EMILY CHUTTER
Recent Mechanical Engineering Graduate
In an effort to get more exposure to the clean energy/utilities industry, I elected to do a self-directed Undergraduate Honours Thesis project with a research group at the University of Victoria called “the 2060 Project” (which is under IESVIC at UVIC, if you are familiar).
This group examines the impacts of integrating different clean energy technologies in various scenarios, with the goal of greatly reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2060. Exposure to the work done by this group definitely increased my passion for working in this industry.
Project description
My project involved the investigation of a web-based tool called "Renewables.ninja.com" developed by Staffell and Pfenninger. This website models output of wind and solar power anywhere in the world. However, the site was only validated for European countries so it was uncertain whether or not this tool could be a reliable source of input data needed for the energy systems modelling being done by the 2060 project.
Thats where I came in...
Using actual known data from wind farms in Alberta (one of the provinces 2060 focusses on), I wrote a matlab script that compared measured data to output data from Renewables.ninja.com. I then analyzed and made recommendations to the 2060 project in a formal presentation.
My final report can be seen below:
Lastly, I performed a Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) analysis of solar energy in Vancouver, BC, where I currently live.
Conclusions:
This analysis proved that accurate modelling of renewable system and their output energy data is key to the success of getting these types of projects to happen. The more research and improvements into output data, the more refined metrics like LCOE are and the more consumers can trust in these types of project; trust that is necessary for mass adoption of solar energy. Based on the results of this investigation, solar power is not yet cost competitive in Vancouver but technology improvements are likely to make it comparable to other forms of power generation in the near future.
