Journal of Energy Research and Reviews

Global attention has been drawn to exploiting the potentials of renewable energy systems, especially their hybrid configurations, due to sustainability issues and climatic impact associated with the use of fossil fuels. Power management in such hybrid renewable energy systems is still a progressive research. Many power control solutions have been proposed. However, much of them lack validation. This work was done to validate a proposed novel intelligent power management scheme based on fuzzy logic control. The controller, designed by a group of researchers, was validated by adapting it to a hybrid renewable energy system, and simulating test case scenarios to validate the functionality claims of the controller. For each test case, the controller was confirmed to emulate expert decisions. The novel fuzzy logic controller was thus validated and the claims of the authors verified.

Aims: To examine the viability of Soybean Oil as a feedstock for Biodiesel production by carrying out its characterization and examining its thermodynamic properties to see if they are within ASTM limits.

Study Design: Place and Duration of Study-The production was conducted in the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the University while the characterization of the Biodiesel was conducted at the Postgraduate Research Laboratory.

Samples of Glycine ma (L.) merril were obtained from a local market in the Akure town of Ondo State, Nigeria in October of 2014.

 Methodology: Oil Extraction-The oil was extracted using soxhlet extractor, but before extraction the soybeans were crushed in a blender to increase the area exposed to the petroleum ether solvent. The extraction flask was dried in an oven at 105°C and the weight was measured after cooling. 2.5 g of soybean was poured into the flask and leached for 5 hours after which extraction flask was removed from the mantle heater after all the petroleum ether was removed with rotary evaporator and the oil was oven dried at 105°C for one hour to remove any water present. The flask was finally cooled to room temperature in a desiccators and the weight of the flask and dried oil was again measured.

Transesterification and Glycerine Analysis Process: 50 mg of the extracted oil was esterified 5 times at 95°C with 3.5 ml of the 0.5 M KOH of dried methanol. The mixture was neutralized using 0.7M HCL. 3 ml of 14% boron triflouride in methanol was added and the mixture was heated for 5 minutes at 90°C to achieve completed methylation process. The fatty acid methyl esters were thrice extracted from the mixture with redistilled methanol. The content was concentrated to 1mL for gas chromatography analysis and 1 µL was injected into the port of the Gas Chromatograph analyzer.

Results: most of the pertinent parameters for the determination of validity were found to be within ASTM limits, namely: Flash Point (135°c / 130°c min); Kinematic Viscosity (4.80 / between 1.9 - 6); Cetane number (55 / 47 min); Copper Strip Corrosion (1 / 3 max); %Carbon Residue (0.12 / 0.050); %Sulphated Ash (0.044 / 0.020).

Conclusion: Given the obviously good numbers associated with the study relative to ASTM standards, Soybean is a viable source of Biodiesel. However, further study could explore the use of Soybean chaff and other waste matter obtainable from it rather than the entire crop.

In this study, a pressure driven flow of a magnetohydrodynamic steady coupled-flow across a porous layer horizontal bottom plate with buoyancy force is investigated. The heat transfer problem is also examined by taking viscous and Ohmic dissipation and radiation effects in the energy equation into consideration. The velocity and temperature slip boundary conditions are taken at the plate and at the interface of the porous medium and clear fluid, it is assumed that velocity components to be continuous and the jump in shearing stresses. The solutions to the problem are obtained by employing fourth order Runge-Kutta scheme along with shooting technique and the effects of the pertinent parameters entrenches in the flow system are shown graphically and quantitatively discussed. The results shows that an increase in the thermal convection and pressure gradient enhances the flow rate in both region but the effect was great at the clear region than the porous medium region.

Energy has been and will continue to be the driver of economy of a nation. In sharp contrast, our country Nigeria is being faced with energy poverty. This may accrue to, in fact, over reliance on conventional energy sources such as hydro power, fuels and gas etc. So, there is need to take into consideration the renewable energy as potential alternative for power generation. This work seeks to assess the wind energy potential of Edo state using a statistical method: statistical quality control technique. The detailed knowledge of the wind characteristics at a site is very crucial to install and estimate the performance of a wind energy project. The monthly and yearly highest mean wind speeds were 3.28 and 2.91 m/s respectively. The most probable wind speed and wind speed carrying maximum energy were estimated 2.84 and 4.53 m/s in 2015. Result revealed that the wind speed are statistically in control. That is, the speeds of wind fall in between their respective upper and lower limits for 2015 - 16. The result of the study revealed that the wind energy potential of Edo state is quite low for electricity generation based on the two-year wind data analysed. It is suggested that this research area should be intensified by collecting wind speed data at various locations sufficient to define its potential for power generation.

Cuckoo search algorithm (CSA) is an effective and highly reliable swarm intelligence based optimization approach. It is a technique of determining the most efficient, low cost and reliable operation of a power system by dispatching the available electricity generation resources to supply the load on the system. This paper presents a comprehensive review of CSA application in Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) problem. This review will assist power system engineers with a view to enhancing the optimal operation of available thermal plants in electrical power systems.