PV-Wind Energy Hybrid Systems Techno-Economic Feasibility Analysis for Different Swedish Locations

Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to determine the feasibility of a standalone PV-Wind hybrid system on different Swedish locations for single family houses. PV-Wind hybrid systems have the potential to be more cost effective by compensating each other’s shortcomings.Techno-economic analyses have been done to show how the different locations in Sweden and types of load influence the sizing and system costs. Combined with hourly meteorological and load data, the performance of a PV-Wind hybrid system is determined on an hourly basis. The effect of the time step of the wind speed data on a wind energy system has also been investigated.The main simulation tool to be used in this thesis is HOMER (Hybrid Optimization Modeling Electric Renewables) developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in the United States of America. HOMER is a simulation tool designed to optimize the size of energy systems for defined boundary conditions. The optimization is based on economic figures such as the Net Present Cost (NPC). Another simulation tool, Windographer, developed by the same organization, is used to analyze data with time-step lower than an hour. Finally, TRNSYS is used to compare the energy output of a wind turbine for wind speed data with different average time steps. It has been shown on a previous study that because of the low winds in the region of Borlänge only low electricity consumption is economically feasible and be able to cover at least 90% of the total energy demand and keep a minimum comfort at the house. A new simulation for Borlänge has been performed and it showed a pure PV system is the economic solution if the capacity shortage allowance falls below 30%. This is not a problem because the minimum set of comfort level has been assumed to be 10%. On windy places like Lund it shows that a PV-Wind hybrid system is much more convenient in terms of system production and cost of energy compared to pure PV stand-alone system.