Climate influence on the optimal stand-alone microgrid system with hybrid storage – A comparative study

Abstract

In the efforts to combat global warming, diversified social, political and technical strategies have been proposed and partially carried out. The vision to have a 100% renewable energy-based electricity system has been one of the long-term strategies in Germany. It is well known that renewable energy can only be utilized to the full extent when its down-side characteristics of intermittency and variability can be compensated by a practical storage system. Due to its long-term storage capacity in comparison to the battery storage, in recent years, hydrogen storage system has been undergoing a technological development and deployment boom, especially for the microgrid systems. This research evaluates the techno-economic feasibility of a 100% hybrid renewable energy-based system with different scenarios of energy storage systems for an off-grid microgrid system in two distinct climate regions within Germany, namely Hamburg and Munich. The “HOMER Pro” software was used to analyse the economic and environmental impact amongst the case studies. The aim of this theoretical study is to answer the questions: 1) Under different climate conditions which type of energy storage (i.e. battery, hydrogen tank, and hybrid battery-hydrogen tank) can offer the overall flexibility and economic advantages? 2) For a specific climate condition, how is the hybrid storage system deployed to achieve the optimum cost-effective scenario? 3) How would climate uncertainties affect the future energy plan for different climate zones?