School of Engineering Renewable Energy EEE3021 / EEE8157
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EEE3021 EEE8157 Renewable Energy Course Work (Development of a Solar Farm or Wind Farm)
(Academic Year 2021/22)
EEE3021
EEE8157 Renewable Energy
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Course Work (Development of a Solar Farm or Wind Farm)
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1. Course Work:
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2. Coursework: Useful Constants and Data sources
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3. Single line diagrams and Grid connection
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4. Coursework allocation
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School of Engineering Renewable Energy EEE3021 / EEE8157
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1. Course Work:
1.1. Background
The course is assessed by examination and coursework. The coursework is assessed orally via a presentation (which
is recorded), of no more than 10 minutes. The coursework aims to develop research skills and the ability to utilise
relevant information from different sources in addition to giving experience in the challenges of renewable energy
development and communication skills.
1.2. Aim
The academic aim of this coursework is to find a site suitable for a solar or wind farm within your allocated area and
analyse the practical and economic aspects. Site selection must be based on economic, technical and logistical
considerations and presented in an accessible manor for a business development manager of an engineering
investment company. All recommendations and conclusions must be justified and backed up with calculations,
references and relevant technical background.
1.3. Business Brief
An investment company wishes to invest in a renewable energy farm designed to export electricity to the UK
distribution network. Working as an energy consultant, your job is to work on behalf of the investment company to
propose a generation facility that will make a good return on their money. You are required to perform a high level
feasibility study on behalf of the company detailing either a solar farm or a wind farm within a designated area,
outlining the options including:
• Evaluation of proposed site and justification of solar or wind
• Justification of the proposed site power rating
• Type, number and layout of solar cells or wind turbines (example pictures)
• Details of local electrical infrastructure and connection possibilities based on data provided in the long term
development statement and Npower heat map. Could include
o distance and type of connection,
o impact on local network,
o Single Line Diagram to the point of common connection,
o reverse power flow
o Maximum capacity.
• An economic assessment which could include
o Capital costs
o Annual income
o Connection cost
o Payback or other economic evaluation tool
1.4. Scope
You have been allocated a number (see Section 4 below) which indicates the centre point of the geographical area
you are to search for a site in. Your generation site can be within a 1km diameter from this point. The areas are
shown in Figure 1-1 and more accurately defined at https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=1479742d-e05a-4744-8f08-
d94e5d8ab17e&cp=51.122432~-3.248492&lvl=10&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027
School of Engineering Renewable Energy
EEE3021 / EEE8157
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Figure 1-1: Sites
School of Engineering Renewable Energy EEE3021 / EEE8157
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You must investigate your site and discuss the feasibility of developing either solar panels or wind turbines.
This course work is open ended. This means I only give limited guidance on what I want from the report - I am
looking to be impressed by your effort. As this is a hypothetical development, you may need to make assumptions.
Be creative! You could, for example, propose a new ground mounted solar farm, a community owned domestic roof
mounted PV scheme for a housing estate, a PV installation on a large building such as a university or shopping centre
or look at rolling out installation as part of a new housing estate yet to be built. Whatever your proposal, the total
capacity of the plant must be rated between 100 kW and 5MW and have a single connection to the existing electrical
network.
You should make use of mapping sites, such as bing, aerial photograph tools, such as Google earth, and information
from the Distribution Network Operator (DNO) given in the Long Term Development Statement (LTDS), provided on
canvas. Location of 11kV cables is hard to find, but you ought to be able to find the location of local 33/11kV
substations.
A list of possible data sources and useful constants is given in section 2. An example single line diagram for network
connections and information on performing fault level calculations is given in Section 3.
1.5. Oral presentation
You will present your initial findings orally via a recorded session, submitted via Canvas to the module leader by 2pm
on 23/05/2022. Your presentation must last 10 minutes or less. Please prepare a power point presentation and
record yourself presenting this.
The presentation must be submitted on Canvas by 2pm on 23/05/22.
Presentation marking scheme:
60% technical content
40% time keeping, presentation style, quality of slides
You will receive feedback on your presentation.
School of Engineering Renewable Energy EEE3021 / EEE8157
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2. Coursework: Useful Constants and Data sources
2.1. Connection costs
You are welcome to use any well justified or well referenced values in your analysis. Alternatively, Table 1 gives
some useful constants, Table 2 gives indicative costs for electrical connection and Table 3 gives estimated
transformer costs. ‘Tee’ connection involves putting a radial feeder onto an existing line, whereas direct substation
connection involves laying a new line to a substation bus bar. Costs are given for Overhead Line (OHL) and buried
cable.
Table 1
Rate of return 5%
Cost of solar / wind Capital £1/W
O+M per year 1%
Price of electricity 15 p/kWh
Lifetime of technology 20 Years
Table 2
11kV 33kV 132kV
Tee -connection
capital
£80,000 £130,000 £250,000
Switch gear £93,000 £250,000 £1,000,000
direct substation
connection capital
£110,000 £250,000 £600,000
Circuit breaker
upgrade
£72,000 £90,000 £300,000
OHL / km £110,000 £200,000 £380,000
buried cable / km £350,000 £500,000 £1,500,000
Table 3
Transformer size and type Cost (£1,000s)
11/0.4kV 2000kVA Transformer, oil filled 25
11/0.4kV 1000kVA Transformer, oil filled 12
11/0.4kV 500kVA Transformer, oil filled 9
11/0.4kV 200kVA Transformer, oil filled 4
11/0.4kV 100kVA Transformer, pole mounted 3
132/33kV 120MVA transformer 1300
132/33kV 60MVA transformer 840
132/33kV 30MVA transformer 525
School of Engineering Renewable Energy EEE3021 / EEE8157
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132/33kV 15MVA transformer 176
132/11kV 60MVA Transformer 726
132/11kV 30MVA Transformer 600
132/11kV 15MVA Transformer 391
33/11kV 38MVA Transformer 501
33/11kV 24MVA Transformer 342
33/11kV 15MVA Transformer 244
33/11kV 10MVA Transformer 182
33/11kV 7.5MVA Transformer 163
For costing, assume installation = 0.5 x capital cost for capital equipment.
Leave a 10% contingency on total cost.
For example, a 1km 11kV OHL Tee connection the estimated cost is:
[{£110,000 +£93,000}*1.5 + £80,000]*1.1
=£422,950
The feed in tariff, which is a government incentive to make renewable energy economic, as described here:
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/environmental-programmes/fit/fit-tariff-rates
In reality, all these constants are simplifications. The wholesale price of electrical energy is always varying depending
on time of day, time of year and how far in advance of delivery the price is agreed. i.e. electricity guaranteed for
delivery in 2 months can be worth more than that which will be generated in 1 hour. Conversely, in times of need, a
generator that can fill a short term need can get the best price. Figure 2-1 shows the price variation of each MW/h of
electricity for agreed generation a day in advance over 2019. Figure 2-2: shows the variation over a typical day. In
your economic analysis you can try and capture this or assume a fixed rate as given in Table 2.
Figure 2-1: Cost of energy “day ahead baseload contract” for 2019 – from ofgem.gov.uk
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00 9.00 10.00
£/
M
W
h
month (2019)
day ahead baseload contract (from ofgem.gov.uk)
School of Engineering Renewable Energy EEE3021 / EEE8157
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Figure 2-2: Cost of energy variation 30/01/2020 from electricinsights.co.uk
2.2. Geographic data sources
Beware, part of the assessment of this is about data gathering. Please avoid Wikipedia as a reference as its content is
often unverified and very dynamic. Some potential useful data is given below. Plenty more trustworthy data freely
available on the internet.
Mapping data –
• Google earth (including streetview)
• Bing maps especially ‘ordnance survey’ data
Data on sites of special scientific interest, wildlife reserves etc can be found here
http://magic.defra.gov.uk/home.htm
Listed buildings, which may affect planning permission, can be found here:
https://historicengland.org.uk/
2.3. Northern Powergrid Data
Some networks provide a costing tool online and detailed advice – others provide much less. On canvas I have put
the ‘long term development’ statements for Northern Powergrid. Please use this for calculations. You may use
online or DNO tools relating to connecting to networks for reference, but you must do your own calculations and all
conclusions must be based on your own calculations.
2.4. Resource calculation
For domestic installation, lots of online resource calculators available. Search online, or use e.g.
https://www.renewables.ninja/ or https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ for solar or
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/38721/1402-
windspeed-database-information-sheet.pdf and https://www.rensmart.com/Maps#NOABL for wind.
School of Engineering Renewable Energy EEE3021 / EEE8157
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Be sure to reference all data you use.
These can be used to try and ascertain costs and to support your own calculations. For more accurate resource
assessment, look at met office weather station data for your area:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/climate-historic/#?tab=climateHistoric
2.5. Manufacturers
Solar
https://www.solar-trade.org.uk/
https://www.renewableenergyhub.co.uk/main/solar-panels/solar-panel-manufacturers-and-
products/#:~:text=The%20top%205%20manufacturers%20at,worldwide%20which%20manufacture%20PV%20cells.
Wind
https://www.vestas.com/
https://www.siemensgamesa.com/en-int
2.6. Planning
- A fantastic document detailing the build of large PV farms : “Planning guidance for the development of large scale
ground mounted solar PV systems” available here:
http://www.bre.co.uk/filelibrary/nsc/Documents%20Library/NSC%20Publications/NSC-publication-planning-
guidance.pdf
And also available on Canvas.
The equivalent for wind is http://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/
Manufacturers often provide data on their products, search on line for details.
3. Single line diagrams and Grid connection
See also grid connection details associated with the module.
The new electrical connection can be illustrated by a simplified single line diagram, e.g. Figure 3-1. In this example, a
wind farm is Tee connected to an existing line via a new line. Two new sets of switch gear are included to allow
isolation of the new line. The Point of Common-Coupling (PoCC) is where the new infrastructure meets the original
network.
School of Engineering Renewable Energy EEE3021 / EEE8157
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Figure 3-1: Example SLD for a new connection
4. Coursework allocation
https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=1479742d-e05a-4744-8f08-d94e5d8ab17e&cp=51.122432~-
3.248492&lvl=10&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027
Student Login ID
Coursework
location
-, Swarnashree c1016764 1
Al Raqum, Sulaiman M A B b8026809 2
Alali, Mohammed b7042785 3
Alfahad, Fahad N H A b9064460 4
Alkooheji, Ahmed Mohamed Amin Abdulrazzaq b8030142 5
Alosaimi, Raad Abdullah M b9057043 6
Alshmailan, Turki S O S T c1049563 7
Asadallah, Fatimah S A S E c1049801 8
Baxter, Cameron Robert b8038317 9
Biju Sreelatha, Aravind c1037218 10
Bullock Lynch, Christopher Robert b8035077 11
Chen, Sifan c0085868 12
Cui, Yulong c0091426 13
Dong, Hao c0069935 14
Du, Mengwei c1049595 15
Dyer, Rory Edward P b7038115 16
Eckersley, James Peter b8064532 17
Faucitt, Ewan Arthur b8029568 18
Substation name 2
Grid Supply
point
132/33kV
2 X 60MVA
33/11kV
2 X 7.5MVA
Substation name 2
Substation name 3
33/11kV
3.5MVA
Substation
name 1
33/11kV
2 x 6.25MVA
New
switchgear
Proposed
Wind Farm
Existing windfarm
19.3MVA
23.5MVA 21.6MVA
33/11kV
3.5MVA
PoCC
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Ferreira, Paulo Bunga c0077220 19
Finn, Jake Alexander b7021506 20
Gong, Zheng c0038174 21
Gopinath, Rahul c1042320 22
Guo, Zheng c0094463 23
He, Zhiyong c1046103 24
Hooper, Alexander Matthew b7028389 25
Huang, Zhiyuan b7060292 26
Jiang, Qicheng c1043949 27
Joshi, Shreyas Hemant c1038406 28
Kennedy, Jack Michael b8026326 29
Lawrence, Ashli b7036515 30
Li, Houcheng c0092478 31
Li, Maochen c1040876 32
Li, Qiuyang c1000225 33
Lin, Jiazheng c0000322 34
Lin, Zeyin c0096462 35
Liu, Haoqi c1001185 36
Liu, Yichao c1037748 37
Liu, Yida c1028570 38
Long, Hongyu c0091742 39
Luo, Xiao c1031951 40
Manogaran, Sarath Chander c0047323 41
Mitford, Bertram David b8037106 42
Mittag, Maja b8010684 43
Moorcroft, Ryan James b8039959 44
Napper, Liberty Nicole b8010192 45
Ni, Yingdong c0026570 46
O'Brien, James Edward b8018127 47
O'Callaghan, Ciaran Padraig b8010195 48
Oakes, Alexander John Eric b7017106 49
Owen-Rigby, Elisabeth Georgia b8024303 50
Parker, Alexander Richard Thomas b8020577 51
Qiu, Yuchen c0092255 52
Retout, Isabelle Lucy b8018367 53
Robinson, Callum James b8032252 54
Shao, Henglei c0069377 55
Shi, Yehui c0097915 56
Song, Ziheng c1006016 57
Spence, Ryan Richmond b8064203 58
Thankappan Mani, Ananthu c1035377 59
Wang, Jing c1032636 60
Wang, Yi c1038486 61
Weldridge, Thomas Shay c1039895 62
Woods, Halley Gabriel Blue b8064241 63
Xiong, Jiangao c1028265 64
School of Engineering Renewable Energy EEE3021 / EEE8157
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Yang, Zhiyuan c0066917 65
Yeates, Georgina Elizabeth b8007963 66
Zhang, Fanlu c1043585 67
Zhang, Tonghe c0091054 68
Zou, Kangyi c0013218 69