When U.S. military members are deployed in the Middle East, they often have limited access to sustainable energy sources. To help reduce carbon emissions from troops abroad, Idaho National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Defense are developing three pilot demonstration projects that will estab Contact online >>
When U.S. military members are deployed in the Middle East, they often have limited access to sustainable energy sources. To help reduce carbon emissions from troops abroad, Idaho National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Defense are developing three pilot demonstration projects that will establish clean energy and sustainability solutions for the U.S. Army Central Command in Kuwait. The projects are part of a program called Operational Energy.
The projects have significant environmental implications for Kuwait, which gets 99% of its power from fossil fuels. Operational Energy will diversify the area’s energy economy with resilient and sustainable power sources. These efforts will also improve quality of life for the soldiers. In particular, troops will no longer eat and sleep in the same space as the diesel generators, grappling with the fumes and noise.
The inaugural project focused on a microgrid solution to store energy and eliminate the need for costly and energy intensive solutions like diesel generators. “The first project successfully guided the first hybrid microgrid installation for the U.S. in Kuwait,” said Bob Turk, one of the managers on this project. “We used advanced inverters, battery storage and specialized solar photovoltaic implementations” so the Central Command operation area in Kuwait can operate more sustainably.
The second installation successfully implemented a unique 40-kilowatt carport solar power system design. “This shows that a collaboration between solar inverters and diesel generation can be achieved while maintaining stable operations,” said Turk. “This system eliminates the need to rely exclusively on diesel and proves that sustainable solutions can serve the same purpose.”
“INL has been with this project since its inception,” said Porter Hill, one of the Kuwait field implementation team members. “Our efforts began with basewide feasibility studies, thinking about different energy options, building efficiencies and power system possibilities that might work for the (Central Command) area.”
From the feasibility study, the team was able to lay out several options for program development concepts and field implementations. The INL team initially served as subject matter technical experts and in an advisory role. Then, in early 2022, some of the team members traveled to Kuwait to help conduct the pilot tests for each of the three installations.
“We’ve tried to stay a little more engaged with this project to make sure the team out in Kuwait felt our support and understood our rationale behind major design decisions and best practices for moving forward,” said Kurt Myers, another INL manager on the project. “This is truly a first of a kind effort, and it’s been a privilege to be able to shepherd this project through both the challenges and triumphs.”
The data collected from these efforts will inform further microgrid research and development activities. It will inform aspects of novel, inverter-based microgrid system controls. It will also help the team adjust its control algorithm approaches and may be used for artificial intelligence applications in microgrid management systems development, including the automation of changes to control settings depending on forecasts, use-cases and time of year.
“The research and development implications of this project are substantial,” Myers said. “When we work on projects like this, from base-wide feasibility to pilot scale implementation, we’re able to figure out the bugs and kinks with the design as we go along. Our efforts here will inform future microgrid implementations as we continue pushing toward net-zero solutions worldwide.”
About Idaho National LaboratoryBattelle Energy Alliance manages INL for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. INL is the nation’s center for nuclear energy research and development, and also performs research in each of DOE’s strategic goal areas: energy, national security, science and the environment. For more information, visit. Follow us on social media:Twitter,Facebook,InstagramandLinkedIn.
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The Kuwait Authority for Partnership Projects (KAPP) and the country''s Ministry of Electricity & Water & Renewable Energy launched the request for qualification this week, the third phase of development at the Al Shagaya facility.
While the government bodies did not specify whether the tender would take the form of a single large project, or be open to multiple smaller projects with a number of investors, they noted that successful projects would enter into a 30-year power purchase agreement with the ministry to acquire electricity produced at the project.
The bodies also noted that applications would be welcomed from companies with experience in utility-scale solar development, with their criteria for successful applications including having developed a minimum of two solar independent power producers with a net power output of at least 200MW.
The facility is set to be a cornerstone of Kuwait''s clean energy plan, with the government aiming to meet 15% of its energy demand with renewables by 2030. However, Kuwait met just 0.3% of its electricity demand with renewables as of 2022, according to a government report, and the successful commissioning of the Al Shaaya project could help accelerate this transition.
The government expects the facility to have a total power capacity of 2GW, and include solar PV, concentrated solar and wind power, and the latest tender round will account for more than half of this total capacity.
The move is the latest development in the Middle East solar sector, which has attracted significant investment in recent years. Last year, ACWA Power and the Saudi Public Investment Fund announced plans to develop a 4.5GW solar portfolio in the country, and in the first half of the year, LONGi shipped over 1GW of modules to the region.
XZero or "the new paradigm of sustainable urban life", is the most recent smart city initiative in the Persian Gulf region. According to its promoters: "At the heart of the project is a unique, multifunctional resilient landscape, designed to promote health, wellbeing and biodiversity". Let’s analyze it.
Its master plan, with four clusters shaped like petals surrounded by green areas, will be organized in various ‘hubs’: a technological, medical, tourist, educational, commercial and leisure hub. There will be 30,000 houses and all the jobs offered in the city will follow sustainability principles.
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