Techno-economic analysis of both on-grid and off-grid hybrid energy system with sensitivity analysis for an educational institution

Abstract

The Renewable Energy Sources (RES) have marked a new trend in the Indian energy market and sustainable energy development. In countries like India, the consumers are more welcomed to be prosumers by utilizing the primary renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, biogas, geothermal etc. The renewable energy generation is highly dynamic and thus, Hybrid Energy Systems (HES) strengthens its scope in self-dependent energy generation of the consumers. This paper proposes techno-economic analysis of a Hybrid Energy System (HES) design that has been set up at Kamaraj College of Engineering and Technology (KCET), Virudhunagar, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. The paper investigates the on-grid and off-grid operation of the proposed HES. The system is designed and optimized by using HOMER (Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables) software. The feasibility of the HES system is studied under different dispatch strategies such as Cycle Charging (CC) and Load Following (LF) for both on-grid and off-grid operation. Further, the sensitivity analysis is carried out for the proposed HES system with the fuel price and scaled annual solar radiation as sensitivity variables. The Net Present Cost (NPC) and Cost of Energy (COE) of the system under different architectures are determined and it is found that, the on-grid HES with LF dispatch is the optimal system design for the selected location. The performance of the system is studied in both technical and economic perspectives to optimally design the HES components and a minimum NPC of $ 7.66 M has been obtained.