricanes or strong earthquakes which affect distribution systems much more than generation and transmission.

The recent example of a hurricane is Superstorm Sandy which made landfall in southern New Jersey, United States, on the evening of Oct. 29, 2012. Superstorm Sandy affected 24 states, including the entire eastern seaboard from Florida to Maine, and west from Michigan to Wisconsin with winds spanning 1100 miles/hour. The estimated damage totaled over US$68 billion with fatalities of at least 181 people. More than 8.5 million houses and businesses experienced power outages which took several weeks to be restored in certain areas. One quarter of cell sites in 10 states went down and ground transport was disrupted for days.

The other extreme weather events responsible for long term power outages is floodwater from heavy rain and storms which can damage the underground electrical systems and power substations. Because of large amount of water, rust and left over trapped mud, it takes much longer to restore a flooded substation than restoring a downed power line damaged by wind or ice.

Massive storms and hurricanes inflict damage in two different ways. First, the gushing flow of water will flood the low-lying coastal areas, damaging the buildings and houses. The second is the damage to the power generating equipment in the way of water, which is of great concern to nuclear plants in the flood’s projected path. In case of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear meltdown, it was the tsunami’s surge of seawater that knocked out the electrical generators and not the earthquake itself. The Fukushima nuclear disaster took place on Mar. 11, 2011 at Fukushima I nuclear power plant and resulted in a meltdown of three of plant’s six nuclear reactors. The meltdown was the result of 33-feet tsunami triggered by earthquake of magnitude 9.0. Flooding from the tsunami destroyed backup generators for the Fukushima I nuclear plant, resulting in lost power for 4.4 million households. According to one estimate, it could take years before full power generation is restored to pre-earthquake levels. The electrical components in the power substations, such as pumps, relay panels, transformer fans, switchgears are the most vulnerable pieces of equipment, and need to be dried once all the water has been pumped out. Other items such as cylinders, bearing, pins, rings, gaskets, latches may need to be replaced and bearing breaker mechanisms may have to take apart and cleaned manually.

The persistent heat waves in certain part of the world can affect transmission lines’ sag and other components such as transformers and rotating machinery that needs to be cooled off. The sagging lines are vulnerable to falling trees, flying debris, and flooding. Indeed, some types of transmission towers cannot withstand high winds. According to recent studies, the US economy has suffered costs of between US$20 billion–US$55 billion per year due to storm-related power outages. Other causes of weather related power outages are given