SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION OF HYBRID RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEMS FOR REMOTE AREA RESIDENTIAL APPLICATIONS

This paper shows the way to design the aspects of a hybrid power system that will target remote users. The main power for the hybrid system comes from the photovoltaic (PV) panels, while the fuel cell (FC) and secondary batteries are used as backup units. Converter is incorporated, since the system will feed an AC load which is not connected to the grid. During the day, the PV ar ray produces much more power than needed by the load, with the surplus going to the electrolyzer and the battery. At night the FC will serve the load while drawing hydrogen from the storage tank. In this system, the hydrogen tank starts the year full and e nds it empty. The optimization software used for this work is the Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewable (HOMER). HOMER is a design model that determines the optimal architecture and control strategy of the hybrid system. A sensitivity analysis r eveals how sensitive the outputs are to changes in the inputs. In this system we specified one sensitivity variable with two values; which are the slope of fuel consumption in FC and the marginal fuel consumption of the FC. It shows that the Net Present Co st (NPC) and the Cost of Energy (COE) have increased due to the rise in fuel consumption in the FC from 0.03 to 0.05 L/hr/Kw.