Multicriteria Decision-Making to Determine the Optimal Energy Management Strategy of Hybrid PV–Diesel Battery-Based Desalination System

Abstract

This paper identifies the best energy management strategy of hybrid photovoltaic–diesel battery-based water desalination systems in isolated regions using technical, economic and techno–economic criteria. The employed procedures include Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) as tools for the solution. Twelve alternatives, containing three–four energy management strategies; four energy management strategies, load following (LF), cycle charging (CC), combined LF–CC, and predictive strategy; and three different sizes of brackish water reverse osmosis (BWRO) water desalination units, BWRO-150, BWRO-250, and BWRO-500, are investigated with capacity of 150, 250, and 500 m3/day, respectively. Eight attributes comprising different technical and economic metrics are considered during the evaluation procedure. HOMER Pro® software is utilized to perform the simulation and optimization. The main findings confirmed that the best energy management strategies are predictive strategies and the reverse osmosis (RO) unit’s optimal size is RO-250. For such an option, the annual operating cost and initial costs are $4590 and $78,435, respectively, whereas the cost of energy is $0.156/kWh. The excess energy and unmet loads are 27,532 kWh and 20.3 kWh, respectively. The breakeven grid extension distance and the amount of CO2 are 6.02 km and 14,289 kg per year, respectively. Compared with CC–RO-150, the amount of CO2 has been sharply decreased by 61.2%.

Sensitivity Analysis of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Methods for Engineering Applications

“…Supplying electrical energy to the RO plant from renewable sources such as solar energy can increase the efficiency of these units. The dataset in Rezk et al 43 has 12 alternatives based on 4 energy management strategies and 3 sizes of RO plants. Performance of each alternative is quantified by 8 energy consumption and environmental objectives; among these, operating cost, initial cost, cost of energy, excess energy, unmet load, breakeven grid extension distance, and CO 2 are to be minimized, whereas renewable fraction is to be maximized.…”

Techno-Economic Analysis and Optimization of an Off-Grid Hybrid Photovoltaic–Diesel–Battery System: Effect of Solar Tracker

“…where c ann denotes the total annual cost which is equal to summation of annual replacement, capital, and operation costs of each component. CRF, which is used to convert annual cost to its current value, is determined based on Equation (6). In this study, i and n are interest rate (%) and lifespan (year), respectively, which are considered equal to 10% and 20 years, respectively [42].…”

“…There are several problems related to the utilization of these fuels such as fluctuations in their price, greenhouse gas emission, and limitation in their resources [2][3][4]. Increase in the cost and the economic challenges related to excessive use of fossil fuels has caused more attention to the renewable energy sources [5][6][7]. Different renewable energies such as hydropower, solar, biofuels, geothermal, and wind are applicable for supplying the required energy of human activities.…”

Renewable Energy and Energy Storage Systems

“…Table 1 shows some of the large-scale projects implemented worldwide. While the various renewable energy sources have promising features, they are mostly intermittent and thus, need to be integrated with other renewable energy resources and/or proper energy storage systems [36,37]. The need for flexible high-capacity energy storage in the power system will grow as renewable energy consumption rises over 80% [38].…”