Undergraduate Projects
Airport Energy Simulator
As NSW grows, there is increasing demand for a secondary international airport, and plans are underway to build the brand-new Nancy-Bird Walton international airport at Badgery’s Creek in Western Sydney for operations in 2026. A project this scale is bound to bring huge economic activity to Western Sydney, however, there is a focus on doing it sustainably.
A solution that many other airports around the world are implementing is a vast solar array to offset the electrical demands of their operations. In collaboration with Western Sydney University, DXC Technologies wants to know approximately how many solar panels and solar batteries will be needed to achieve a net zero or better electricity offset for the operation of the airport. In doing so, they will be able to create a sustainable design for the airport.
Solution Description
Our solution is an interactive simulation using AnyLogic which simulates electricity demands, solar offsets, solar battery storage and random variables such as electrical losses and weather. Using this, we can estimate live, hour-by-hour solar generation, electrical demand, battery storage and net electrical offset to the grid through solar-feed-in tariffs.
Once we have a ballpark figure for the number of solar panels and batteries we need, we can run experiments to get sufficient confidence on whether that configuration can satisfy a net-zero offset most of the time.
Results
After running tens of thousands of simulations of the airport solar system, our group has concluded that based on the estimated demands by our client, the following solar configurations can achieve net zero in 3 years:
- Less than 50% chance requires 7370 solar panels and 6220 kWh of battery storage
- 50% chance requires 7500 solar panels and 2000 kWh of battery storage
- More than 95% chance requires 8000 panels and 3000 kWh of battery storage