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In the present paper, a new approach to the management of energy resources in the Research and Technology Centre of Energy (CRTEn -Tunisia) is proposed and evaluated by the monitoring of a PV installation realized for the cooperation project DE.DU.ENER.T, using renewable energy and economic criteria. The aim of this project is to improve energy efficiency order to minimize the electricity cost consumed at the CRTEn laboratory. According to the bills of electricity received, we noticed that there is a high consumption of electrical current. So, we targeted to install a photovoltaic field of 12KWc to reduce these bills by using the sustainable, green and clean sources. A theoretical study of the PV system sizing realized in order to know in the first hand the compatibility between the different equipment of this installation and to compare the results with those found by the SMA Sunny Design and PV*SOL software in the second hand. The experimental results show that the performance factor of the proposed system is 84.6%. Meanwhile, the cost of the energy generated by the proposed system is 0.045 USD/kWh, which means that the payback period, is about 11 years. The conclusion from this study is that the price of energy generated by PV systems in Tunisia is lower than the subsidized price of energy generated by fossil fuel.

European renewable generation has been supported through several policy instruments in the last decades, and this has caused a significant growth of the renewable energy sector, spurred by the ambitious climate and energy policy targets. Despite this impetuous growth, the electricity infrastructure is not yet ready to accept increasing shares of variable renewable energy sources (RES) generation, and this is causing grid balance challenges, due to the inherently variable nature of the PV and wind energy. In order to overcome this issue, allowing higher shares of renewable generation in the energy sector, energy storage (ES) systems are becoming increasingly competitive in the global energy landscape, thanks to the positive momentum in research and innovation, making European energy supply more secure, sustainable and affordable. Despite the unarguable benefits, storage technologies still see significant needs for more education among stakeholders, since they are not familiar with technology's benefits and management solutions. In order to fill this gap, this study provides an overview of storage technologies for stationary applications in the EU (plus Bosnia-Erzegovina, Norway and Switzerland), addressing the main trends in European policy legislation, also identifying advantages and barriers for their implementation. Furthermore, based on the analysis of the US Department of Energy (DOE) storage database, the main trends in ES installations within the EU markets are identified, with reference to storage technologies. The analysis carried out in this work could help stakeholders to assess the European storage market evolution in the stationary sector, identifying the main drivers and barriers for each storage technology.

In the last years, stationary battery systems started to attract the attention of stakeholders thanks to their unique ability to decouple power generation and load over time, providing the ancillary services necessary for the stability and the reliability of the electrical system. This is especially true in the presence of high levels of penetration of renewable energy technologies, like wind and solar photovoltaic (PV), because of increased fluctuations in the electricity produced by these renewable sources. Despite the growing interest in energy storage technologies, the academic literature has not completely assessed the development trends of this sector. In order to fill this gap, this study strives to address the trends in the spread of stationary battery systems within the U.S. territory. First, the U.S. policy legislation within the different U.S. states is reviewed, with particular emphasis on support policies put in place in the different states. Second, based on the analysis of the Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Storage Database, the main trends in battery systems installations within the U.S. are identified and presented in this paper, with reference both to the viable use cases and to the main electrochemical technologies currently spread in the storage market. The analysis carried out in this work could help stakeholders to assess the impact of energy storage policies in the different U.S. states, identifying the future trends and the most promising markets within the U.S. territory.

In the present paper, a new approach for the management of energy resources in a research laboratory is proposed and evaluated. A simulation study for the photovoltaic (PV) installation was conducted under the Tunisian-Italian cooperation project DE.DU.ENER.T, using renewable energy and economic criteria. The aim of the study is to improve the energy efficiency in order to minimize the electricity cost consumed in the laboratory. A Hybrid Renewable Energy System consisting of a photovoltaic field of 12KWc was installed to reduce the exorbitant bills, due to intensive energy equipment such as drying ovens and workstations, using sustainable, green and clean sources. In addition, a sizing theoretical study of the PV system was primarily realized in order to evaluate, in the first hand, the compatibility between different equipment and to compare, in the second hand, with results given by two software SMA Sunny Design and PV*SOL. We designed and managed these systems optimally to promote the self-consumption of the electric energy in the LPT Research laboratory building. The focus would be on the use of the PV system by evaluating the impacts of electricity generation using renewable energy levied on electricity grid (energy injection and extraction) and the economies that can be achieved during operating hours. Results of PV-SYST study obtained by the simulation of our installation will be discussed.

This paper represents the feasibility study and analysis of a grid-connected hybrid (PV-Wind) system with battery, realized within the project DE.DU.ENER.T and installed in the research centre CRTEn located in the northern Tunisia in the city of Borj-Cedria. The main objective of this work is to exploit renewable sources of electrical energy production to electrify the desired building. So, to minimize electricity consumption costs, reduce the adverse effects of pollutants products from the diesel power systems and sometimes happen to sell the surplus of energy produced. The HOMER (Hybrid Optimization Model of Electric Renewable) software is used to estimate system size and its performance analysis.

The paper presents a prototype of a microsystem for the integration and the optimal management of renewable energy sources in order to attain a reduction of the total energy consumption of a not residential building. The system composed by the building and the prototype is an energy sustainable microsystem and is located in Italy in the city of Valderice. The microsystem has been conceived in the ENPI (European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument) cross-border cooperation Italy - Tunisia 2007-2013 DE.DU.ENER.T. (Le DEveloppement DUrable dans la production ENERgetique dans le Territoire) research project framework. In the paper the purposes of the DE.DU.ENER.T. project are presented and the prototype is shown. Moreover a monitoring protocol for the evaluation of the energy and money savings is described.

In the present paper, a new approach to the management of energy resources in a research laboratory is proposed and evaluated by a simulation for the PV installation realized for the Tunisian-Italian cooperation project DE.DU.ENER.T, using renewable energy and economic criteria. The aim of this project is to improve energy efficiency order to minimize the electricity cost consumed at the laboratory, because according to the bills of electricity received we noticed that there is a high consumption of electrical current, from the STEG grid, and especially by the energy intensive equipment such as drying ovens and all the workstations. So we targeted to install a photovoltaic field of 12KWc to reduce these bills by using other sustainable, green and clean sources. In addition, a theoretical study of the PV system sizing realized manually in order to know in the first hand the compatibility between the different equipment of this installation and to compare the results with those found by the SMA Sunny Design software in the second hand. Then, we present the different result obtained by the simulation of our installation using a PV∗SOL simulation software. We designed and managed these systems optimally to promote the self-consumption of the electric energy in the building of LPT Research laboratory. We will focus on the use of the PV system by evaluating the impacts of electricity generation using renewable energy levied on electricity grid (energy injection and extraction) and the economies that can be achieved during the hours Operating.

In the paper an optimal management procedure for a system composed of a renewable energy source, storage batteries and a load, permanently connected to a distribution network, is presented. The issue follows two objectives: a) maximum economic benefit for the system, and b) minimum energy exchange with the network. The operation cost of storage facilities, as well as the technical and economic constraints on power exchanges between the system and the network and the technical constraints about charging and discharging cycles of the batteries are considered. The effectiveness of the management procedure is numerically tested and the results are presented.

Unlike many Italian peninsular areas, which are increasingly turning to a diverse supply of renewable resources to generate electricity, Italian not-interconnected small islands continue to rely on oil for their electricity and other energy needs (e.g. transports). Small-scale electricity systems, that are not connected to a larger electricity grid, are usually more expensive. The present paper proposes the functional design of an innovative Smart Grid which allows changing an Italian small not-interconnected island, Pantelleria, into a smart island, towards a more sustainable energy model. In detail, a techno-economic feasibility study is performed in order to design a Smart Grid at Pantelleria Island. The study identifies innovative architectures and characteristics of the main components of the Smart Grid as well as the characteristics both in quantitative and qualitative terms of the renewable energy technologies and electric storage systems to be installed in order to reduce the dependence on fossil energy sources and activate the distribution network of the island. © 2016 AEIT.

In this paper, we present a renewable energy sustainable micro-system installed upon a platform located in the Research and Technology Centre of Energy in Borj Cedria Techno park (Tunisia). This prototype has been conceived within the ENPI (European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument) cross-border cooperation Italy-Tunisia 2007–2013 research project framework. This project's overall goal is to develop a common strategy for the deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency by endorsing the cooperation between Italy and Tunisia. The focus is to implement the use of sustainable energy microsystems that generate electricity from various renewable sources (solar thermal, photovoltaic, wind turbine) and store it with storage systems (traditional and innovative batteries) used for a “stand alone” application independent from the grid.

In the 9th of March 2007, the European Council decided a fixing goal of 20% contribution of the renewable energy sources (RES) on the total European electric energy production in 2020. In order to reach such an ambitious goal, all the European countries are adopting different support policies for encouraging the installations of RES-based generation systems. In this paper, after a brief review on the main support policies for RES in Europe, the specific situations of four representative countries (France, Germany, Italy and Spain) are examined, with the purpose of putting into evidence the main differences in the support policies adopted for Photovoltaic (PV) and Wind systems. In particular, a comparison based on the calculation of the pay-back-period (PBP), the net present value (NPV) and the internal rate of return (IRR), for different sized PV and Wind systems, shows that in some situations a support policy can be not convenient for the owner of the RES-based generation system and that, in many cases, the differences between the way of implementation of the same support policy in different countries, can give place to significantly different results.

The paper focuses on an energy sustainable prototype micro-system installed upon a roof of a building in Valderice (Italy). This micro-system has been conceived in the ENPI (European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument) cross-border cooperation Italy - Tunisia 2007–2013 DE.DU.ENER.T. (Le DEveloppement DUrable dans la production ENERgetique dans le Territoire) research project framework. The main aim of this project is the construction of a sustainable energy micro-system prototype suitable for the optimal integration and management of renewable energy resources (photovoltaic, wind and solar thermal) and to reduce the building's energy consumption. In the paper the project and the prototype installed in Valderice (Italy) are described.

This paper focuses on an optimal operating strategy of combined RES-based generators and electric storage systems for small/medium-scale public facilities. The operating strategy can be used in load shifting applications in response to a time-of-use (TOU) rate design with differential pricing for on- and off-peak usage. Load shifting applications can be exploited by customers using battery energy storage systems (BESS) in order to reduce their electricity bill, charging the storage when off-peak time periods are applied and discharging it during on-peak periods, when electricity energy prices are high. The operating strategy is implemented within a bidirectional converter that provides an interface between the low voltage (LV) grid and a PV generator combined with a BESS, so as to contemporary addressing the requirements of the national reference technical standards for active users connections and providing different ancillary services. © 2013 IEEE.

Price arbitrage involves taking advantage of an electricity price difference, storing electricity during low-prices times, and selling it back to the grid during high-prices periods. This strategy can be exploited by customers in presence of dynamic pricing schemes, such as hourly electricity prices, where the customer electricity cost may vary at any hour of day, and power consumption can be managed in a more flexible and economical manner, taking advantage of the price differential. Instead of modifying their energy consumption, customers can install storage systems to reduce their electricity bill, shifting the energy consumption from on-peak to off-peak hours. This paper develops a detailed storage model linking together technical, economic and electricity market parameters. The proposed operating strategy aims to maximize the profit of the storage owner (electricity customer) under simplifying assumptions, by determining the optimal charge/discharge schedule. The model can be applied to several kinds of storages, although the simulations refer to three kinds of batteries: lead-acid, lithium-ion (Li-ion) and sodium-sulfur (NaS) batteries. Unlike literature reviews, often requiring an estimate of the end-user load profile, the proposed operation strategy is able to properly identify the battery-charging schedule, relying only on the hourly price profile, regardless of the specific facility’s consumption, thanks to some simplifying assumptions in the sizing and the operation of the battery. This could be particularly useful when the customer load profile cannot be scheduled with sufficient reliability, because of the uncertainty inherent in load forecasting. The motivation behind this research is that storage devices can help to lower the average electricity prices, increasing flexibility and fostering the integration of renewable sources into the power system.

Within various renewable energy technologies, photovoltaics (PV) today attracts considerable attention due to its potential to contribute a major share of renewable energy in the future. However, PV market development is, undoubtedly, dependent on the political support of any given country. In this paper, after a brief analysis of national support policies in PV technology in western European Union (EU) countries, the authors perform an economic analysis of the main support mechanisms as implemented in the same countries, based on the calculation of the cash flow, the Net Present Value (NPV) and the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) indices. The analysis shows that in some situations support policies can be inconvenient for the owner of the PV-based generation system and that, in many cases, the differences between the implementation of the same support policy in different countries, can give rise to significantly different results. The analysis carried out in this work could help: • to assess the impact of PV energy policies in different western European member states; • renewable energy companies to identify potential PV markets and investigate the policy landscape across western EU countries.