Techno‐economic evaluation of renewable energy systems combining PV‐WT‐HKT sources: Effects of energy management under Ecuadorian conditions

Abstract

Sustainable development reached a new energy paradigm in recent decades, by promoting renewable generation technologies. The present study performs a techno-economic analysis of several hybrid energy systems that combine wind generators, photovoltaic systems, hydrokinetic turbines, lead acid batteries, and diesel generators in southern Ecuador. From real data, the sizing optimization of each renewable system was done under three proposed energy control algorithms. Then, the combinations of renewable systems are compared based on costs, energy, and environment. Additionally, this study includes several sensitivity analyzes varying the cost of the components and fuel, minimum state of charge in batteries, scaled electric load and time step to better understand the impact caused in each renewable hybrid system. The results show that a system composed of three renewable sources under load following and cycle charging energy controls, is cheaper and less polluting with respect to any combination of sources proposed. In addition to this, the systems that include photovoltaic systems and diesel generators present lower cost, 0.36 US$/kWh in the best case. To reduce the operability of the diesel List of Symbols and Abbreviations: P PV , output power of a photovoltaic system (kW); Y PV , rated capacity of the photovoltaic array (kW); f PV , photovoltaic derating factor (%); G T , incident solar radiation on the photovoltaic array (kW/m 2); G T,STC , incident solar radiation at standard test conditions (kW/m 2); α P , power coefficient of photovoltaic array (%/ C); T c , photovoltaic cell temperature (C); T c,STC , photovoltaic cell temperature at standard test conditions (C); η mp , maximum power point efficiency of photovoltaic array at standard test conditions (%); τ, solar transmittance of the photovoltaic array (%); α, solar absorptance of the photovoltaic array (%); P WT , output power of wind turbine (kW); v cin , cut in wind speed (m/s); v count , cut off wind speed (m/s); v r , rated wind speed (m/s); P rated , nominal power limit of wind turbine (kW); ρ air , air density (kg/m 3); R, rotor radius of wind turbine (m); C p , power coefficient of wind turbine (%); v i , wind speed (m/s); P HKT , hydrokinetic turbine electrical power output (kW); ρ w , water density (kg/m 3); C p,H , hydrokinetic turbine performance coefficient (%); η HKT , combined hydrokinetic turbine-generator efficiency (%); A, hydrokinetic turbine sweep area (m 2); v, river speed (m/s); t, time (s); E HKT , energy of hydrokinetic turbine (kWh); P DG , diesel generator electrical power output (kW); η DG , diesel generator efficiency (%); E batt (t), energy stored in batteries over time t (kWh); E batt (t − 1), energy stored in batteries over time (t − 1) (kWh); σ, battery self-discharge rate; η batt , efficiency of battery during the charging process (%); P Linv (t), power of bidirectional converter in alternating current (kW); P inv (t), power of bidirectional converter in direct current (kW); η inv , efficiency of bidirectional converter (%); C...

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