Optimized Hybrid Wind-Diesel Energy System with Feasibility Analysis

Abstract

The enormous percentage of people in the world; particularly in the developing countries; are living mostly in decentralized, rural and remote areas, those are geographically secluded from the main grid connection. The power distribution and continuous fuel transportation to generate electricity for these areas pretenses a very big challenge. By proper utilization of renewable energy resources in off grid hybrid energy systems will be an efficient solution of this crisis. Moreover, the high cost of renewable energy systems has led to its slow adoption in many developing countries. Hence, it is very important to find an appropriate size of system in order to reduce the energy cost and excess electricity generation as well as to maximize the available resources. Therefore, a hybrid energy system has been designed and simulated to support a small community considering an average load demand of 85 kWh/d with a peak load of 8.7 kW. The simulation and optimization of the system have been performed by the HOMER software using real time field data of solar radiation, wind speed and biomass of that particular area. The simulation results confirm that the system is suitably feasible with respect to the net present cost (NPC) and CO2 emission reduction purpose. The simulation results also confirm that the NPC and CO2 emission can be reduced about 32.45% and 29 tons per year respectively compared to the conventional power plants. The NPC of the optimized system has been found about USD $160,626 having per unit Cost of Energy (COE) about USD $0.431/kWh and the operating cost USD $10,779/yr.