Cost effective exploration and environmental sustainability of Stand-alone Hybrid WindSolar System at Karufi, Pakistan

Abstract

Solar and wind energy technologies offer a renewable and hygienic energy source. These lavish in nature, unhindered and bottomless resources are of great importance globally now a day. This paper presents economical assessment and environmental feasibility of a hybrid Standalone wind/PV hybrid system in Karufi (Gufanwala) Pakistan, with energy consumption of 18.250MWh annually. HOMER (Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables) is used to determine the financial and environmental feasibility of Hybrid wind/solar PV renewable system. Multiple hybrid arrangements of wind turbines, PV (photovoltaic) array and battery sizes are sensibly chosen so that we get the optimal solution for the system regarding life-cycle cost method. It is found that the proposed stand-alone system with 100% renewable fraction (13 % solar and 87% wind) to be the cheapest to run the configuration with Cost of Energy (COE) of 0.319 US $ / kWh. When the diesel price is fixed to 1.5 US $ / litre, the COE for the system with 0 % renewable penetration is calculated to be 0.990 US$/kWh, i.e. approximately 3.1 times more than the projected stand-alone system. The proposed hybrid wind/PV system can also avoid additive emission of 2.0 tons of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) equivalent of CO2 annually into the indigenous atmosphere under deliberation.