Proceedings

Techno-Economic Feasibility of a Hybrid Power

Generation System for Developing Economies †
Sanjay Mukherjee * and Abhishek Asthana
Faculty of ACES, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S1 1WB, UK; A.Asthana@shu.ac.uk
* Correspondence: sanjay.mukherjee86@gmail.com; Tel.: +44-(0)743-263-7919
† Presented at the Sustainable Places 2017 (SP2017) Conference, Middlesbrough, UK, 28–30 June 2017.

Published: 2 November 2017

Abstract: This work investigates the feasibility of hybrid power generation system using multiple
energy sources to fulfil the electrical demand of a residential community. The system performance
is evaluated against the capital investment, Cost of Electricity (COE), CO2 emissions and Net Present
Cost. Results indicate that the hybrid system reduces the COE by 47% compared to grid price and
has a negative CO2 emissions of 24,603 kg/yr due to supplying its surplus energy to the grid.
Renewable sources contribute to 80.1% of the overall power produced by the hybrid system. The
study finds that the hybrid systems could replace complete dependency on grids.

Keywords: renewable energy; power generation; HOMEREnergy; carbon emission

1. Introduction
Providing continuous power supply to communities has always been challenging in developing
economies, especially in isolated areas, due to high costs, transmission losses and power shortages.
According to International Energy Agency, 1.1 billion people, predominantly living in rural areas,
did not have access to electricity in the year 2016 [1]. Renewable energy based power plants offer a
potential solution for connecting societies with clean and cheap power supply [2]. However, the
fluctuations in wind speed and solar radiation with seasons and day-night cycles can cause
interruption in power supply and therefore possess risks in completely relying on a single renewable
energy source. Overcoming this issue requires increasing the size of the renewable energy system,
i.e., the solar photovoltaic (PV) modules or wind turbines, with more energy storage capacity thus
making the technology financially unfavourable for developing economies.
A hybrid power generation system with more than one renewable energy source allows
integration of the different energy resources into an optimum combination and can overcome the
fluctuation in power supply. The high intensity availability of one energy source could subdue the
unavailability of the other during a certain period, keeping the power production at required levels.
Although hybrid systems provide a promising alternative to single source energy system, the sizing
of individual energy system and limited operational experience increases the design complexity.
Various probabilistic and deterministic approaches have been used to develop models of hybrid
systems to find optimum combination of the available resources and assess the system's performance
[3–6]. This work evaluates the techno-economic feasibility of a hybrid system generating power for a
small community using wind turbine and PV along with grid connection to further ensure
uninterrupted power flow.

2. Materials and Methods

The selection of suitable energy resources for the hybrid system is dependent on the factors
involving load demand, site location, seasonal variations in load and intensity of energy resources,

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etc. The initial step involves selection of an appropriate location with adequate solar radiation and
wind speed. In this work, a hypothetical residential community with latitude 31.104605 and longitude
77.173424 has been selected. The data collected from NASA’s surface Meteorology and Solar Energy
database for the selected site indicates that the annual solar radiation and monthly average wind
speed ranges from 4.76–7.16 kWh/m2/day and 4.7–7.16 m/s, respectively. The annual average
electricity consumption of the community is 165.29 kWh/day with a peak load of 24.57 kW. The daily
average consumption by month, shown in Figure 1 indicates that the month of January has the
highest average electrical consumption of 204 kWh and July has the lowest 136 kWh.

Daily average consumption by month

200
kWh/day

100

0
January February March April May June
July August September October November December

Figure 1. Daily average consumption by month.

The model of the hybrid power plant using a combination of solar, wind and grid is developed
in HOMEREnergy, an optimisation tool for modelling energy systems. Any shortage in power
generation from the renewable sources will be covered by supply from grid. Parameters such as solar
radiation, wind speed, PV and wind turbine capacity, electrical load, equipment cost, operating and
maintenance (O&M) cost etc. are used as inputs to the model. The optimisation procedure simulates
every possible system configuration by varying capacities of each energy source. All feasible
configurations that meet the required electrical load of the community are presented to the user. The
selected PV system has an operating lifetime of 25 years and costs £1000 per kW including the cost of
shipping, installation and control system [7,8]. The O&M costs were considered as £10 per year per
kW. Wind turbines with 10 kW capacity and a lifetime of 25 years are selected for the project. The
capital cost and annual O&M cost for one wind turbine unit (10 kW) is £16,000 and £100, respectively
[9]. An inverter with 95% efficiency and 15 years of maximum lifetime is selected. The capital and
replacement costs of the converter is taken to be £300 per kW. Lead-acid batteries with nominal
voltage 12 V and nominal capacity 83.4 Ah or 1 KWh were selected. The maximum lifetime of the
battery, regardless of usage i.e. float life is 10 years. The capital cost of each battery is £300 and the
replacement cost is £240. The O&M cost is assumed to be £10 per year for each battery. The size of
the PV, wind and battery units are calculated through simulations by HOMEREnergy. The optimum
combination of the components will generate power at minimum cost.

3. Results and Discussions

The simulation results obtained indicate various system configurations that could be a possible
alternative to a complete grid supply. HOMEREnergy performs the energy balance calculations for
each system configuration to determine if specified electrical demand is met, and estimates the cost
of installation and operation of the system over the project lifetime to calculate the COE for each
configuration.

3.1. Power Generation by the Hybrid System

The simulation eliminates all infeasible systems that do not meet the required electrical load and
presents the results as a list of optimal combinations of PV, wind turbine, grid, converter and battery,
which could be implemented as a hybrid system setup. Table 1 shows the simulation results of the
hybrid configuration with the lowest COE. The results indicate that the most optimised system have
contribution from all three sources i.e., wind, solar and grid. This system will require a 46.5 kW PV
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unit operating for 4377 h/year and one 10 kW wind turbine unit operating for 7168 h/year. It produces
123,814 kWh of electricity annually, with 80.1% coming from PV and wind turbine. The AC primary
load of the community is 60,330 kWh, which is only 48.7% of the total production of 123,814 kWh by
the hybrid system. The remaining 63,483 kWh of the excess energy is sold to the grid. The levelised
COE from the hybrid plant is £0.029 per kWh, which is ~47% lower compared to the grid rate of
£0.055. The payback for the hybrid system is calculated to be around 13.8 years.

Table 1. Simulation results for the hybrid energy system.

Quantity Units Value Quantity Units Value

PV capacity kW 46.5 Total electricity production kWh/yr 123,814
Production by PV kWh/yr 81,633 Renewable fraction % 80.1
Wind capacity kW 10 Total electricity consumption kWh/yr 60,330
Production by wind turbine kWh/yr 17,626 Energy sold to Grid kWh 63,483
Energy purchased from Grid kWh 24,554 Levelised COE £/kWh 0.029

3.2. Costs Involved in the Hybrid System

Table 2 presents the summary of the costs (in £) involved in the hybrid system. The initial capital
cost of the overall system is £62,820 and the O&M cost is −£15,961. The negative value of the O&M
cost reflects the savings obtained in O&M costs of the grid as a result of supplying the excess
electricity of 63,483 kWh produced by the hybrid system to the grid. This reduces the net present cost
of the hybrid system to £47,044. The land area required for installation of the hybrid system is not
taken into consideration for cost calculations.

Table 2. Cost summary of the hybrid power generation system.

Component Initial Capital Replacement O&M Fuel Salvage Total

10 kW Wind Turbine 16,000 0 1278 0 0 17,278
Lead Acid Battery 300 208 127 0 −28 608
Flat plate PV 46,509 0 5945 0 0 52,455
Inverter 10 4 0 0 −0.85 14
Grid 0 0 −23,312 0 0 −23,312
System 62,820 213 −15,961 0 −28 47,044

3.3. Environmental Aspects of the Hybrid System

A comparison between the hybrid system and grid based on carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous
oxides (NOx) and sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions is shown in Table 3. A complete power supply to
the community from grid will emit 38,129 kgs of CO2 per annum. On the other hand, a hybrid system
has a negative CO2 emission rate of 24,603 kg per annum since the excess electricity produced by the
hybrid system using carbon free renewable resources is sold to the grid.

Table 3. Emissions from a hybrid system and a grid supply system.

Quantity Units Hybrid System Grid

Carbon Dioxide kg/yr −24,603 38,129
Sulfur Dioxide kg/yr −107 165
Nitrogen Oxides kg/yr −52.2 80.8

3.4. Comparison of Hybrid System with Standalone System

In the standalone system, a diesel generator unit replaces the grid to maintain continuous power
supply. The generator unit used has an operational lifetime of 15,000 h and costs £240 per kW of rated
output. It's O&M cost is considered as £0.012 per hour and fuel price as £0.70 per litre. The simulation
results indicate that the lowest levelised COE obtained for the standalone hybrid system consisting a
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21.6 kW PV unit, two 10 kW wind turbine units and a 28 kW diesel generator unit is £0.255 per kWh;
4.6 times higher than the grid electricity price. The system produces 91,466 kWh/year in which the
renewable's contribution is only 69.7% compared to 80.1% in case of the hybrid system with grid
connection. The standalone system produces 27,928 kWh of excess energy that could not be sold since
the system is not connected to the grid. The total costs involved in the lifetime of the standalone
hybrid system are £196,831; four times higher than the grid connected hybrid system. The system
also produces 18,041 kg/yr of CO2 by burning diesel. The study shows that a standalone system
should only be used where a grid connection is not available, i.e. extremely remote locations.

4. Conclusions
Both solar radiations and wind speed could show huge variations in their intensity at certain
places and times, thus making them less reliable as a continuous source of energy for power
generation. A well-designed power generation system combining both solar and wind energy can be
more consistent and economical. This work examined the performance of a hybrid power generation
system comprising a combination of solar, wind and grid designed to fulfil the electrical demand for
a residential community. The findings indicate feasibility of the hybrid power generation system. The
study also showed that the hybrid system can significantly reduce the COE by 47% and has a negative
GHG emission.

Author Contributions: S.M. and A.A. conceived and designed the power generation system models used in the
study. S.M. analyzed the data and A.A. contributed tools required for the work; S.M. and A.A. jointly wrote the
paper.

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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