Abstract
This study investigates the techno-economic feasibility of an off-grid integrated solar/wind/hydrokinetic plant to co-generate electricity and hydrogen for a remote micro-community. In addition to the techno-economic viability assessment of the proposed system via HOMER (hybrid optimization of multiple energy resources), a sensitivity analysis is conducted to ascertain the impact of ±10% fluctuations in wind speed, solar radiation, temperature, and water velocity on annual electric production, unmet electricity load, LCOE (levelized cost of electricity), and NPC (net present cost). For this, a far-off village with 15 households is selected as the case study. The results reveal that the NPC, LCOE, and LCOH (levelized cost of hydrogen) of the system are equal to $333,074, 0.1155 $/kWh, and 4.59 $/kg, respectively. Technical analysis indicates that the PV system with the rated capacity of 40 kW accounts for 43.7% of total electricity generation. This portion for the wind turbine and the hydrokinetic turbine with nominal capacities of 10 kW and 20 kW equates to 23.6% and 32.6%, respectively. Finally, the results of sensitivity assessment show that among the four variables only a +10% fluctuation in water velocity causes a 20% decline in NPC and LCOE.
Highlights
The findings proved that the hydrokinetic energy utilization along with the storage method would be economically and technically feasible
Technical analysis revealed that the system could provide all electricity demanded by the load and the economic assessment showed LCOE would be 0.254 $/kWh
Among research works conducted in Iran to assess the techno-economic aspects of utilizing renewable energies for electricity and hydrogen production, none of which has included a hydrokinetic energy conversion system to analyze the possibility of renewable electricity and hydrogen co-generation for supporting a remote micro-community
Summary
Some developed countries have taken serious steps to meet their electric power demand by wind-generated electricity [6] Another renewable method of producing electricity, far less exploited than solar and wind energies, is hydrokinetic energy of river streams. The primary purpose of this work is to propose and analyze an off-grid hybrid solar/wind/hydrokinetic power generation plant to simultaneously meet the electric and hydrogen demand required by a far-off micro-community near the Karun River. After carefully scrutiny of the literature pertinent to the subject of this work, it was spotted that there is no published work about the techno-economic assessment of utilizing hydrokinetic energy combined with solar and wind energies in Iran to co-supply electricity and hydrogen This is the novelty and major contribution of this work by which other developing countries can address their research gap
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