Energy-economic assessment of self-sufficient microgrid based on wind turbine, photovoltaic field, wood gasifier, battery, and hydrogen energy storage

Abstract

Designing self-sufficient renewable energy systems is becoming a key issue in the energy sector due to modern energy goals. Due to the variability of renewable energy sources, very often it is necessary to adopt hybrid configurations of renewable energy systems and advanced energy storage to achieve self-sufficiency. However, the adoption of complex and novel systems, including technologies as photovoltaic, wind turbines, biomass gasifiers, hydrogen energy storage, must to be founded on a comprehensive analysis of the system operation under different conditions and its energy and economic performance in the investigated case study. Therefore, the aim of the present paper is carry out a comprehensive feasibility analysis of a novel hybrid renewable energy system achieving a high self-sufficiency level. The system integrates a wind turbine and photovoltaic panels to match the energy load of a tourist resort in Agkistro, Greece. Energy exceeding the load is directed to the energy storage system based on the battery and hydrogen tank. As backup energy source, a wood gasifier is used.The investigation is performed by means of a numerical model developed in TRNSYS software allowing one to simulate dynamically the system and to assess its energy and economic performance. The goal achieved during the simulation of the system was to ensure at least 97% of energy demand from renewable sources. Moreover, a parametric analysis of the storage system is presented. It is found that payback period of the installation varies in the range between 11 and 15 years, for systems configurations allowing to satisfy 90–98% of the users energy yearly demand from renewables. The achieved results allows one to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed system from both an energy and economic point of view.