Development of renewable energy laboratory based on integration of wind, solar and biodiesel energies through a virtual and physical environment

This paper presents the concept of novel educational renewable energy laboratory. The proposed laboratory objective is to allow students to learn all aspects of renewable energies and take hands-on equipment´s for better understanding of clean energy technologies. This laboratory includes a hybrid power system (HPS) integrating wind energy conversion system (WECS), photovoltaic (PV) panel, biodiesel generator, maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controllers and storage battery. In this paper, the whole HPS dimensioning is performed and the three renewable energy source systems are simulated and analyzed separately. The PV panels are examined under solar radiation and cell temperature variation conditions. The solar power functioning are verified and studied through a direct connection to battery and resistive load. The WECS is also analyzed through the same connection under constant wind´s speed and variable wind´s speed. Furthermore, the biodiesel generator using permanent magnet synchronous machine was simulated and analyzed. The laboratory physical environment is described and the virtual platform is presented. The e-learning concept and the laboratory learning topics are also developed.