Comparative analysis of control strategies for solar photovoltaic/diesel power system for stand-alone applications

Abstract

Energy is one of the essential components for the social and economic growth of urban and rural communities worldwide. However, the lack of energy supply is one of the most significant challenges facing remote or local communities in Nigeria. Distributed generation systems based on renewable energy, conventional sources, or hybrid resources are possible energy production solutions for these communities. This paper, therefore, focused on providing an energy generation system based on photovoltaics (PV) and diesel generators (DG) for stand-alone applications. A comparative analysis was carried out to assess the impact of control strategies, namely load following (LF), cycle charging (CC), and combined dispatch (CD). The designed energy systems: 60 kW PV, 78.69 kW PV, PV-DG-LF, PV-DG-CC, and PV-DG-CD were simulated using HOMER Pro while technical, economic, and environmental indices were used as performance metrics. Simulation results showed that 60 kW PV generated 84,927 and 75,859 kWh, without and with temperature effect, respectively, with the corresponding unmet electric load (UEL) of 13.8 and 14.2%. The result further demonstrated that PV-DG-LF is the optimal design with the highest renewable penetration of 80.7% and the least annual total fuel consumption (TFC) of 6,594l. The economic results further confirm the suitability of PV-DG-LF with the lowest fuel cost (FC) and moderate cost of energy (COE) of $219,934 and 0.302 $/kWh, respectively. The PV-DG-LF is found to be more environmentally friendly, with the least annual CO2 emission of 16,629.652 kg. The study considers veritable strategies to achieve affordable, clean, and reliable energy in line with research efforts on realizing the sustainable development goal (SDG) 7.