Ecological Impact Asessment and Ecological Monitoring of a Strategic Landfill-A case study in Hong Kong

This paper discusses ecological and monitoring studies covering vegetation, stream fauna, birds, mammals and other vertebrates at the West New Territories (WENT)Landfill, Hong Kong. Recommendations for the protection of vegetation on and around the site, including control of the erosion and run off from the construction site were proposed and implemented, resulting in effective protection of the local vegetation cover. Stream macrobenthos were low in species diversity and abundance and did not show a changing trend during the construction and the operation of the land fill. Birds attracted to the active dumping site were dominated by Crested Mynah Acridotheres cristatellus and the Tree Sparrow Passer montanus. After an increase in the population during the warmer months, the number of birds seen on the land fill site decreased to 10 in December 1994. Mammal monitoring by live trapping revealed that the rat population did not increase after the land fill operation started. This project was the first comprehensive’ ecological study and monitoring of an urban land fill in Hong Kong and it demonstrated that careful environmental planning and implementation of mitigation measures can successfully limit environmental impacts of landfills to acceptable levels.

Application and Modeling of Battery Energy Storage in Power Systems

This paper presents engineering experiences from battery energy storage system(BESS)projects that require design and implementation of specialized power conversion systems(a fast-response,automatic power converter and controller).These projects concern areas of generation,transmission,and distribution of electric energy,as well as end-energy user benefits,such as grid frequency regulation,renewable energy smoothing and leveling,energy dispatching and arbitrage,power quality and reliability improvements for connected customers,islanding operations,and smart microgrid applications.In general,a grid level BESS project sends an interconnect request to utility power grids in the project development stage.Simulation models of equipment are then sent for a system impact study(e.g.,power flow and/or stability analysis),based on utility grid code requirements.The system study then determines the connection’s technical feasibility and impact of the project on the power grid.In this paper,a set of new BESS models is presented that are configured and parameterized for use in system impact studies as well as transmission planning studies.The models,which have been recently approved and released by the U.S.Western Electricity Coordinating Council(WECC),represent the steady state and dynamic performance of the BESS in several software platforms for power system studies based on operating project performance experience.Model benchmarking results as well as a real system case study are also included in the paper to show that the parameterized and tuned models respond correctly and as expected when system operating conditions change following contingency events.Finally,this paper provides useful guidelines in the use of new models to represent a BESS for power system analysis.