Multivariate Analysis of a Wind–PV-Based Water Pumping Hybrid System for Irrigation Purposes

Ludmil Stoyanov,Ivan Bachev,Zahari Zarkov,Vladimir Lazarov,Gilles Notton

doi:10.3390/en14113231

Abstract

The Green Deal and increased nutritional needs are driving factors in human activities nowadays. Agriculture is an essential economic sector that can profit from the application of renewable energy sources by the assimilation of off-grid, arid and barren terrains. Power supplied by hybrid systems for water pumping is a solution for overcoming the stochastic character of the renewable energy sources. This paper presents a sizing methodology for a hybrid system with wind and PV generation and water tank storage, based on the consideration of the entire energy conversion chain with energy models and a one-year operation simulation. The PV generator is modeled using a reduced Durisch’s model, while for the wind generator a piecewise interpolation is used. The methodology is applied for sites in Bulgaria with specific agricultural crops and meteorological data. Combinations of PV (different technologies) and wind (different types) generators and water tank capacities are considered and discussed. The combinations are compared on the basis of three criteria: the investment cost, the satisfaction of crop requirements and system oversizing. The possibility for the introduction of battery storage is also examined. The results show some trends in the hybrid system sizing and the possibility to apply the proposed methodology for various sites, generators and crops.

Highlights

The non-exhaustive review of the literature for irrigation shows that the use of renewable energy for water pumping has been considered by many authors across the world and in Bulgaria
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization [92], Bulgaria was sixteenth in the world for cherry production in 2018 and twenty-first for wine
It is clear that these areas do not overlap, and it is impossible to satisfy the three optimization criteria at the same time: the optimal investment cost is for a low water tank capacity and a relatively high PV ratio, the optimal wasted electrical energy is for a high water tank capacity and a medium PV ratio, and the optimal level for meeting the crop’s needs is a high capacity of water tank and a high PV ratio

Summary

Introduction

The total installed capacity of renewable energy generators has increased in the past decades [4]. According to the Food Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, food production has increased by more than 100% in the last 30 years [6]. The expected growth until 2050 is a further 60% increase. These expectations raise the necessity to improve agricultural production. The main mechanism for increasing agricultural yields is irrigation. Research [7] shows that yields can be significantly increased though improved irrigation for almost all of the studied crops, reaching up to 250% for some of them (Figure 2)

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Conclusion