EEE 488 Renewable and Alternate

Energy Systems
Lecture 1:Introduction

Dr. Muhammad Iqbal

 Course overview

• This course provides a comprehensive overview of

major renewable energy resources, including solar,
wind, hydro, geothermal, and bioenergy/biomass.
• The course aims to helping students understand
fundamental scientific concepts and principles of
energy conversion and storage involved in renewable
energy production and usage, and evaluate availability,
efficiency, and environmental impacts of major forms
of renewable energy resources.

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 Text book and other references
Textbook:
• Godfrey Boyle, “ Renewable Energy, Power for a sustainable future”, 2016, Oxford
University
• Non-conventional Energy Sources and Utilization (Energy Engineering) by R. K.
Rajput
Reference Books:
• Renewable Energy: A First Course by Robert Ehrlich, CRC Press, 2013
• Electric Renewable Energy Systems by Muhammad H. Rashid, Ph.D., Fellow IET,
Life Fellow IEEE, University of West Florida, U.S.A..
• Renewable Energy Resources, Second edition by John Twidell and Tony Weir
Scientific/Technical Journals:
• International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology (IJRET)
• IET Renewable Power Generation
• Journal of Energy Resources Technology
• Journal of Energy Engineering
• Renewable and sustainable energy reviews
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 Course Learning Outcomes:

CLO Description
Understanding working principles and concepts of different
CLO1
renewable energy technologies. (Level: C1,C2 and C3)
Understanding importance of the selected energy technologies
CLO2 for global warming mitigation and fossil fuels substitution.
(Level: C1,C2,C3)
Understand different areas where the conventional energy
CLO3 sources can be replaced or supplemented by renewable energy
sources (Level: C1, C2, C3)

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Energy and some related terminologies

• Energy is the capability to produce motion, force,

work, change in shape, change in form
– Energy exists in several forms
 Electrical energy
 Chemical energy
 Nuclear energy
 Mechanical energy
 Bio-energy
 Thermal energy etc.

• Study of energy deals with

– Energy Science: energy and energy transformation
– Energy technology: Plants and process involved
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 Basics of Energy
• Basics of the whole structure of energy stand on the
ground of the laws of thermodynamics
– First law of thermodynamics
 Relates with conservation of energy which can neither be created nor
destroyed
 Examples pedal powered generator, Feynman’s story of the boy and his
blocks
– Four possible conclusions if energy appears not to be conserved
 We are not dealing with a closed system—energy in one form or another
is entering or leaving the system.
 Energy stays within the system but is in some form we neglected to
consider
 We have made an error in our measurements.
 We have discovered an example of the violation of the law of
conservation of energy. 5
 Basics of Energy Contd.
• Second law of thermodynamics.
– Used to indicate the limit of converting heat into work and
introduces the principle of increase of entropy.
– Alternative statements of the law
 A closed system if let to itself will spontaneously lose its
orderliness, will spontaneously lose its information.
 Spontaneous processes are irreversible
 The internal energy of the environment is worthless for
obtaining useful work
 All forms of energy are not identical with reference to useful
work
 Every energy conversion process has certain losses.

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 Basics of Energy Contd.

• Second law of thermodynamics.

If we have to approach the question of quantifying
orderliness, we will need to talk about out of various
ways of arranging a particular thing, what is the
probability of having a particular structure?
The lower the probability of that particular state, the
more information it carries, the more orderly the
state.
when we say that it went from orderliness to
disorderliness, it actually went from a very low
probability state to a high probability state.
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 Basics of Energy Contd.

• Second law of thermodynamics.

The Entropy is used to measure the orderliness or the
measure of the information,
Entropy is given by kln(p)
Where k is Boltzmann constant (1.38×10^−23 J/K.
The more disorderly a system the higher the entropy,
the more orderly a system the lower the entropy
– Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics can
be molded in the language of the entropy

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Entropy vs Probability

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Value of information vs Probability

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 Entropy and Probability

• Flip four coins. Coins have heads HH and tails TT.

What are the possible results?
– 1: HHHH
– 2: HHHT, HHTH, HTHH, THHH
– 3: HHTT, HTHT, THHT, HTTH, THTH, TTHH
– 4: HTTT, THTT, TTHT, TTTH
– 5: TTTT
• The macro-state with the highest entropy is no. 3

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 Basics of Energy Contd.

• Second law of thermodynamics.

The second law suggests that a closed system when
left to itself, its orderliness decreases or it tends to
loose its information or its entropy increases.
Why we see ordered structures around us?
How do we then survive?
Why information is being created?

– That can happen only in an open system

– Living systems can survive by, sucking in
orderliness from the environment.
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 Basics of Energy Contd.

• Second law of thermodynamics.

– So, a system can maintain its orderliness by, sucking in
negentropy (a pocket of orderliness) from the environment.
– You can survive only by sucking in that pocket of orderliness
from the environment and releasing material in a disorderly state.
– In order to survive, the society takes in whatever was the amount
of negentropy that was there in the environment and discharges
material in a very disorderly state
– So it is possible to reverse the entropy (disorderliness) but at the
cost of spending some energy
– For example, rebuilding of sand castle and the broken cup of tea.
– Societies can not survive without energy
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 Entropy

• In the context of thermodynamics, the entropy is

given as dQT
• This definition of entropy representing the heat flow
at some temperature is only related to the thermal
process involving heat transfer.
• If you have two cylinders and you remove the
partition, one with oxygen another with nitrogen,
with the same temperature, there is no thermal
process.
• Yet we know that there is increase in entropy

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 Using entropy to calculate the
efficiency of energy conversion
• Consider the following setup
Body A Body B
𝑄1 𝑄2

𝑄1 is the heat lost by body A

𝑄2 is the heat gain by body B
• Entropy lost by this body A is Q 1 by T1,
• Entropy gained by B is similarly Q 2 by T2
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 Energy efficiency
𝑇2
• Energy efficiency is given by 𝜂 = 1 −
𝑇1
• Let us assume that
𝑇1 = 500°𝐶 𝑇2 = 30°𝐶
• Let 1 Mcal heat is spent to raise the temperature by
using coal then the out put available for useful work
𝑇2
is (1 − )*1Mcal
𝑇1
• 𝜂 =0.608

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 Heat energy and its quality

• Refer to the conversion of heat energy into mechanical

work
• All the heat energy can not be converted into
mechanical energy
• So, what is so special about heat?
• Mechanical to electrical conversion, electrical to
mechanical conversion, is there any such theoretical
limit of the efficiency?
• Why so?

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 Quality of energy

• High quality energies

– Mechanical energy
– Electrical energy
• Low quality energies
– Heat energy
• What about solar and wind?

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 Energy efficiency

• We have already seen that energy efficiency is given

𝑇2
by 𝜂 = 1 −
𝑇1
• Let us assume that
𝑇1 = 500°𝐶 𝑇2 = 30°𝐶
• Let 1 Mcal heat is spent to raise the temperature by
using coal then the out put available for useful work
𝑇2
is (1 − )*1Mcal
𝑇1
• 𝜂 =0.608
• So this is the available energy which can be converted
to mechanical or electrical energy.
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 Energy efficiency Contd.

• Heat amount that will be produced by the coal is

fixed, but if you can produce a larger temperature,
obviously the ideal conversion efficiency will go up.
• Now the point is that out of this whole mass of heat,
only 60.8% was available for conversion.
• What about the rest of the heat?
• This is known as 1st law efficiency
• 2nd law efficiency is
𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑝𝑢𝑡
𝐴𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦
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 Exergy

• Energy available for useful work is known as

exergy which is the theoretical maximum limit
• For the energy engineers what matters is how much
are we lagging behind from the theoretical
maximum?
• So, the second law efficiency is more important.

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 Energy and the survival of society
• So, what is the societal process doing?
– We are consuming the things that we earlier converted
into an organized, orderly, low entropy form.
– Through the process of use, they again become
unorganized, disorderly, high entropy forms.
• It is basically the Earth that has finite resources in terms of
the negentropy stock
• The negentropy stock in terms of the energy sources as well
as the material sources, both are depleting
• As the negentropy stock in terms of material resources are
depleting, they require more and more energy in order to use
and the energy resources are also depleting.

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https://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
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 With Energy, What Do We Want?

• To feel green?
• To use less energy?
• To have a higher standard of living?
• To decrease our carbon dioxide
emissions now? In the future?
• To have more renewable energy?
• To have less expensive energy?
• To have jobs?

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 Engineers Have Long Been “Green”

• With lighting over the last 150 years we’ve

increased efficiencies by about a factor of 1000.
From 0.05 lumens/watt for a candle, to 15 for an
incandescent bulb, to > 130 for an LED.

Source: http://www.ornl.gov/sci/cmsinn/talks/3_kung.pdf 25
 Notation - Power

• Power: Instantaneous consumption of energy

• Power Units
Watts = voltage x current for dc (W)
kW – 1 x 103 Watt
MW – 1 x 106 Watt
GW – 1 x 109 Watt
• Installed U.S. generation capacity is about
1000 GW ( about 3 kW per person)

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 Notation - Energy

• Energy: Integration of power over time; energy is

what people really want from a power system
• Energy Units
– Joule = 1 Watt-second (J)
– kWh = Kilowatthour (3.6 x 106 J)
– Btu = 1055 J; 1 MBtu=0.292 MWh; 1MWh=3.4MBtu
– One gallon of gas has about 0.125 MBtu (36.5 kWh); one
gallon ethanol as about 0.084 Mbtu (2/3 that of gas)
• U.S. electric energy consumption is about 3600
billion kWh (about 13,333 kWh per person)

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 Electric Systems in Energy Context
• Class focuses on renewable electric systems, but we
first need to put them in the context of the total
energy delivery system
• Electricity is used primarily as a means for energy
transportation
• Use other sources of energy to create it, and it is usually
converted into another form of energy when used
• Concerns about need to reduce CO2 emissions and
fossil fuel depletion are becoming main drivers for
change in world energy infrastructure

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 Looking at the 2013 Energy Pie:
Where the USA Got Its Energy
About 82% Fossil Fuels About 40% of our energy is
consumed in the form of
Biomass, 4.7 Wind, 1.6
electricity, a percentage
Hydro, 2.6
Nuclear, 8.5
that is gradually increasing.
The vast majority on the non-
Petroleum, 36
fossil fuel energy is electric!
Natural Gas,
27.4
In 2013 we got about 1.6% of
our energy from wind and 0.3%
Coal, 18.5
from solar (PV and solar thermal),
0.2% from geothermal

1 Quad = 293 billion kWh (actual), 1 Quad = 98 billion

kWh (used, taking into account efficiency)
Source: EIA Monthly Energy Review, December 2014
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 Historical and Projected US
Energy Consumption

Energy
in
Quads

Source: EIA Monthly Energy Review, December 2014

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Renewable Energy Consumption

2013 Data
(Quad)
Total: 9.3
Hydro: 2.6
Wood: 2.1
Bio: 2.0
Wind: 1.6
Waste: 0.5
Solar: 0.3
Geo: 0.2

Source: EIA Monthly Energy Review, December 2014

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 Growth in US Wind Power Capacity
The quick
development
time for wind
of 6 months
to a year
means that
changes in
federal tax
incentives
can have
an almost
immediate
impact on
Source: AWEA Wind Power Outlook 3 Qtr, 2014 construction
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The World

Source: Steve Chu and Arun Majumdar, “Opportunities and challenges

for a sustainable energy future,” Nature, August 2012 33
 The World: Top Energy Users (in
Quad), 2013 Data
• China – 110.6 World total was about 529 Quad
• USA – 95.0 in 2012; Average per 100
• Europe – 81.4 Million people is about 7. If
• Russia – 31.5 world used US average
• India – 23.9 total consumption would be
about 2150 quad!
• Japan – 20.3
• Africa – 17.3
• Canada – 13.3
• Brazil – 12.0

Source: US DOE EIA

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 Per Capita Energy Consumption in
MBtu per Year (2011 data)
• Iceland: 688.3 Norway: 386.8
• Kuwait: 577.2 Canada: 393.7
• USA: 312.7 Australia: 276.9
• Russia: 213.3 France: 165.9
• Japan: 164.0 Germany: 165.4
• UK: 134.5 S. Africa: 115.3
• China: 77.5 Brazil: 60.1
• Indonesia: 25.6 India: 19.7
• Pakistan: 14.2 Nigeria: 5.0
• Malawi: 1.9 Chad: 0.3
Source http://www.eia.doe.gov 35
 World Population Trends

Country 2005 2015 2025 %

Japan 127.5 126.9 123.3 -3.3
Germany 82.4 80.8 79.2 -3.9
Indonesia 220.2 256.0 276.7 25.6
USA 295.7 321.3 351.3 18.8
China 1306 1361 1394 6.7
India 1094 1251 1396 27.6
World 6474 7253 7986 23.3
Source: www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/summaries.html; values in
millions; percent change from 2005 to 2025

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USA Energy-Related CO2 Emissions
are Down to mid 1990’s levels

Part of the reason for the decrease is due to low

natural gas prices, which has caused greatly increased
natural gas generation and less coal generation.
Source: US DOE EIA, US Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions, 2013 37
 Worldwide CO2 Emissions

• Worldwide CO2 emissions continue to climb, from

23,700 billion metric tons in 2000 to 32,700 in 2012
• Country comparisons between 2000 and 2010
(billion metric tons)
Country 2000 2012
USA 5861 5270
China 2850 8547
India 1002 1831
Russia 1499 1781
Japan 1201 1259
Europe 4459 4263

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 Energy Economics

• Electric generating technologies involve a tradeoff

between fixed costs (costs to build them) and operating
costs
• Nuclear and solar high fixed costs, but low operating costs
(though cost of solar has decreased substantially recently)
• Natural gas/oil have low fixed costs but can have higher
operating costs (dependent upon fuel prices)
• Coal, wind, hydro are in between
• Also the units capacity factor is important to
determining ultimate cost of electricity

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