MicroGrid

 A microgrid is a small-scale power grid that can operate independently or in conjunction with the area's main electrical grid. Any small-scale localized station with its own power resources, generation and loads and definable boundaries qualifies as a microgrid.

A microgrid is an electrical system that includes multiple loads and distributed energy resources that can be operated in parallel with the broader utility grid or as an electrical island.

IEEE Std 1547.4-2011 defines Distributed Resource (DR) island systems or microgrids as Electric Power Systems (EPS) that:

(1) have DR and load,

(2) have the ability to disconnect from and parallel with the area EPS,

(3) include the local EPS and may include portions of the area EPS, and

(4) are intentionally planned.

Digital Fault Recorders (DFRs)

 

What is a fault recorder in power systems?

Digital fault recorders (DFRs) are multi-channel devices that are designed to capture and record the waveforms and sequence of events associated with power system faults. They come in many shapes and sizes and look similar to this one:

The waveforms they capture look like this:

Ground

GROUND

What Is Grounding?

The term ground has a very important and specific meaning in the context of electric circuits: it is an electrically neutral place, meaning that it has zero voltage or potential, which moreover has the ability to absorb excesses of either positive or negative charge and disperse them so as to remain neutral regardless of what might be electrically connected to it. The literal ground outdoors has this ability because the Earth as a whole acts as a vast reservoir of charge and is electrically neutral, and because most soils are sufficiently conductive to allow charge to move away from any local accumulation. The term earth is synonymous with ground, especially in British usage. A circuit “ground” is constructed simply by creating a pathway for charge into the earth. In the home, this is often done by attaching a wire to metal water pipes. In power systems, ground wires, capable of carrying large currents if necessary, are specifically dug into the earth.

How Does a Solar Van Look Like?

Solar Panels On Your Van

One of the best electrical systems nowadays is the solar panel system. For electrical connection, this system is the best one. This system normally used at home, on top of the roof to run the electronic home appliances. To add more value, this solar system now works on the transportation system. And their latest addition is working on the van.

You can use the solar products for Van and get the topmost benefits by using it in your van. Here you will also find out while traveling how a solar panel helps you and how the solar system works on van. By adjusting some settings and using some kits you can use the solar panel on your van. Let’s find out all the details and working methods of solar panels on the van.

Solar Panel Meaning and its Working style

If you are choosing the solar system for the van, then you already know the meaning of the solar panel. Still, to clear your concept here is a simple idea about the solar panel system.

The solar panel is a system that works to run the electronic device through its power system. It means this device has the capability to capture the heat or rays from the sun. And, then this heat is converted into energy for use on the device. This solar system helps to capture the power and covert to DC electricity. Later this DC current will merge into AC current through this panel.

People basically use this solar panel at home. They set the panel on top of the roof and this panel does its own work when the sun hits the sky. Solar panels are also popularly used for street lighting.  But today we will see how this solar panel works on a traveling van.

Solar Panel on a Van

You can use the solar panel in a van if you want. But, it’s up to you where you will set the solar panel. Usually, people set the panel on the roof, but you can also set the panel beside or backside of the van. You can permanently adjust the panel on your van. You can set the angel of your van roof and charge it as long as you want. But first, you need to what products you actually need to set the solar panel on your van.

Things You Need to Use to Set up Solar Panel on Your Van

Some basic solar products you need to use to get the solar service on your vans. Here I will discuss some basic products that you need to use for adjusting the solar panel on your van.

● Silicon Solar Panel

This kind of solar panel is known by “Goal Zero” panels with backpacking terms. This kind of solar panel needs a larger amount of space to produce maximum energy. For example, if you need 45W for your van, you have to make a space of almost 4 feet in the van. This kind of panel is not popular anymore for the big van.

● Semi-Flexible Solar Panel

The semi-flexible panel is created by a Swiss team that is much more popular than another panel. Using the semi-flexible solar panel is now a trend. This panel is lightweight and capable of consuming more energy than others. The basic panel that produces the 100 watts need a specific dimension with 16.5 lbs., where for the semi-flexible panel it only needs 4.86 lbs. Also, there is a cost difference between the basic panel and semi-flexible panel.

● Controller of the Charger

Using the solar panel on your van you must need to use a charger controller. Without this controller, you will not be able to keep safe your electronic devices or equipment on the van. This charger makes sure you can control the power of the van. If your solar panels are not connected to the charge controller, then your battery will be overcharged and it will damage the appliances on the van.

Normally, we choose the charger controllers through their ratings of amperage. When we set the solar panel on the van, it produces 6 amps per hour. So, if you need a 24 A+ charger controller, you need to use at least four solar panels in your van.

● Inverter

You will be needed an inverter on your van when you will use the home appliances in the van. Otherwise, you don’t need the inverter. But if you are planning to choose the inverter you need to calculate the watts. Because the inverter measured by the watts. And if you can calculate how much watts you will be needed to use, then it will be easy to choose the accurate inverter for your van.

For example, if you use a blender that needs 1800W then, you need to use a string inverter that produces that many watts. So, you need to calculate the number of watts on your van and what appliances you want to use, then choose the inverter.

● Battery

This is also another useful thing on the van. Three types of battery you will find for the power van. Those are -

• AGM Battery: This battery is the combination of glass mats. Instead of electrolytes material, you will get the glass mats around the battery.
• Gel Battery: This battery is a combination of silica gel and sulfuric acid. But, the problem with this battery is, it doesn’t provide good service in the high-heat.
• Lithium-Phosphate with Iron Battery: This battery is the combination of these three chemicals and provides longer service than AGM and Gel battery. For long time use, you can use this battery in your van.

So, these are all the basic solar products you need to use when you want to set up the solar panel on your van. After choosing the right products based on the criteria, now you can easily set up the solar panel on your van.

Final Word

Using a solar panel on your van has lots of benefits. Especially when you want to choose the solar panel for any traveling van, you need to determine how big will be your van is. Then you need to find out which place is the best to set up the solar panel.

Potential or Voltage

 Potential or Voltage

Because like charges repel and opposite charges attract, charge has a natural tendency to “spread out.” A local accumulation or deficit of electrons causes a certain “discomfort” or “tension” unless physically restricted, these charges will tend to move in such a way as to relieve the local imbalance. In rigorous physical terms, the discomfort level is expressed as a level of energy. This energy (strictly, electrical potential energy), said to be “held” or “possessed” by a charge, is analogous to the mechanical potential energy possessed by a massive object when it is elevated above the ground: we might say that, by virtue of its height, the object has an inherent potential to fall down. A state of lower energy—closer to the ground, or farther away from like charges—represents a more “comfortable” state, with a smaller potential fall.

The potential energy held by an object or charge in a particular location can be specified in two ways that are physically equivalent: first, it is the work that would be required in order to move the object or charge to that location. For example, it takes work to lift an object; it also takes work to bring an electron near an accumulation of more electrons. Alternatively, the potential energy is the work the object or charge would do in order to move from that location, through interacting with the objects in its way. For example, a weight suspended by a rubber band will stretch the rubber band in order to move downward with the pull of gravity (from higher to lower gravitational potential). A charge moving toward a more comfortable location might do work by producing heat in the wire through which it flows.

This notion of work is crucial because, as we will see later, it represents the physical basis of transferring and utilizing electrical energy. In order to make this “work” a useful and unambiguous measure, some proper definitions are necessary.

The first is to explicitly distinguish the contributions of charge and potential to the total amount of work or energy transferred. Clearly, the amount of work in either direction (higher or lower potential) depends on the amount of mass or charge involved. For example, a heavy weight would stretch a rubber band farther, or even break it. Similarly, a greater charge will do more work in order to move to a lower potential. On the other hand, we also wish to characterize the location proper, independent of the object or charge there. Thus, we establish the rigorous definition of the electric potential, which is synonymous with voltage (but more formal). The electric potential is the potential energy possessed by a charge at the location in question, relative to a reference location, divided by the amount of its charge. Casually speaking, we might say that the potential represents a measure of how comfortable or uncomfortable it would be for any charge to reside at that location. A potential or voltage can be positive or negative. A positive voltage implies that a positive charge would be repelled, whereas a negative charge would be attracted to the location; a negative voltage implies the opposite. Furthermore, we must be careful to specify the “reference” location: namely, the place where the object or charge was moved from or to. In the mechanical context, we specify the height above ground level. In electricity, we refer to an electrically neutral place, real or abstract, with zero or ground potential. Theoretically, one might imagine a place where no other charges are present to exert any forces; in practice, ground potential is any place where positive and negative charges are balanced and their influences cancel. When describing the potential at a single location, it is implicitly the potential difference between this and the neutral location.

However, potential can also be specified as a difference between two locations of which neither is neutral, like a difference in height. Because electric potential or voltage equals energy per charge, the units of voltage are equivalent to units of energy divided by units of charge. These units are volts (V). One volt is equivalent to one joule per coulomb, where the joule is a standard unit of work or energy. Note how the notion of a difference always remains implicit in the measurement of volts. A statement like “this wire is at a voltage of 100 volts” means “this wire is at a voltage of 100 volts relative to ground,” or “the voltage difference between the wire and the ground is 100 volts.” By contrast, if we say “the battery has a voltage of 1.5 volts,” we mean that “the voltage difference between the two terminals of the battery is 1.5 volts.” Note that the latter statement does not tell us the potential of either terminal in relation to ground, which depends on the type of battery and whether it is connected to other batteries. In equations, voltage is conventionally denoted by E, e, V, or v (in a rare and inelegant instance of using the same letter for both the symbol of the quantity and its unit of measurement).

CHARGE

 It was a major scientific accomplishment to integrate an understanding of electricity with fundamental concepts about the microscopic nature of matter. Observations of static electricity like those mentioned earlier were elegantly explained by Benjamin Franklin in the late 1700s as follows: There exist in nature two types of a property called charge, arbitrarily labeled “positive” and “negative.” Opposite charges attract each other, while like charges repel. When certain materials rub together, one type of charge can be transferred by friction and “charge up” objects that subsequently repel objects of the same kind (hair), or attract objects of a different kind (polyester and cotton, for instance).

Through a host of ingenious experiments, scientists arrived at a model of the atom as being composed of smaller individual particles with opposite charges, held together by their electrical attraction. Specifically, the nucleus of an atom, which constitutes the vast majority of its mass, contains protons with a positive charge, and is enshrouded by electrons with a negative charge. The nucleus also contains

neutrons, which resemble protons, except they have no charge. The electric attraction between protons and electrons just balances the electrons’ natural tendency to escape, which results from both their rapid movement, or kinetic energy, and their mutual electric repulsion. (The repulsion among protons in the nucleus is overcome by another type of force called the strong nuclear interaction, which only acts over very short distances.)

This model explains both why most materials exhibit no obvious electrical properties, and how they can become “charged” under certain circumstances: The opposite charges carried by electrons and protons are equivalent in magnitude, and when electrons and protons are present in equal numbers (as they are in a normal atom), these charges “cancel” each other in terms of their effect on their environment. Thus, from the outside, the entire atom appears as if it had no charge whatsoever; it is electrically neutral.

Yet individual electrons can sometimes escape from their atoms and travel elsewhere. Friction, for instance, can cause electrons to be transferred from one material into another. As a result, the material with excess electrons becomes negatively charged, and the material with a deficit of electrons becomes positively charged (since the positive charge of its protons is no longer compensated). The ability of electrons to travel also explains the phenomenon of electric current, as we will see shortly.

Some atoms or groups of atoms (molecules) naturally occur with a net charge because they contain an imbalanced number of protons and electrons; they are called ions. The propensity of an atom or molecule to become an ion—namely, to release electrons or accept additional ones—results from peculiarities in the geometric pattern by which electrons occupy the space around the nuclei. Even electrically neutral molecules can have a local appearance of charge that results from imbalances in the spatial distribution of electrons—that is, electrons favoring one side over the other side of the molecule. These electrical phenomena within molecules determine most of the physical and chemical properties of all the substances we know.

While on the microscopic level, one deals with fundamental units of charge (that of a single electron or proton), the practical unit of charge in the context of electric power is the coulomb (C). One coulomb corresponds to the charge of 6.25 x 10 to power protons. Stated the other way around, one proton has a charge

of 1.6 x 10 to power -19 C. One electron has a negative charge of the same magnitude, 21.6 x 10 to power -19 C. In equations, charge is conventionally denoted by the symbol Q or q.

Power lines

Power lines are made of two materials, copper and an aluminum wire with a steel core. Transmission lines (also all new construction) are usually made of the aluminum variety. This is because while copper is a better conductor, and is stronger, copper is also very expensive and Heavy. In contrast, aluminum is also quite conductive, very light, and not to mention cheap in comparison. One downside to aluminum is it’s quite a lot weaker than copper, which is where the steel core comes in. The combination of aluminum (good conductor, cheap, weak) and steel (only okay conductor, cheap, and strong as heck) make both a cost effective and strong material to make new lines with.

Also worth noting, a big problem in the power line industry is copper theft. Not only is it dangerous to the thief, but those wires are essential to the safety of the utility workers and reliability of the grid. **

** I never understood why people steal copper, they don’t realize how dangerous it really is. In my area alone there has been 3 deaths of thieves in the past 10 years. With the price of copper and the time it takes, you'd make more sweeping the parking lot for some generous small business, a lot safer too.