XXX-X-XXXX-XXXX-X/XX/$XX.00 ©20XX IEEE Planning for electricity generation fully based on renewable energy systems Parakram Pyakurel Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute Funchal, Portugal parakram.pyakurel@m-iti.org Filipe Quintal Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute Funchal, Portugal filipe.quintal@m-iti.org James Auger Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute Funchal, Portugal james.auger@m-iti.org Abstract—This paper proposes and discusses planning approaches for the development and operation of renewable energy systems for electrification. The approaches presented here are based on consumption pattern analysis. Consumption pattern of Madeira, Portugal is presented as an example. The proposed approaches include scenarios where electricity is fully supplied by renewable energy sources as well as a scenario where the objective is to increase the penetration of renewable energy systems. Keywords—energy planning, consumption pattern, peak demand, energy optimization I. INTRODUCTION Application of renewable energy sources to meet energy demand is likely to increase because of depletion of fossil fuel sources [1] and climate considerations as replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy technologies lowers carbon intensity [2]. There are several methods to plan for the development and expansion of renewable energy systems in electricity sector. Some methodologies for planning these systems are optimization strategies such as cost minimization, maximization of the Project Lifetime Economic Return, minimization of CO2 emission and minimization of the fuel price risk due to the use of non-renewable energy sources [3]. Likewise, renewable energy systems can also be planned by investigating demand response [4]. For instance, active controller has been proposed [5] for a smart grid with high penetration of renewable resources to analyze consumption pattern and optimize cost and reliability. This paper proposes several approaches to design renewable energy systems for electrification based on analysis of electricity consumption patterns. Consumption pattern of main island of Madeira, Portugal is taken as a reference case. Madeira is an autonomous archipelago of Portugal and the main island considered in this paper does not import electricity from elsewhere. Therefore, the approaches presented in this paper are most applicable for small-scale grid infrastructure including islands and small developing or underdeveloped nations like Nepal. The objective of this paper is to develop computationally inexpensive design strategies for renewable energy development in electricity sector. Hence there is no requirement of high performance computing and processing power. II. CONSUMPTION PATTERN BASED ANALYSIS A. Madeira electrification scenario Madeira Electricity Company, a government owned entity, is responsible for generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in Madeira [6]. In 2015, the total installed capacity of power plants in the main Madeira island was 325.97 MW of which the sizes of thermal, hydro, wind and PV plants were 211.04 MW, 50.67 MW, 45.11 MW and 19.15 MW respectively [7]. The corresponding energy supplied by these plants were 670.37 GWh, 66.49 GWh, 73.64 GWh and 25.01 GWh. B. Analysis of consumption pattern Electricity consumption patterns for main island of Madeira are analyzed here for different temporal resolution. Fig. 1 shows power consumption on the main island of Madeira on a 7 th of May 2015 with hourly resolution. This date is representative of a random typical weekday. Similarly, Fig. 2 shows power consumption with hourly resolution on 10 th of May 2015 which represents a typical weekend. The horizontal straight lines in the figures represent average values. It is observed that a weekday typically has a slightly higher (roughly by 18%) power consumption than a weekend day in Madeira. This could be because of the effect of consumption by service sector which operates only on weekdays. Fig. 3 shows power consumption on 28 th of July, 2015 as this day has the highest energy consumption for 2015. The highest daily energy consumption on the day of July can be expected in Madeira as the island hosts several sports and other events during summer and experiences high influx of tourists. Fig. 4 shows power consumption on 24 th of December, 2015. It is seen that this day has a short period where power consumption is the highest for 2015, as opposed to 28 th of July, 2015 which has the highest energy consumption of 2015. This shows that the day when energy consumption is highest can be different from the day/instant when power consumption is highest in Madeira. Monthly energy consumption pattern is shown in Fig. 5 where higher energy consumption is seen in summer for reasons explained above. Fig. 6 shows daily average power consumption pattern for the year 2015 with the horizontal straight line representing average value.