Eng. Terry Lumbasi Chepkania graduates with a Master of Science Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering during the 64th graduation ceremony of the University of Nairobi on 11th December, 2020. He is a Manager at Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Corporation (REREC). He is passionate about serving others and has a personal commitment to his family and making use of available opportunities for posterity.
In the past, he served in various roles and capacities with Kenya Power & Lighting Company in Nairobi region and environs for a period of 12 years. Prior to that he worked with Nzoia Sugar Company as Trainee Engineer. He holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical and Communication Engineering from Moi University received in the year 2005. In 2014, he graduated with a Master of Business Administration in Finance from University of Nairobi. He is a registered professional Engineer with the Engineers Board of Kenya and a Member of the Institution of Engineers of Kenya. He is also a member of Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers. His research interests includes renewable energy generation, power system operation and control, distributed generation and grid integration.
Project Summary
INVESTIGATING POWER GRID FREQUENCY STABILITY WITH WIND ENERGY USING PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM
Renewable energy sources (RES) have become a key area of concern and interest world-wide, including in Kenya where recently a 310 MW Wind Power plant was commissioned. They are clean energy technologies, in some cases occur in abundance and can mitigate against rising cost of fossil-fuels. Wind energy conversion technologies, in particular, have witnessed one of the highest growth rates in the energy sector in recent years. However, their continued integration into the utility poses serious challenges with respect to the stability of the electrical power system. They do not inherently provide system inertia from rotating masses of the rotor of the turbine. In fact, it is well documented that large scale integration of wind energy sources into the grid by displacement of the conventional sources of energy leads to frequency instability. This thesis investigated power grid frequency stability with wind energy using particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. The investigation employed MATLAB/Simulink environment, in conjunction with power system analysis toolbox, on an IEEE 39 Bus Test System. The optimization employed PSO algorithm and load flow was conducted using Newton Raphson algorithm. Results obtained show that the voltage profile and frequency response profile improved significantly as the percentage wind penetration increased in the grid. The active and reactive power injections remained constant because the load was assumed constant. For the test system considered, the maximum wind power penetration level was established to be 32.1%. Notably, as the percentage of wind power penetration increased, the rate of change of frequency worsened from 0 % to 33.33 %. This is due to the intermittent nature of wind energy source.
Research Supervisors
Dr.Peter Moses Musau
Prof. Cyrus Wabuge Wekesa.
