Optimization Techniques for Improving the Performance of Solar Photovoltaic System in Conjunction with Health Informatics and the Hospital Energy Management System

Abstract

Energy savings, clean energy, savings in utility and energy governance tools are buzzwords in the healthcare industry. Healthcare sectors become largest consumer of energy in the modern world. Based on data of American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), a moderate hospital consume 2.5 times higher energy than commercial buildings. As a result, increased worries about energy costs and environmental issues, as well as the anticipation of rising energy prices in the future and the need to enhance the dependability of healthcare facilities, have led to a focus on in-house power generation systems and the importance of energy management in hospitals and their health care facilities. Solar power systems that are clean and ecologically friendly have grown in popularity as distributed power generation (DPG) systems in recent years. In this work, a Grid-tied Solar PV system incorporated with Battery energy storage technology is considered in conjunction with health informatics and the hospital Energy Management System reduces energy consumption cost and improves the reliability of the power supply to run all clinical equipment available in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and other premises. In this context, the Energy management controller utilised in the hospital Energy Management System will effectively use the electricity supplied by the Solar PV system while minimising grid demand and stabilising the voltage in the DC bus, which must be inverted into AC using an inverter to feed clinical loads. Furthermore the maximum power point tracking method is adopted, which enhances the quality of DC voltage generated by solar PV panels and feed to the DC bus. Sliding mode controller (SMC) is adopted in the inverter side and the quality of the inverted voltage is optimized using artificial bee colony (ABC) method. The proposed solar PV system in conjunction with health informatics and the hospital Energy Management System is developed and simulated in the MATLAB Simulink. The response of the suggested SMC and ABC techniques are compared and their outcomes are shown to confirm the performance of hospital energy management system.