Design and economy of renewable energy sources to supply isolated loads at rural and remote areas of Egypt

Abstract

Meteorological conditions in many sites of the world countries as well as in Egypt are well adapted to install more than one of renewable energy sources (RESs) to supply electrical loads. Solar and wind energies are the most convenient and economic types of RESs pertaining the meteorological conditions of Egypt. Also, the main type of isolated loads at rural and remote areas of Egypt is pumping loads for irrigation purposes. So, three alternatives of solar photovoltaic and wind energy systems can be used to supply these loads. In this work, a proposed model has been introduced to evaluate the design and economy of these alternatives to supply isolated loads in a remote area. This model is used also for optimizing these alternatives of RESs from economical point of view. The proposed model depends on the meteorological data at the installation site, the performance of solar photovoltaic and wind energy systems used, the type and capacity of energy storage facility employed, the economical parameters of these resources and load. The proposed model is applied numerically to design three alternative sources of solar photovoltaic and wind energy systems to supply an isolated load in a remote area of Egypt. The economy of these sources are determined and compared to develop the most economical one of these RESs. (4 pages)