I
ncreased concern about
energy crisis and environmental issues
has revitalized interest in the
application of renewable
energy
technologies
. For ensuring steady and continuous electricity generations, a
hybrid
power
system
(HPS)
including
more than one renewable energy elements is introduced
. In this paper,
environmental and economic
analys
e
s are
used to
discuss
the
sustainability of a
HPS
. A
n investigation is made on small
-
scale operations of
100kWh per day
HPS
as a
grid
-
assisted power generation consisting of solar (photovoltaic) and wind energy. A comparison is drawn
among the
different configurations of
a grid
-
connected
HPS
operation focusing on environmental and economic impacts. Emissions
and the renewable energ
y generation fraction (RF) of total energy consumption are calculated as the main environmental
indicator. Costs including net present cost (NPC) and cost of energy (COE) are calculated for economic evaluation. To
simulate long
-
term continuous implementati
on of the
HPS
, the hourly mean global solar radiation and wind speed data
of 2007, from Alice Spring (
23.70
S
?
,
133.88
E
?
) of Australia, are used as an example of a typical hot arid climate. The
monthly solar exposure b
etween
13.31
and
21.3
2
MJ m day
and mean wind speed of
7.13
/
in 2007 is considered for
simulation The Micropower Optimization Model software HOMER developed by the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory, USA is used for simulation. It
is found that, for Alice Spring arid climates, the optimum results of
HPS
show a 64.3% reduction of emissions including
2
CO
,
2
SO
, and
x
NO
.
Renewable fraction
of the optimized system is
54%.
It is also found that the
HPS
has benefits of cost saving. The reduced NPC and COE are only equal to about 85.3% of
energy consumption from standard grid. In addition, through a set of sensitivity analysis, it is found that the wind speed
has more ef
fects on the environmental and economic performance of a
HPS
under the specific climate.
Real Time Impact Factor:
1.33333
Author Name: G. Liu, M. G. Rasul, M. T. O. Amanullah, and M. M. K. Khan
URL: View PDF
Keywords: E nvironment; E conomy; H ot A rid Australia ; Hybrid Power S ystem
ISSN: 1923-7308
EISSN: 1923-7316
EOI/DOI: 10.5383/ijtee.01.01.003
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