Optimization and a comparison between renewable and non-renewable energy systems for a telecommunication site

Abstract

The renewable energy based hybrid energy system is one of better solutions to reduce the environment pollution. Renewable energy offers power supply for locations that are remotely located and also allows economical way of producing power for small power applications. The objective of this paper is to optimize and compare a non-renewable energy system with a renewable energy system for a remotely located telecommunication site in Mulligan, Labrador in Canada. The current system is operated using a diesel generator and batteries and the proposed system expects to integrate a hybrid wind and solar energy system into the existing diesel generator and batteries. Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewable (HOMER) software is used to obtain the most feasible configuration of a hybrid renewable energy system. The results show the hybrid renewable energy system is cost effective. The proposed system significantly reduces the running time of diesel generator and this helps to reduce the emission level. Moreover, it is expected that the proposed system will help the BellAliant Company to provide uninterrupted power for their sites in remote areas of Labrador.