PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A PV-DIESEL HYBRID POWER GENERATION SYSTEM

Abstract

The utilization of renewable energy has gained momentum nowadays due to the rapid decrease in fossil fuel resources and increased environmental concerns. But the amount of power available from these natural resources will vary continuously from place to place and time to time depending on its geographical locations; terrains, altitude, climatic conditions. So the energy supplied from these sources will be fluctuating in nature. Hybrid energy system is an excellent option for supplying small isolated power systems (SIPS) and remote villages where conventional grid cannot reach due to technical and economical reasons. The report discusses hybrid energy systems. The reliability of supply is the major concern in the performance evaluation of hybrid energy systems. Several methods for evaluating reliability evaluation have been explained in this report. The present dissertation analyses the reliability of a typical hybrid energy system consisting of a solar PV system in conjunction with a diesel generating set to supply an isolated area. In this context, it must be understood that different reliability assessment methods have their own limitations. Deterministic techniques consider only the fixed capacity outputs of generating units and cannot be applied to fluctuating renewable sources. Probabilistic techniques analyze the system with single risk index but it is difficult to interpret the entire system behavior using single risk index. A relatively new method known as System Well-being Analysis has been used for evaluation of reliability of the PV-diesel hybrid energy system applying Monte Carlo simulation technique. The reliability implications of PV and diesel energy utilization in the hybrid energy system are then discussed and conclusions are stated.