Techno-Economic analysis of the potential utilization of a hybrid PV-wind turbine system for commercial buildings in Jordan.

Abstract

The Middle East has about 45% of global crude oil and natural gas reserves, making it highly energy independent. However, not all countries in this region are endowed with such fossil fuel potentials. Jordan is one of such country with energy dependency of about 96%., On the other hand Jordan has huge renewable energy potentials which abound in the solar belt region with solar irradiance ranging between 4 kWh/m² and 7 kWh/m² and good wind potential with wind resources exceeding 7 m/s annually. Electricity tariff for commercial buildings is at $0.33 per kWh and with governments’ introduction of feed-in-tariff and net energy metering systems in December 2013, the potential of renewable energy systems looks promising for grid connected systems. This study simulates the potential of a stand-alone hybrid system comprising PV and wind turbine to adequately meet the annual electricity need of 34.4 MWh of a hotel in Jordan, the technical feasibility and economic viability of the system is also analyzed. Its economic potentials are compared to an on-grid system of PV-wind turbine to feed the same load observing the effect of the implemented feed-in policy. The technical analysis shows that a 20 kW PV system and a 10 kW wind turbine can sufficiently supply the demand. In addition, the economic indices obtained from the stand alone system showed a net present cost of $147,485 for its 25 years life span, a savings-investment ratio (SIR) of 1.924 and a payback period of 11 years was obtained. The grid connected hybrid system showed greater economic potentials with NPC of $98,712, SIR of 2.84 and payback time of 8.07 years. Also, the analysis shows that policy improvement has the potential of saving commercial buildings of similar load thousands of dollars annually while eliminating environmental greenhouse gas emissions.