Applied Energy

Tri-objective techno-economic sizing optimization of Off-grid and On-grid renewable

energy systems using Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis and System
Advisor Model
--Manuscript Draft--

Manuscript Number: APEN-D-21-05320R1

Article Type: Research Paper

Keywords: Renewable Energy System; Sizing optimization; LCOE; LPSP; ESCEA and System
Advisor Model

Corresponding Author: mohammed chennaif, Ph.D

Universite Mohammed Premier Oujda
Oujda, Oriental MOROCCO

First Author: mohammed chennaif, Ph.D

Order of Authors: mohammed chennaif, Ph.D

Mohamed MAAOUANE

Hassan ZAHBOUNE

Mohammed ELHAFYANI

Smail ZOUGGAR

Abstract: Renewable energy systems have become more attractive with the increase in energy
demand due to demographic growth, industrial development, and conventional
sources' cost and their impact on the environment. Finding the most suitable solution to
obtain the optimum design of renewable energy systems by considering techno-
economic performance is a significant challenge to ensure their efficiency at the lowest
cost of energy produced. This paper has developed our Electric System Cascade
Extended Analysis with new merits and functionalities to be able to determine the
optimum capacities and sizes for different power generation and storage facilities of
renewable energy systems in both on-grid and off-grid. The Loss of Power Supply
Probability as a system reliability criterion, the Life Cycle Cost and the Levelized Cost
of Energy as economic indicators, are implemented together as tri-objective
optimization functions into the ESCEA to optimize the sizing results techno-
economically. The sizing procedure takes as inputs hourly meteorological data, load
profile, and the technical and economic data for the generation and storage units. The
algorithm has been demonstrated with a case study on a site located in Oujda city in
Morocco, with different electrical energy demands. Validation of the developed
methodology is performed by comparing the obtained results with those from the
System Advisor Model software. The results from the Electric System Cascade
Extended Analysis shows that it successfully identified the optimal configuration with a
difference with System Advisor Model of 1.1% in sizing results of CSP plants, 1% for
PV systems, 0.9% for wind turbines systems, and a maximum difference of 1.5% in
annual produced energy. The economic analysis of the ESCEA sizing results shows
that it achieved viable levels cost of energy for all studied on-grid and off-grid
renewable energy systems and provided a comprehensive evaluation that help to
choose the suitable RES for any site worldwide.

Powered by Editorial Manager® and ProduXion Manager® from Aries Systems Corporation
Detailed Response to Reviewers

Revision Notes

Manuscript. Ref. No.: APEN-D-21-05320

Manuscript Title: Tri-objective techno-economic sizing optimization of off-

grid and In-grid renewable energy systems using Electric System Cascade Extended
Analysis and System Advisor Model

Authors: Mohammed Chennaif, Mohamed Maaouane, Hassan Zahboune,

Mohammed Larbi Elhafyani, Smail Zouggar

Dear Editor-in-Chief Dr. Jinyue Yan, Associate Editor Jianzhong Wu PhD and
Reviewers:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our
manuscript, the comments are all very valuable and helpful for improving our
paper.

I would like to point out that this manuscript has presented a developed version of
our Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis combined with a techno-economic
analysis based on a triple objective function implemented together into the ESCEA
methodology to optimize techno-economically the sizing results: the maximum
allowable loss of power supply probability (LPSP) as a function of system
reliability, the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) as
economic indicators. The new merits and functionalities of the Electric System
Cascade Extended Analysis made it able to determine the optimum capacities and
sizes for different power generation and storage facilities of renewable energy
systems in both in-grid and off-grid modes with minimum cost of energy produced,
the manuscript also includes validation of the methodology by comparing the
results obtained with the results of the System Advisor Model developed by the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the U.S.

We have implemented numerous improvements to the paper thanks to the

suggestions made by the respected editors and reviewers. Below we presented the
main corrections in the paper and the responses to the editors and the reviewer’s
comments.

The authors’ responses to the Editor-in-Chief

Question: In addition to comments from reviewers, please also pay attention to
some of the following aspects when improving the quality of your manuscript:

REVISION FORMAT: Please include both “TRACK CHANGES” revision (not

only marked in coloured highlighting but also with tracked changes to indicate
the original and revised versions) as well as a clean version.

RELEVANCE: The relevance to energy related issues should be enhanced. Please

note Applied Energy is focused on energy related topics with emphasis on
application.
PROOF READING: Proof reading by a native English speaker should be
conducted to improve both language and organization quality.

ORGANIZATION: In addition to detailed discussions and analyses of the results,

the whole paper shall be written as an integrated article with the new results
responding to the research questions (objectives). Detailed descriptions such as
equations, input data/datasets and assumptions, or system components can be
briefly discussed in the main text and leave the detailed materials in the
APPENDIX.

ABBREVIATIONS: Please avoid using abbreviations in the TITLE,

HIGHLIGHTS, ABSTRACT, and CONCLUSION, if possible.

REFERENCES AND CITING: Please also avoid "lump sum references", such as
XXXXX [1-5], OR 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; all references should be cited with detailed and
specific descriptions. In the references, all authors (if less than 6 authors) should
be included; avoid using "et al.” For more than 6 authors, the first 6 should be
listed, followed by "et al."

TITLE: The title normally consists of about 12-15 keywords, which shall not be
too general or too narrow.

HIGHLIGHTS: Highlights are mandatory for this journal. They consist of a short
collection of bullet points that convey the core NEW findings of the article, and
should be submitted in a separate editable file in the online submission system.
Please use 'Highlights' in the file name, and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum
85 characters, including spaces, per bullet point).

ABSTRACT: The abstract should be about 150-250 words, with concise text in a
single paragraph. Answer the questions: What problem did you study and why is
it important? What methods did you use? What were your main results? And what
conclusions can you draw from your results? Please include in your abstract
more specific and quantitative results when it suits broader audiences. The
abstract stands alone: no references, figures, tables or equations are cited.

CAPTIONS: Captions for figures and tables should be presented with more
specific descriptions rather than general sentences like "Results of the
experiments ...", "A studied system ...."

UNITS: SI units shall be used.

DATA: All data shall be carefully presented with consistent accuracy. Uncertainty
of input data/assumptions shall be addressed.

CONCLUSION: The paragraph shall be independent from the main text, without
citing tables, figures or references. It should be concise, including the most
important new findings.

ORIGINALITY: The originality of the paper needs to be further clarified.

Sufficient results are important to justify the novelty of a high-quality journal
paper.
LITERATURE REVIEW: An updated and complete literature review should be
conducted to present the state-of-the-art and knowledge gaps in the research, with
strong relevance to the topic of the paper.

APPLIED VALUES: The results should be further elaborated to show how they
could be used for real applications. Modeling results should be validated by
experiments.

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: The paper shall not be discussed from the

viewpoint of only one country.

Answer:

Thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions on our work
and for your kind help. All journal aspects are respected, some changes are made
and marked in red in the revised manuscript.

The authors’ responses to the Associate Editor

Question: Please address all reviewers' comments carefully.

Answer:

Thank you very much for your insightful remarks and recommendations on our
work, as well as your kind assistance. We have carefully read the comments from
all reviewers. We appreciate the reviewers’ insightful comments and constructive
suggestions. In light of the comments and suggestions of the reviewers, we have
tried our best to revise the manuscript and answer the proposed questions in this
revised manuscript.

The authors’ responses to the Reviewer 2

Thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions on our work.
According to your comments, we have carefully revised our manuscript.

Question 1: The highlights need to be revised as per the guidelines.

Answer: The comment is appreciated. We do appreciate this reviewer’s

suggestions. We redefine the highlights so that readers can understand our
contributions and finding more clearly and as per the guidelines. The details are
shown as follow:

“Highlights:

• Implementation of a tri-objective Techno-economic sizing optimization of on-

grid and off-grid renewable energy systems with the Electric Systems Cascade
Extended Analysis.

• LPSP, LCC, and LCOE are the objective functions for optimization.

• Case study for the city of Oujda in Morocco.

 • Validation of the performances of the extended method with System Advisor
Model.

• Achieving the purpose of ensuring the load supply with viable cost level of
electricity produced for different studied on-grid and off-grid RESs.

• The methodology presents a potent tool helpful to choose the most suitable
RES for any site worldwide.”

Question 2: In 5th line of Abstract, the term 'our' should be avoided.

Answer:

Thanks for the reviewer's comments. We have avoided the use of the term "our" in
the 5th line of the Abstract. The modification made is as follows:

“This paper has developed the Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis with
new merits and functionalities to be able to determine the optimum capacities and
sizes for different power generation and storage facilities of renewable energy
systems in both on-grid and off-grid.”

Question 3: Similarly in title of the paper the term in-grid can be changed to on-
grid.

Answer: We do appreciate this reviewer’s suggestion. We have changed the term

"in-grid" on the title to "on-grid", also in the whole paper. The changes are marked
in red in the revised paper.

Question 4: The introduction part should be revised. There is no continuity/flow in

the presentation.

Answer: Thank you very much for your comment. Below we have presented the
revisions and clarifications to show clearly to readers and reviewers the continuity
followed in the points of the introduction of the article:

 The first paragraph presents the most important issues in the field of renewable
energy (the cost of energy production; the associated environmental pollutants) and
the reasons for being attracted to it, and presents the most recent renewable energy
systems and storage systems accompanying them: “The hope of reducing the cost
of energy production and the associated environmental pollutants, and the necessity
of providing isolated sites with electricity, lead to the global shift towards
renewable energy systems (RES), as they are clean, unlimited and available
everywhere. This growing interest in the field of renewable energies has attracted
studies to provide different configurations outlining RESs in the literature: for
instance, they can be single-source systems or hybrid systems: for instance, they
can be composed of photovoltaic (PV) panels coupled with batteries [1], wind
turbines paired with batteries [2,3], PV panels mated with wind turbines and
batteries [4] or by coupling PV panels and wind turbines together with a micro–
Pumped Hydro Energy Storage [5]. Besides, other configurations can be hybrid
wind/hydrogen [6], PV/Wind/Split-diesel/Battery [7,8], PV/WT/CSP with
 Batteries and thermal energy storage [9] and PV/CSP hybrid plants [10]. Further
examples can be found in [11].”

 The second paragraph presents the state of the art in this field by citing the
algorithms and software recently proposed in recent works for the sizing and the
technical and economic optimization of renewable energy systems: “Despite
several existing works devoted to the evaluation of renewable energy systems,
research on the optimal sizing of RESs still has important areas to explore such as
techno-economic analysis under different electricity tariffs and complete
parametric analyses. For this reason, numerous articles have studied the sizing
challenge of RESs, whether single-source or hybrid and have presented a set of
algorithms to optimally size them in an ideal way overcome the problem of their
intermittent and unpredictable aspect, and to achieve the lowest cost of the energy
produced, under the assumption of total and permanent satisfaction of demand.
The paper [12] has designed a tool capable of evaluating the optimal sizing of
Hybrids Renewable Energy Systems (HRES) based on a new Mixed Integer Linear
Programming optimization algorithm. Ogunjuyigbe et al. used the Genetic
Algorithm (GA) to optimally design a RES with the objective of minimizing the
Life Cycle Cost (LCC), CO2 emissions and dump energy [7]. An optimal sizing
methodology is presented in [13] to optimize the configuration of standalone
photovoltaic systems based on a novel adaptive differential mutation evolution. The
paper [14] presents the optimal sizing of an autonomous solar-wind-hydrogen
hybrid system using a hybrid algorithm based on three algorithms: chaotic search,
search for harmony and simulated annealing. Das et al. presented an optimal sizing
of a standalone hybrid system for electric and thermal loads using excess energy
and waste heat [15]. The paper [16] proposes an optimization model for
determining the optimal size of the battery devices of standalone microgrids
islanded microgrid. The sizing of a grid-connected hybrid renewable energy system
supplying electric power to a household is presented in the paper [17]. Techno-
economic sizing optimization of hybrid RES for high-rise residential buildings is
presented in the paper [18]. Rodolfo et al. presented in [8] an application of the
Strength Pareto Evolutionary algorithm to minimize the levelized cost of energy
and the equivalent carbon dioxide (CO2) life cycle emissions (LCE) of a RES. The
paper [19] proposed a novel approach for optimal sizing large-scale hydro-
photovoltaic complementary systems considering electricity delivery demand and
reservoir characteristics. A techno-economic analysis is presented in paper [20] for
hybrid energy systems for off-grid power supply and hydrogen production based
on renewable energy. Ekren et al. [4] proposed the heuristic approach which uses a
stochastic gradient search for the global optimization to minimize the renewable
energy system total cost. A review of the optimum sizing of hybrid renewable
energy systems in Oman is offered by Albusaidi et al. [21].
Instead of the algorithms, there are also many simulation tools used in the literature
to optimally size RES and simulate them, with all components and links between
different parts of the system: Homer software, System Advisor Model and
EnergyPLAN. Hassan et al. [22] used Homer pro software to validate the Modified
Electric System Cascade Analysis method results of sizing RES. Further examples
can be found in the review [23] of the state-of-the-art of articles, which use HOMER
for optimal planning of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems. Prina et al. presented
the Transition pathways optimization methodology through EnergyPLAN software
for long-term energy planning of RES, the main advantages of the proposed
methodology are the high time resolution and multi-objectives optimization [24].
The System Advisor Model (SAM) is a free techno-economic software model
 developed by the National Renewable energy laboratory (NREL) to estimate both
the performance and cost of many types of renewable energy systems. The energy
production for different sizes of photovoltaic solar panels and wind farms was
estimated by the System Advisory Model (SAM) software to perform dynamic
analysis and optimize the sizing of a hybrid PV/Wind system with pumped
hydroelectric storage-integrated [25]. The software System Advisor Model is used
by Ameur et al. [26] to present a methodology for sizing and optimizing CSP power
plants in Algeria. An investigation of CSP technology's technical-economical
possibilities in Tanzania using the software System Advisor Model is presented by
the paper [27]. The study [28] addressed the proposition of the hybridization
concept Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) with biomass and the simulation of
benchmark power plants for a suitable Brazilian site with three different power
plant concepts using the System Advisor Model (SAM).”

 The following paragraph reviews our various works and other works that previous
versions of the ESCEA methodology have been adopted: “The Electric System
Cascade Analysis (ESCA) method is used in the design of PV systems for
electrification [30], supplying pumping systems [31,32], and Distributed Energy
Generation systems [33]. This ESCA method shows the impact of the tilt angle in
sizing PV systems [34]. The Modified ESCA or the MESCA method was
developed and tested [6] on a hybrid PV/Wind/Batteries power supply site in
Oujda. The Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis is an extended version of
the ESCA proposed the first time in [9] to size optimally an autonomous off-grid
CSP/PV/Wind system with Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) and Thermal
Energy Storage (TES). The ESCEA developed uses the Power Pinch Analysis as a
guideline; the PPA's advantage is used as it is done mainly in the process industry.”

 The next paragraph gives a detailed presentation of the key core contributions of
the manuscript to the new body of knowledge: “Previous work that used ESCA or
ESCEA has been successful in determining the optimal size of a proposed
renewable energy system, but their drawbacks are that they applied to one type of
renewable energy system, have never addressed grid-connected renewable energy
systems with or without energy storage, and did not provide in-depth techno-
economic analysis based on multiple improvement functions. These weaknesses
present the significant contributions of this work. This paper proposes an improved
version of the ESCEA combined with a techno-economic analysis based on a triple
objective function implemented together into the ESCEA method to optimize
techno-economically the sizing results: the maximum allowable loss of power
supply probability (LPSP) as a function of system reliability, the Life Cycle Cost
(LCC) and the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) as economic indicators. The
optimized methodology contains two algorithms: the first algorithm will be sizing
three different generation systems for grid connection application with no energy
storage used for T = 8760 h (1 year): Photovoltaic parks, Wind turbine farms, and
Concentrated Solar Power plants. The second algorithm will size RESs with an
energy storage system for T = 8760 h: the autonomous PV/Batteries system and the
CSP system with Thermal Energy Storage. Finally, to validate the sizing results on
a more realistic case, the research is compared to an optimized solution provided
by the System Advisor Model software. This proposed improved process makes the
ESCEA a potent sizing tool with improved functionalities allowing it to size
different RESs, whether a single source or hybrid, isolated or grid-connected and
with single or multiple storage systems, and helps people working in the field of
 renewable energy choose the suitable RES for any location in the world by taking
into account the site weather data as input of the process.”

 The last section presents the structure of the manuscript: “This paper describes On-
grid/Off-grid Renewables Energy Systems in the second section to give the readers
complete information. Section 3 will shed light on the ESCEA methodology and
its detailed two algorithms illustrated with effective techniques applied, also the
description of the System advisor Model is presented in this section. After methods.
In Section 4, we describe a case study selected to size different RESs in different
application modes to prove that the ESCEA method can be used in any site with
the required input data and help to choose the suitable RES. The ESCEA’s sizing
result of different on-grid and off-grid RES, the validation with the case study's
SAM results, and the techno-economic analysis of the results will be presented in
Section 5. Finally, in Section 6, we provide the most important conclusions from
our results.”

Question 5: The novelty of the study is not clearly addressed. This needs to be
addressed properly.

Answer: The comment is appreciated. The penultimate section has been revised to
present the main essential contributions of the paper simply and clearly for readers
and reviewers. The details are as follows:

“Previous work that used ESCA or ESCEA has been successful in determining the
optimal size of a proposed renewable energy system, but their drawbacks are that
they applied to one type of renewable energy system, have never addressed grid-
connected renewable energy systems with or without energy storage, and did not
provide in-depth techno-economic analysis based on multiple improvement
functions. These weaknesses present the significant contributions of this work. This
paper proposes an improved version of the ESCEA combined with a techno-
economic analysis based on a triple objective function implemented together into
the ESCEA method to optimize techno-economically the sizing results: the
maximum allowable loss of power supply probability (LPSP) as a function of
system reliability, the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and the Levelized Cost of Energy
(LCOE) as economic indicators. The optimized methodology serves to respond to
the problem of optimal sizing of RES facing the challenges of unpredictability and
intermittence solar and wind energy, under the assumption of compliance with the
technical and economic criteria taken into account, i.e. total satisfaction demand
assessed by the LPSP technical indicator, and with the minimum cost of electricity
produced, assessed by the LCC & LCOE economic indicators. The ESCEA
contains two algorithms: the first algorithm will be sizing three different generation
systems for grid connection application with no energy storage used for T = 8760
h (1 year): Photovoltaic parks, Wind turbine farms, and Concentrated Solar Power
plants. The second algorithm will size RESs with an energy storage system for T =
8760 h: the autonomous PV/Batteries system and the CSP system with Thermal
Energy Storage. Finally, to validate the sizing results on a more realistic case, the
research is compared to an optimized solution provided by the System Advisor
Model software. This proposed improved process makes the ESCEA a potent sizing
tool with improved functionalities allowing it to size different RESs, whether a
single source or hybrid, isolated or grid-connected and with single or multiple
storage systems, and helps people working in the field of renewable energy choose
the suitable RES for any location in the world by taking into account the site
weather data as input of the process”

Question 6: There is a typo error in Eqs.1 and 2 check and correct it.

Answer: Thank you for your comment. Equations 1 and 2 are verified, please find
below some previous papers which present the same equations in the following
references:

 Zahboune H, Zouggar S, Yong JY, Varbanov PS, Elhafyani M, Ziani E, et

al. Modified Electric System Cascade Analysis for optimal sizing of an
autonomous Hybrid Energy System. Energy 2016;116:1374–84.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.07.101.

 Ranjay Singh, R.C. Bansal, Arvind R. Singh, Optimization of an isolated

photo-voltaic generating unit with battery energy storage system using
electric system cascade analysis, Electric Power Systems Research,
Volume 164, 2018, Pages 188-200.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsr.2018.08.005.

Question 7: On page 19 the word 'we' has been used. Better use the sentences in
third person.

Answer: The comment is appreciated. We have avoided the use of the term "we" in
the whole paper. The modification made is as follows:

“To organize our presentation, the results section is divided into three sub-
sections.”

“By relying on the ESCEA methodology and System Advisor Model, a

concentrated solar power plant is sized with different capacities (20, 50 and 100
MWe)”

Question 8: In Table 3, column 3 there is no. of loops. What is that? No explanation

given. Also how do you obtain the total aperture reflective area.

Answer: Thank you for your valuable comment. The number of the loops is a term
that translates the total aperture reflective area obtained by the methodology in
terms of the loops defined by a certain number of the CSP collectors (Luz LS-2)
presented in Table 2. A loop of collectors is with an area of 1880 m2 and contains
8 Luz LS-2 collectors of 235 m2. The total aperture reflective area is obtained basing
on the algorithms of the proposed sizing process (Fig.9 & Fig.10), after their
implementation in the MATLAB environment.

Question 9: The objective of the study is tri-objective, but the third is not performed
and discussed. Check this.

Answer: Thank you for your comment. First of all, we would like to point out that
the objective of this study is tri-objective: LPSP as system reliability criteria and
LCC & LCOE as economic indicators. The three indicators are integrated into the
ESCEA method in order to obtain an optimal configuration that ensures system
reliability while fully meeting the load and obtaining the minimum cost of
electricity produced. Concerning your comment, we have added to the discussions
a quantitative analysis of the third objective: the LCC. the details are as shown:

“The photovoltaic system connected directly to the electrical network without

storage units presents the low cost of electricity among the solar on-grid systems,
with a value of 11 cents$/kWh; this is due to the lower design LCC of this system
by compared to CSP system: for 10 Mwe, the LCC of On-grid PV system is about
5.32 107 $ and 6.03 107 $ for on-grid CSP system, as well as to significant energy
productivity thanks to the considerable potential of global solar radiation in the site
selected as a case study.”

“Although the LCC for the on-grid WT system is equal to 3.74 107 $ which is the
lowest for a capacity of 10 MWe compared to the on-grid PV and CSP systems,
with 5.32 107 $ and 6.03 107 $, respectively, but the low potential of wind speed at
the site chosen for the case study made the WT system with the most expensive
LCOE, around 22.5 cents$/kWh for the sizing ESCEA result of the system at 10
MWe, as shown in the Fig. 5. We also notice that the value of the LCC and the
energy produced during the lifetime increase considerably with the sizing capacity,
while the LCOE slowly decreases from 24 cents$/kWh for 1 MWe to 22.5
cents/kWh for the 10 MWe capacity.”

Question 10: Tables 7 and 8 are not discussed properly.

Answer: The comment is appreciated. We have redefined the discussions of table 7

& 8 as follows:

“A techno-economic analysis of the off-grid RES is presented below in Table 7,

based on the three optimization criteria: the LPSP, the LCC and the LCOE. As
shown in the table 7, the LPSP affects considerably the sizing results of the ESCEA,
so it naturally has an important effect on the economic measures of autonomous
off-grid systems. For example, we see that the LCC of the autonomous system CSP
/ TES has decreased from 1.59 108 $ for LPSP = 0% to 1.54 108 $ for LPSP = 5%.
Likewise, from 4.71 104 $ to 4.46 104 $ for the PV/Batteries system. Returning to
the other economic indicator, the LCOE, we notice from Table 7 below that it
remains constant for the two systems and takes 21.1 cents$/kWh for the
PV/Batteries system and 19.6 cents$/kWh for the CSP/TES system”

“The table 8 below presents a comparison with previous paper. As shown in the
table, the sizing procedure of the different on-grid and off-grid RES based on the
ESCEA methodology and the tri-objective optimization functions, has been
successful in finding the optimal configuration with the minimum cost of electricity
produced in comparing with other papers which used other algorithms and software
for the sizing of RES.”

Question 11: From Table 8, what are concluded?

Answer: Thank you for your comment. From table 8, it was concluded that the
proposed sizing process based on the ESCEA method and the tri-objective
optimization functions, has been successful in finding the optimal configuration
with the minimum cost of electricity produced in comparing with other papers
which used other algorithms and software for the sizing of RES.
Question 12: Merits of the ESCEA methodology is not explained quantitatively,
better revise this part.

Answer: Thank you for your valuable suggestion. We have added a point to the
merits section of the ESCEA methodology to quantitatively explain to readers how
the proposed methodology has succeeded in sizing different on-grid and off-grid
RES with viable level cost of the electricity produced. The details are as shown
below:

“• Achieve viable energy cost levels for different on-grid and off-grid RES: 0.21
$/kWh for off-grid autonomous PV/Batteries system with LPSP=0%, 0.196 $/kWh
for Off-grid autonomous CSP/TES system LPSP=0%, 0.225 $/kWh for On-grid
WT system, 0.110 $/kWh for On-grid PV system and 0.210 $/kWh for On-grid CSP
system without TES.”

Question 13: In conclusion section it is mentioned numerical values without any

units. Correct them.

Answer: Thank you very much for your remark. We have corrected the point that
you mentioned, the changes are marked in red into the manuscript.

Question 14: There is no proper conclusion, revise this section.

Answer: The comment is appreciated. We redefine the conclusion’s section so that

readers can understand our thoughts more clearly. The detail is shown as follow:

“Based on recently created and enhanced algorithms of the ESCEA approach, this
work quantitatively examined the optimal size of various renewable energy systems
in both off-grid and on-grid modes. The LPSP, LCC, and LCOE are all combined
in the ESCEA to maximize the sizing findings from a technical and economic
standpoint. The different RESs are sized by taking into consideration the technical
and economic data of all of their components, as well as the necessary power for
injection into the local electrical grid in on-grid mode or the desired LPSP for off-
grid autonomous systems. By comparing the ESCEA sizing results of RE
generators and energy storage and the yearly power output achieved after
deployment of the ESCEA algorithms, the sizing results were validated. The scope
of this paper's research includes a number of renewable energy systems that were
investigated in two separate modes. The first mode contains three renewable energy
systems: a photovoltaic park, a wind turbine farm, and a concentrated solar power
plant, all of which are directly linked to the grid and have no energy storage. Two
autonomous off-grid RE systems with energy storage units are included in the
second mode: autonomous PV/Batteries system and autonomous CSP plant with
thermal energy storage. A case study was carried out for sizing different RESs in
both modes using ESCEA method and SAM with the weather data of Oujda city in
Morocco. The validation by SAM showed the capability of the new ESCEA
improvements and functions in the sizing of the power generation and storage units
of the different on-grid and off-grid PV, Wind and CSP systems. The comparison
between the two tools showed that the difference in sizing results not exceeded
1.1% for CSP plants, 1% for PV systems, 0.9% for wind turbines systems and a
maximum difference of 1.5% in annual produced energy. The ESCEA sizing results
were found to have a viable cost of energy of 0.11 $/kWh for a grid-connected PV
system, 0.21 $/kWh for on-grid CSP system, 0.23 $/kWh for on-grid WT system,
0.21 $/kWh for off-grid PV/Battery system, and 0.19 $/kWh for off-grid CSP
system with thermal energy storage.
Finally, this article gave a more comprehensive assessment of the methodology's
ability to scale renewable energy systems, as well as modifications to it to cover a
broader spectrum of grid-connected systems. The application of the ESCEA
technique with additional green energy sources (e.g., biomass, geothermal...) and
storage systems is an extension of this study (Hydro energy storage).”

The authors’ responses to the Reviewer 3

Thank you very much for your valuable comments and suggestions on our work.
According to your comments, we have carefully revised our manuscript.

Question 1: Please, describe in detail how you modeled the battery system. As can
be seen in the work, charging and discharging is modeled with constant charging
and discharge efficiencies. Also, in the model it turns out that all the excess energy
in the observed hour can be stored in the battery. It is similar in discharging process
where all power needed can be obtained from battery storage in observed hour.
Have you modeled the maximum charge and discharge power of the battery? It is
important to take into account that charging and discharging efficiency and
charging and discharging power depend on the state of charge of the battery.

Answer: Thank you for your valuable comment. First of all, the algorithm of the
proposed methodology calculates the Balance between the overall power generated
by the RES and the load during the current time step Er (Wh) by the following
equation (Eq 11): Er (t) = EG (t) × Ƞinv −EL (t) , after, if the Er(t) is greater than 0
than means that there is an excess of energy, this latter will be stored into the battery
by the following equation (Eq 12): CHES (t) = Er (t) × ȠCH , otherwise where Er <0,
i.e. there is a deficit, the energy will be discharged from the battery using the
following equation (Eq 13): DCHES (t) = Er (t)/ȠDCH . This operation will be done
for each analysis step (t = 1 h) until reaching the time defined for the analysis (t =
T = 8760h = 1 year), and in the end of the analysis the algorithm calculates the
accumulated energy into the battery and verify that there is no negative value taken
during the whole analysis, if it is the case, the algorithm modifies the initial value
of the energy into the battery by the following equation (Eq 15):
EN (t = 0) = −min(EN ) to ensure that the energy in the battery will never be
exhausted ( See columns 8 and 9 of Table 6). Finally, basing on the maximum
energy accumulated into the battery, and the maximum energy of one battery
selected for the analysis (Table 2 presents their required technic and economic
data), the algorithm can define the number of battery suitable for the optimal
configuration.

Question 2: In expression (19), discount rate is taken into account to actualize the
generated electrical energy, but in calculating LCC discount rate should be also
used (for example, see PV Status report 2019, chapter 3.1 LCOE).

Answer: The comment is appreciated. For the calculation of the LCC, we were
based on a model previously used in the literature by several papers, we cite some
of them below:
  Zhang Y, Ma T, Elia P, Yamaguchi Y, Dai Y. A techno-economic sizing
method for grid connected household photovoltaic battery systems. Appl
Energy 2020;269:115106, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115106.

 Chennaif M, Zahboune H, Elhafyani M, Zouggar S. Electric System Cascade

Extended Analysis for optimal sizing of an autonomous hybrid CSP / PV /
wind system with Battery Energy Storage System and thermal energy
storage.Energy2021;227:120444.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2021.1204
44.

Question 3: In expression (5) you used relatively simple model for wind turbine.
When v(t) is in range of vcutin and vrated, you used linear model. Please, find
relatively better model in https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jen/2016/8519785/.

Answer: Thank you for your comment and valuable suggestion. We believe that the
model that you proposed to us is so much better and presents a better description
and modeling of the behavior of the wind turbine, we are honored to cite it in our
introduction of this document (Reference 38) and we would like to emphasize that
we have focused in our work on finding the ideal scale for various renewable energy
systems by providing a developed methodology combined with tri-objectives
techno-economic optimization, for this, we relied on simple mathematical models
to predict the energy produced by different renewable energy generators: PV
generator, WT generator, and CSP generation system.

Question 4: You validated your model by System Advisor Model (SAM). Please,
describe what are advantages of your model in relation to SAM. For example, why
should I use your model instead of SAM?

Answer: Thank you for your comment. The merits of the proposed sizing process
over other sizing methodologies and software are as follows:

• The LPSP, the LCC and the LCOE are implemented together as tri-objective
optimization function into the ESCEA to optimize techno-economically the sizing
results of RES.
• Expanding the scope of the studied systems by sizing up the in-gridon-grid
renewable energy systems.
• Scaling various renewable energy systems, including Concentrated solar
power systems.
• Accreditation and sizing of thermal storage and determination of solar
multiple's value.
• Sizing of hybrid RES with multiple storage facilities [9].
• More realistic results are obtained by performing analysis for the period of
8760 h (1 year), considering variations in meteorological data and load demand.
• Achieve viable energy cost levels for different on-grid and off-grid RES: 0.21
$/kWh for off-grid autonomous PV/Batteries system with LPSP=0%, 0.196 $/kWh
for Off-grid autonomous CSP/TES system LPSP=0%, 0.225 $/kWh for On-grid
WT system, 0.110 $/kWh for On-grid PV system and 0.210 $/kWh for On-grid CSP
system without TES.
• A potent tool that helps to choose the most suitable RES for any site
worldwide.
*Corresponding author: Mohammed CHENNAIF
Tel.: +212 655 779 870.
E-mail address: mohammed.chennaif@gmail.com
Highlights (for review)

• Implementation of a tri-objective Techno-economic sizing optimization of on-grid

and off-grid renewable energy systems with the Electric Systems Cascade
Extended Analysis.
• LPSP, LCC, and LCOE are the objective functions for optimization.
• Case study for the city of Oujda in Morocco.
• Validation of the performances of the extended method with System Advisor
Model.
• Achieving the purpose of ensuring the load supply with viable cost level of
electricity produced for different studied on-grid and off-grid RESs.
• The methodology presents a potent tool helpful to choose the most suitable RES
for any site worldwide.

1
Revised Manuscript with Changes Marked Click here to access/download;Revised Manuscript with
Changes Marked;With Marks Revised Manuscript.docx
Click here to view linked References
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Tri-objective techno-economic sizing optimization of off-grid and In-gridOn-grid renewable
12
13 energy systems using Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis and System Advisor
14 Model
15
16 Mohammed CHENNAIF*1, Mohamed MAAOUANE1, Hassan ZAHBOUNE1, Mohammed
17 ELHAFYANI1, Smail ZOUGGAR1
18 *Corresponding author. Tel.: +212 655 779 870. E-mail address:
19 mohammed.chennaif@gmail.com
20 1
Laboratory of Electrical Engineering and Maintenance – LEEM, High School of Technology,
21 University Mohammed 1st, Oujda, Morocco
22
23 Abstract
24
Renewable energy systems have become more attractive with the increase in energy demand due
25 to demographic growth, industrial development, and conventional sources' cost and their impact
26 on the environment. Finding the most suitable solution to obtain the optimum design of renewable
27 energy systems by considering techno-economic performance is a significant challenge to ensure
28 their efficiency at the lowest cost of energy produced. This paper has developed our Electric
29 System Cascade Extended Analysis with new merits and functionalities to be able to determine
30 the optimum capacities and sizes for different power generation and storage facilities of renewable
31 energy systems in both in-gridon-grid and off-grid. The Loss of Power Supply Probability as a
32 system reliability criterion, the Life Cycle Cost and the Levelized Cost of Energy as economic
33 indicators, are implemented together as tri-objective optimization functions into the ESCEA to
34 optimize the sizing results techno-economically. The sizing procedure takes as inputs hourly
35 meteorological data, load profile, and the technical and economic data for the generation and
storage units. The algorithm has been demonstrated with a case study on a site located in Oujda
36
city in Morocco, with different electrical energy demands. Validation of the developed
37 methodology is performed by comparing the obtained results with those from the System Advisor
38 Model software. The results from the Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis shows that it
39 successfully identified the optimal configuration with a difference with System Advisor Model of
40 1.1% in sizing results of CSP plants, 1% for PV systems, 0.9% for wind turbines systems, and a
41 maximum difference of 1.5% in annual produced energy. The economic analysis of the ESCEA
42 sizing results shows that it achieved viable levels cost of energy for all studied in-gridon-grid and
43 off-grid renewable energy systems and provided a comprehensive evaluation that help to choose
44 the suitable RES for any site worldwide.
45
46 Keywords: Renewable energy system, Sizing optimization, LCOE, LPSP, ESCEA and System
Advisor Model.
47
48 1. Introduction
49 The hope of reducing the cost of energy production and the associated environmental pollutants,
50 and the necessity of providing isolated sites with electricity, lead to the global shift towards
51 renewable energy systems (RES), as they are clean, renewable unlimited and available
52 everywhere. This growing interest in the field of renewable energies has attracted studies to
53
54 1
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 provide different configurations outlining RESs in the literature:Different configurations outline
12 RESs in the literature: for instance, they can be single-source systems or hybrid systems: for
13 instance, they can be composed of photovoltaic (PV) panels coupled with batteries [1], wind
14 turbines paired with batteriessystems [2,3,38] , PV panels mated with wind turbines and batteries Field Code Changed

15 [4] or by coupling PV panels and wind turbines together with a micro- Pumped Hydro Energy
16 Storage [5]. Besides, other configurations can be hybrid wind/hydrogen [6], PV/Wind/Split-
diesel/Battery [7,8], PV/WT/CSP with Batteries and thermal energy storage [9] and PV/CSP
17
hybrid plants [10]. Further examples can be found in [11].
18 Despite several existing works devoted to the evaluation of renewable energy systems, research
19 on the optimal sizing of RESs still has important areas to explore such as techno-economic analysis
20 under different electricity tariffs and complete parametric analyses. For this reason, numerous
21 articles have studied the sizing challenge of RESs, whether single-source or hybrid and have
22 presented a set of algorithms to optimally size them in an ideal way overcome the problem of their
23 intermittent and unpredictable aspect, and to achieve the lowest cost of the energy produced, under
24 the assumption of total and permanent satisfaction of demand.
25 The paper [12] has designed a tool capable of evaluating the optimal sizing of Hybrids Renewable
26 Energy Systems (HRES) based on a new Mixed Integer Linear Programming optimization
27 algorithm. Ogunjuyigbe et al. used the Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimally design a RES with
28 the objective of minimizing the Life Cycle Cost (LCC), CO2 emissions and dump energy [7]. An
29 optimal sizing methodology is presented in [13] to optimize the configuration of standalone
photovoltaic systems based on a novel adaptive differential mutation evolution. The paper [14]
30
presents the optimal sizing of an autonomous solar-wind-hydrogen hybrid system using a hybrid
31 algorithm based on three algorithms: chaotic search, search for harmony and simulated annealing.
32 Das et al. presented an optimal sizing of a standalone hybrid system for electric and thermal loads
33 using excess energy and waste heat [15]. The paper [16] proposes an optimization model for
34 determining the optimal size of the battery devices of standalone microgrids islanded microgrid.
35 The sizing of a grid-connected hybrid renewable energy system supplying electric power to a
36 household is presented in the paper [17]. Techno-economic sizing optimization of hybrid RES for
37 high-rise residential buildings is presented in the paper [18]. Rodolfo et al. presented in [8] an
38 application of the Strength Pareto Evolutionary algorithm to minimize the levelized cost of energy
39 and the equivalent carbon dioxide (CO2) life cycle emissions (LCE) of a RES. The paper [19]
40 proposed a novel approach for optimal sizing large-scale hydro-photovoltaic complementary
41 systems considering electricity delivery demand and reservoir characteristics. A techno-economic
analysis is presented in paper [20] for hybrid energy systems for off-grid power supply and
42
hydrogen production based on renewable energy. Ekren et al. [4] proposed the heuristic approach
43 which uses a stochastic gradient search for the global optimization to minimize the renewable
44 energy system total cost. A review of the optimum sizing of hybrid renewable energy systems in
45 Oman is offered by Albusaidi et al. [21].
46 Instead of the algorithms, there are also many simulation tools used in the literature to optimally
47 size RES and simulate them, with all components and links between different parts of the system:
48 Homer software, System Advisor Model and EnergyPLAN. Hassan et al. [22] used Homer pro
49 software to validate the Modified Electric System Cascade Analysis method results of sizing RES.
50 Further examples can be found in the review [23] of the state-of-the-art of articles, which use
51 HOMER for optimal planning of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems. Prina et al. presented the
52 Transition pathways optimization methodology through EnergyPLAN software for long-term
53
54 2
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 energy planning of RES, the main advantages of the proposed methodology are the high time
12 resolution and multi-objectives optimization [24]. The System Advisor Model (SAM) is a free
13 techno-economic software model developed by the National Renewable energy laboratory
14 (NREL) to estimate both the performance and cost of many types of renewable energy systems.
15 Further examples can be found in the review [23] of the state-of-the-art of articles, which use
16 HOMER for optimal planning of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems. Prina et al. presented the
Transition pathways optimization methodology through EnergyPLAN software for long-term
17
energy planning of RES, the main advantages of the proposed methodology are the high time
18 resolution and multi-objectives optimization [24]. The System Advisor Model (SAM) is a free
19 techno-economic software model developed by the National Renewable energy laboratory
20 (NREL) to estimate both the performance and cost of many types of renewable energy systems.
21 The energy production for different sizes of photovoltaic solar panels and wind farms was
22 estimated by the System Advisory Model (SAM) software to perform dynamic analysis and
23 optimize the sizing of a hybrid PV/Wind system with pumped hydroelectric storage-integrated
24 [25]. The software System Advisor Model is used by Ameur et al. [26] to present a methodology
25 for sizing and optimizing CSP power plants in Algeria. An investigation of CSP technology's
26 technical-economical possibilities in Tanzania using the software System Advisor Model is
27 presented by the paper [27]. The study [28] addressed the proposition of the hybridization concept
28 Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) with biomass and the simulation of benchmark power plants for
29 a suitable Brazilian site with three different power plant concepts using the System Advisor Model
(SAM).
30
The Electric System Cascade Analysis (ESCA) method is used in the design of PV systems for
31 electrification [30], supplying pumping systems [31,32], and Distributed Energy Generation
32 systems [33]. This ESCA method shows the impact of the tilt angle in sizing PV systems [34]. The
33 Modified ESCA or the MESCA method was developed and tested [6] on a hybrid
34 PV/Wind/Batteries power supply site in Oujda. The Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis
35 is an extended version of the ESCA proposed the first time in [9] to size optimally an autonomous
36 off-grid CSP/PV/Wind system with Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) and Thermal Energy
37 Storage (TES). The ESCEA developed uses the Power Pinch Analysis as a guideline; the PPA's
38 advantage is used as it is done mainly in the process supplying pumping systems [31,32], and
39 Distributed Energy Generation systems [33]. This ESCA method shows the impact of the tilt angle
40 in sizing PV systems [34]. The Modified ESCA or the MESCA method was developed and tested
41 [6] on a hybrid PV/Wind/Batteries power supply site in Oujda. The Electric System Cascade
Extended Analysis is an extended version of the ESCA proposed the first time in [9] to size
42
optimally an autonomous off-grid CSP/PV/Wind system with Battery Energy Storage System
43 (BESS) and Thermal Energy Storage (TES). The ESCEA developed uses the Power Pinch
44 Analysis as a guideline; the PPA's advantage is used as it is done mainly in the process industry.
45 Previousindustry.
46 Previous work that used ESCA or ESCEA has been successful in determining the optimal size of
47 a proposed renewable energy system, but their drawbacks are that they applied to one type of
48 renewable energy system, have never addressed grid-connected renewable energy systems with or
49 without energy storage, and did not provide in-depth techno-economic analysis based on multiple
50 improvement functions. These weaknesses present the significant contributions of this work. This
51 paper proposes an improved version of the ESCEA combined with a techno-economic analysis
52 based on a triple objective function implemented together into the ESCEA method to optimize
53
54 3
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 techno-economically the sizing results: the maximum allowable loss of power supply probability
12 (LPSP) as a function of system reliability, the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and the Levelized Cost of
13 Energy (LCOE) as economic indicators. The optimized methodology serves to respond to the
14 problem of optimal sizing of RES facing the challenges of unpredictability and intermittence solar
15 and wind energy, under the assumption of compliance with the technical and economic criteria
16 taken into account, i.e. total satisfaction demand assessed by the LPSP technical indicator, and
with the minimum cost of electricity produced, assessed by the LCC & LCOE economic indicators.
17
The optimised methodologyESCEA contains two algorithms: the first algorithm will be sizing
18 three different generation systems for grid connection application with no energy storage used for
19 T = 8760 h (1 year): Photovoltaic parks, Wind turbine farms, and Concentrated Solar Power plants.
20 The second algorithm will size RESs with an energy storage system for T = 8760 h: the
21 autonomous PV/Batteries system and the CSP system with Thermal Energy Storage. Finally, to
22 validate the sizing results on a more realistic case, the research is compared to an optimized
23 solution provided by the System Advisor Model software. This proposed improved process makes
24 the ESCEA a potent sizing tool with improved functionalities allowing it to size different RESs,
25 whether a single source or hybrid, isolated or grid-connected and with single or multiple storage
26 systems, and helps people working in the field of renewable energy choose the suitable RES for
27 any location in the world by taking into account the site weather data as input of the process.
28 This paper describes On-grid/Off-grid Renewables Energy Systems in the second section to give
29 the readers complete information. Section 3 will shed light on the ESCEA methodology and its
detailed two algorithms illustrated with effective techniques applied, also the description of the
30
System advisor Model is presented in this section. After methods. In Section 4, we describe a case
31 study selected to size different RESs in different application modes to prove that the ESCEA
32 method can be used in any site with the required input data and help to choose the suitable RES.
33 The ESCEA’s sizing result of different in-gridon-grid and off-grid RES, the comparison and
34 validation compared withvalidation with the case study's SAM results, and the techno-economic
35 analysis of the results will be presented in Section 5. Finally, in Section 6, we provide the most
36 important conclusions from our results.
37
2. Renewable Energy Systems
38
39 Generally, Renewable Energy Systems include renewable energy generators and Energy Storage
40 or renewable energy generators without ES depending on the field of its use. According to the
41 available literature on optimum system sizing, the proportion of different types of RESs show that
RESs without Energy Storage: photovoltaic parks, wind turbines farms, and solar/CSP without
42
Thermal Storage Tank are the main kinds of RESs used in grid-connection mode. Therefore,
43 Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) or Thermal Energy Storage (TES) in RESs can effectively
44 overcome the obstacles of randomness, variability, and unpredictability of solar/wind energy,
45 which widens the range of RES applications: Off-grids or remote island and isolated area. Previous
46 studies have paid more attention to small-scale off-grid renewable energy systems, mainly solar or
47 wind energy systems. Owing to the excellent regulation performance and fast output regulation
48 ability of the Storage Energy System, this study divides RESs into two types, namely, RESs with
49 Energy Storage and RESs without Energy Storage (Fig.1).
50
51
52
53
54 4
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26 Fig. 1. Off-grid/In-gridOn-grid modes of RES
27
28 2.1. Renewable Energy Systems without Energy Storage
29 RESs without energy storage mainly include Photovoltaic parks, Wind turbines farms, and CSP
30 plants without Energy Storage facilities. All these systems are often grid-connected. For electricity
31 generation in grid-connected applications, RESs with large scale total installed capacity are
32 suitable. Capacities of PV, Wind or CSP should be firstly determined considering energy resource
33 characteristics and desired electricity production.
34 2.1.1. Photovoltaic parks without ES
35
36 Solar irradiation is daytime energy with variable and random output; it increases during the day
37 and decreases. There is a less intense solar irradiation in the spring and winter compared to summer
38 and autumn [11]. Grid-connected PV parks use photovoltaic panels to convert falling solar energy
39 to electric energy by photovoltaic conversion, and with the help of converters, it adapts the
40 electrical energy produced for injection into the electricity grid (Fig.2). The energy produced by
41 the PV panel E1_PV depends on the Global Horizontal Solar Irradiation (GHI) falling on their
42 effective area (APV) and the hourly PVP’s efficiency ղPV(t) (%) (Eq.1):
43
44 E1_PV (t) = ղPV (t) × APV × GHI(t) (1)
45 The efficiency of the PVP is given by Eq.2 [9]:
46
47 ղPV (t) = ղRef ×. ղPT + [1-K T (TC (t)-TRef )] (2)
48
49 Where ηRef is the rated efficiency of PVP; ղPT is the efficiency of power tracking equipment; KT
50 is the temperature coefficient of efficiency; T Ref is the temperature for rated PV efficiency in °C,
51 and TC is the computed ambient temperature in °C expressed by Eq.3:
52
53
54 5
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
NOCT-20
12 TC (t) = TA (t) + DGI(t). 800
(3)
13
14 TA is the ambient temperature in °C, NOCT is the normal operating cell temperature in °C.
15
16 The energy produced by the PV park EPV,T contains NPV panels is expressed as follows (Eq.4):
17 EPV,T (t) = NPV × EPV (t) (4)
18
19
20
21
22 DC = AC ~
23 ///
EPV
24 EPV-grid
25
26
Power grid
27
PV Park Power converters
28 Fig. 2. Large-scale PV Park connected to the grid
29
30 2.1.2. Wind Turbines farms without ES
31
32 In contrast to solar irradiation, the wind is usually available 24 h a day with an alternating potential,
generally with high wind speeds during the night and low wind speeds at day [29], and with lower
33
wind speeds in the summer and autumn compared to spring and winter.
34
35 The electrical power generated by the WT farm (Fig.3) during the current time step depends on
36 the number of WT installed (NWT), the wind speed (V) and the rated power of the wind turbine
37 (PR), it is given by Eq.5 [30]:
38 v-Vcut-in
PR × Vcut-in < v(t) < Vrated
Vr-Vin
39
40 EWT (t) = NWT × PR Vrated < v(t) < Vcut-out (5)
41
42 {0 V(t) < Vcut-in or v(t) > Vcut-out
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 6
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Where, Vrated is the rated speed of the wind turbine (m/s), Vcut-in is the Cut-in wind speed of the
13 wind turbine (m/s) and Vcut-out is the Cut-out of the wind turbine (m/s).
14 WT farm
15
16
17 EWT-grid
18
19 Collecting Farm grid
20 Point interface
21
Power grid
22
23
24
Fig. 3. General layout of grid connected wind farms
25
26 2.1.3. Concentrated Solar Power Plants without ES
27
Concentrated solar power systems consists of concentrate a large area of sunlight by using mirrors
28 or lenses onto an absorber. Based on the power block, electricity is generated when the
29 concentrated light is converted to heat which drives a steam turbine connected to an electrical
30 power generator (Fig.4). Since no storage is used, all the electrical energy produced is injected
31 directly into the electrical grid. the famous project of this CSP technology with no storage is the
32 Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System with a gross capacity of 392 megawatts (MW), It is
33 located at the base of Clark Mountain in California [Ivana]. CSP plants reflect only Direct Normal
34 Irradiation (DNI) on its focal line towards a receiver. The electrical power produced by the CSP
35 plant connected to grid depends on the total solar field area (ASF), DNI, Capacity Factor (CF) and
36 all the efficiencies of each floor, it can be written as Eq.6 [31].
37
ECSP (t) = DNI(t) × ȠSF × ASF × Ƞrec × Ƞpiping × ȠPB × (1-Ƞparasitic ) × CF (6)
38
39
Where 𝜂PB is the power block efficiency; 𝜂piping represents the losses of the THF circuit; 𝜂parasitic
40
is the efficiency of the parasitic consumption, 𝜂rec is the receiver efficiency, and 𝜂SF is the solar
41
field efficiency with a commonly used value of 48 to 50%.
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 7
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24 Solar field Power bloc
25 Fig. 4. General layout of grid connected CSP plant without TES
26
27 2.2. Renewable Energy Systems with Energy Storage
28
Solar and wind energy are still an uncontrollable energy supply, because their power generation
29
characteristics are closely connected with climate and weather conditions. Furthermore, ES can
30 adjust the output process through charge and discharge. Thus, it can reduce curtailment, and the
31 bundling output can better satisfy the load demand. Therefore, ESs, such as battery storage and
32 thermal energy storage tank has been widely applied in practice as an effective solution to
33 overcome energy fluctuation characteristics. In the following subsections, the RESs with Energy
34 Storage as complementary energy were summarized in detail.
35
2.2.1. Photovoltaic/Battery system
36
37 Batteries Electrical Energy Storage ( BEES) is used to overcome the randomness and
38 intermittency of PV output in Photovoltaic/Battery combination (Fig.5). The energy produced by
39 the PV array is used to meet the load demand while the excess is used to charge the BESS. Part of
40 the PV energy stored into the BESS during the daytime can satisfy the load demand during the
41 night-time or deficit’s periods. And so on, the energy storage guarantees the autonomy of the off-
42 grid RESs if they are optimally sized.
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 8
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 PV Array
PV Array Switchboard
13
14
15
16 Batteries Electrical
Solar inverter
17 Bi-directional Energy Storage
18 inverter
19
20 AC Load
21 Fig. 5. Off-grid PV/Batteries system
22
23 2.2.2. CSP with Thermal Energy Storage Tank
24
Molten-salt energy storage (MSES) is a technology used for storing solar energy at a high
25 temperature. Presently, this technology has become very adapted to store thermal energy produced
26 by concentrated solar power (Fig.6). The energy produced by the CSP system is used to satisfy the
27 load directly, while the excess is stored in the thermal storage tank. The stored heat in the MSES
28 can later be converted into superheated steam to power steam turbines and generate electricity in
29 cloudy weather or at night to ensure the system's autonomy without resorting to other energy
30 sources or the grid.
31 The solar multiple (SM) factor determines the power to be stored in the TES. The SM is defined
32 as the ratio between the solar field's thermal power QU under design conditions and the power
33 block's thermal power under nominal conditions. (QUR)[32] (Eq.7).
34 QU
SM = (7)
35 Q UR
36
When the solar field area increases, the power delivered by the CSP plant increases, and therefore
37 the power to be stored is high, thus, the SM value increases (>1). On the other hand, a value of
38 SM=1 means that there is no thermal storage.
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 9
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Solar field TES Power bloc
13
14
15
Steam turbine
16
HTF/Steam
17 Hot tank switch
18 Con densation
19
20
21 Cold tank
22
23
24
Fig. 6. CSP plant with Thermal Energy Storage
25
26
27 3. Method and research
28 3.1. Optimal sizing of renewable energy systems
29
30 The optimal sizing of RESs is a crucial aspect that requires much importance before basing on
renewable resources to generate electricity for different regions and loads. Additionally, different
31
kinds of energy storage should be decided according to the site's meteorological conditions to
32 reduce the influence of the intermittent and volatility of solar and wind output on electricity
33 produced and real-time electricity balance, quality and cost (Fig.7).
34
35 • For large scale on-grid RES, electricity is supplied to the local. Therefore, an area rich in
36 renewable energies will be an energy source transmitted by ultra-high voltage DC/AC transmission
37 lines.
38
39 • It is impossible to completely meet the load demand by relying only on renewable energies for
areas with special load demands, due to the high-quality requirement of electricity and its
40
permanence. Therefore, it is essential to consider the integration of ES units to guarantee the
41 reliability of renewable energies and the autonomy of RESs.
42
43 • For RESs with ES, Batteries is primarily suggested for its flexibility as complementary energy
44 and its potential role in PV or Wind system. Other kinds of ES, such as Thermal Energy Storage,
45 can be used in CSP plant.
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 10
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Minimum Cost

Optimal Sizing of the RES

Meteorological Data of the site of energy
13
14
15 Sizing Tool Optimal system
(Algorithm/
16 Software performance
17
18 Technical & Economic data of
Minimizing
19 the RES components
Carbon emission
20
Fig. 7. Optimal sizing of RES
21
22
23 3.2. System Advisor Model
24 The System Advisor Model (SAM) is a free techno-economic software model developed by the
25 National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the United States. SAM facilitates decision-making for
26 people in the renewable energy industry and enables detailed analysis of renewable energy
27 systems' performance and finances (Fig.8). Using SAM, the user can estimate the energy
28 production and energy cost of grid-connected renewable energy systems worldwide [33].
SAM can model many types of renewable energy systems:
29
 PV systems
30
 CSP systems for the production of electrical energy
31
 Wind power, from individual WTs to large WT farms
32
 Solar water heating
33
 Combustion of biomass for electricity production
34
35 3.2.1. Detailed photovoltaic
36 The SAM software's detailed photovoltaic model calculates the electrical energy of a grid-
37 connected PV system using numerous models of PV panels and inverters. It requires module and
38 inverter data and information about the number of PV panels and inverters in the PV system. The
39 user can either provide his own panel's module and inverter information from the manufacturer's
40 datasheet or choose a module and inverter from the libraries. The detailed PV model estimates
41 losses due to the effect of temperature on the PV array's performance and provides options to
42 calculate shading and other losses in the system. The template also includes a system sizing wizard
43 to help the user determine the number of modules and inverters in the system.
44 3.2.2. Concentrate solar energy
45
46 Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) models of system advisor model intend for several types of CSP
47 systems that use a collector field to focus sunlight on a receiver and heat a fluid that provides heat
to a cycle steam feed for electricity production:
48
 Parabolic trough with oil or salt heat transfer fluid, with or without TES.
49
 Power tower with molten salt and optional TES, or direct steam and no TES.
50
 Linear Fresnel with molten salt and optional TES, or direct steam and no TES.
51
 Stirling dish
52
53
54 11
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 3.2.3. Wind power
12
13 System Advisor Model's Wind Power model can model a single wind turbine or a wind farm with
more than many wind turbines. Combine the wind power performance model with the financial or
14
residential model for a behind-the-meter project that uses wind power to reduce the electricity bill
15 of a building or facilities, such as a residential WT or WTs on a farm or ranch for self-generation.
16 If not, combine it with one of the Power Purchase Agreement financial models for a project to sell
17 electricity at a negotiated price of electricity as part of a power purchase agreement, such as a
18 large-scale wind turbines farm.
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28 Fig. 8. Steps to modelling RES using System Advisor Model

29
30 Advantages of SAM
31 SAM has a set of advantages that distinguish it from other tools and made it the ideal tool to
32 validate the results in this paper. The merits of SAM are:
33
 It presents a detailed analysis of renewable energy systems' performance and finances.
34
35  SAM can model and size many types of renewable energy systems (PV, Wind, CSP…).
36  The possibility of integrating storage units (Battery, TES) in the RESs or not.
37
38  Analysis of grid-connected RES.
39  It can estimate energy production (hourly, daily, and yearly).
40
41  It can estimate energy cost of renewable energy systems.
42
3.3. Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis methodology
43
44 The optimal sizing procedure of renewable energy systems is a very complex operation, its
45 difficulty is finding the optimal capacity of generators to be installed and the capacities of the
46 storage units by adapting with the meteorological data of the site and the load profile to be supplied
47 or the desired power to inject into the grid. Our ESCEA algorithms, based on the site data and the
technical data of the components used, presents a simple tool to optimally sizing in-gridon-
48
grid/off-grid RESs. The ESCEA methodology includes two algorithms, the first (Fig.9) is used for
49 the sizing and analysis of RESs without storage and connected to grid (PV park, WT farm and
50 CSP plant) and the second algorithm (Fig.10) for the sizing of off-grid RESs (PV/Batteries system
51 and CSP plant with thermal energy storage). The implementation of the algorithms in MATLAB
52 and viewing the optimization criteria, we can have the optimal design of the desired RES.
53
54 12
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 The algorithms of the ESCEA method begin with the extraction of meteorological data from the
12 site chosen for the study according to the fixed period of analysis: solar irradiation, wind speed
13 and temperature. After extracting the site data, the algorithms take as inputs the technical and
14 economic data of the components used in the RES: the type of generators and their characteristics
15 (PV panels, Wind Turbines, CSP) and also the data of the associated storage systems in the case
16 of off-grid RESs. before implementing the algorithms to find the optimal configuration with the
minimum LCOE, the user must first set the RESs optimization constraints: the desired LPSP for
17
the RESs off-grid or the desired power to be injected into the electrical network for the in-gridon-
18 grid RESs. Finally, building the Cascading Table (CT) is the necessary next step, the columns of
19 this table are formed as follows (Table 1):
20
21 Table 1 Cascade table for off-grid/In-gridOn-grid RES
22 Cascade table for In-gridOn-grid RES Cascade Table for Off-grid RES with ES
23 without ES
24 Column 1: The time value (h) for Column 1: The time value (h) for the current step.
25 the current step.
26 Column 2: Solar irradiation (DGI Column 2: DNI (W/m2) for PV/ GHI (W/m2) for PV.
27 for PV systems / DNI
28 for CSP or Wind speed Column 3: The hourly generated energy by the RES
29 v (m/s) for wind (EPV(t) or ECSP(t)) (Wh).
30 turbines farm. Column 4: The hourly load demand ELoad(t).
31
32 Column 3: The hourly generated Column 5: Balance between the overall power
33 energy by the RES generated by the RES and the load during
34 (EPV(t) or ECSP(t)) the current time step Er (Wh):
(Wh), given by the
35 Er (t) = EG (t) × Ƞinv -EL (t) (11)
36 ESCEA methodology.
37 Column 4: The hourly generated Column 6: The energy charged in the ES CHES (Wh):
38 energy by the RES
39 (EPV(t) or ECSP(t)) CHES (t) = Er (t) × ȠCH (12)
40 (Wh), given by SAM.
41 Column 5: The hourly energy Column 7: The energy discharged from the ES
42 injected into the grid DCHES (Wh):
43 EPV-g(t) or ECSP-g(t) or
44 or EWT-g(t)) (Wh), DCHES (t) = Er (t)/ȠDCH (13)
45 given by the ESCEA.
ȠCH & ȠDCH is the ES charging and
46
discharging efficiencies.
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 13
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 EPV-g (t) = EPV (t) × ȠT Column 8: Net accumulated energy of the ES EN
12 (8) (Wh):
13 ECSP−g (t) = EPV (t) × ȠT EN (t) = EN (t − 1) + CHES (t) + DCHES (t)
14 (9)
15 (14)
EWT (t) = EG (t) × ȠT
16 (10) If the net accumulated energy in the ES
17 takes a negative value, the initial state of
18 ղT represent the
the ES is modified using Eq.33, else EN
efficiency of the
19 (t=0) still equal to 0.
conversion and
20 transformation losses EN (t = 0) = -min(EN ) (15)
21 for injection into the
22 grid.
23
Column 6: The hourly energy Column 9: The global accumulated electrical energy
24
injected into the grid into the ES in the current time step EACC
25
(EPV-grid(t) or ECSP- (Wh):
26 grid(t)) or or EWT-grid(t))
27 EACC (t) = (EN (t) + EN (t = 0) (16)
(Wh), given by SAM.
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 14
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Start
12
13 Wheater Data extraction; Analysis period and time step;
14 Initialize the RES installed Capacity
15
16 t=0

17
t=t+1
18
19 Calculate the Hourly generated
20 Energy by the ingrid RES
21 EPV or EWT or ECSP

22
Calculate the Hourly generated
23 Energy by the ingrid RES
24 EPV-g or EWT-g or ECSP-g
25
26 Increase the
t=T RES installed
27 Capacity
28 Yes
29
No
30 Electrical power
injected into grid < Electrical power
31
desired
32
33 Yes
34
Optimal capacity of the in-grid RES:
35 Lowest LCC and LCOE
36
37 End
38 Fig. 9. The ESCEA algorithm for sizing in-gridon-grid RES
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 15
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Start
12
13 Wheater Data extraction; Analysis period and time step;
14 Initialize installed Capacity of the autonomous offgrid RES
15
16 t=0

17
t=t+1
18
19 Calculate the Hourly generated
20 Energy by the ingrid RES
21 EPV or EWT or ECSP

22
Calculate the Hourly Balance
23 between the overall power generated
24 No by the RES and the load Er(t)
25
26 Yes Er(t) > 0 No
27
28 Charging the ES Discharging the ES
29 CHES(t) DCH ES(t)
30
31 The global accumulated
electrical energy into the ES
32 Eacc(t)
33
34 t=T Increase the RES
35 installed Capacity
Modify the initial
36 state of the ES Yes
37 Eacc(t=0)= -min (Eacc)
38
Yes min (Eacc) < 0
39
40 No Yes

41
LPSP > LPSPdesired
42
43 No
44
45 Extract the optimal capacity of the offgrid
RES and ES & Calculate the LCC & LCOE
46
47 End
48
Fig. 10. The ESCEA algorithm for sizing autonomous off-grid RES
49
50
51
52
53
54 16
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 3.4. Reliability parameters and system cost
12 3.4.1. Loss of Power Supply Probability
13
14 The LPSP is currently one of the most popular index to evaluate the reliability of RESs and
15 optimize the size of power generation and storage facilities, and it is defined as the percentage of
power supply that cannot satisfy the load demand [34]. Hassan et al. [35] used LPSP to confirm a
16
good optimization of an autonomous off-grid PV/wind hybrid system using electric system
17 cascade analysis to minimize the annual cost and increase the system reliability. For a specified
18 analysis period only when the RES with ES is not able to satisfy the load demand, the LPSP is
19 defined as follows:
20 T
∑t=0 Edefecit
21 LPSP = ∑T
(17)
t=0 EL
22
23 EL(t) is the hourly load demand and Edeficit(t) represents the deficit of energy supply during the
24 period of analysis.
25 3.4.2. Life Cycle Cost
26
The total Life Cycle Cost (LCC) is an estimated measure of the total cost accumulated of the RES
27 during his life cycle. Four principal parts are considered: the initial set-up costs (IC), operation and
28 maintenance costs (OM), component replacement costs (RC) [36], and revenues include salvage
29 value S. The total LCC is calculated by Eq. (18):
30
LCC = IC + RC + OM + S (18)
31
32 3.4.3. Levelized Cost of Energy
33 The LCOE is an economic indicator corresponds to the full price of energy over the lifetime of the
34 system that produce it. Each mode of electricity production has a different cost from another mode.
35 The LCOE is calculated as follows (Eq.19):
36 LCC
37 LCOE = T
∑
Et (19)
38 t
t=0(1+r)
39
r is the discount rate; T is the lifetime of the RES and Et is the electrical energy generated in the
40
41 year t.
42
43 4. Case study
44 The developed methodology (ESCEA) and the System Advisor Model were used to size different
45 renewable energy systems in both modes: in-gridon-grid and off-grid. A photovoltaic park, a wind
46 turbines farm and a concentrated solar power plant of different capacities connected to the grid
47 without energy storage are sized and studied. For off-grid application, two stand-alone systems
48 with different load profiles are presented in this case study: PV/Battery system and CSP system
49 with thermal energy storage.
50 The Solar and wind potential of the considered site, a residential area located in Oujda-Maroc
(latitude: 34° 41’, longitude 1°, and 54’), varies significantly with time of the day and period of
51
the year, as shown in figures 11 and 12.
52
53
54 17
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 In this case study, the wind and solar energies are assumed constant for each hour of the analysis
12 of the ESCEA method and the SAM environment. for the sizing of off-grid RESs, LPSP must be
13 equal to the desired LPSP for the optimal solution found. The analysis is done for one year (T =
14 8760 h) with hourly solar irradiance, wind speed and load demand.
15 The technical and economic information of the renewable energy generators and energy storage
16 units used in the method and SAM for this case study are summarized in Table 2.
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30 Fig. 11. Hourly wind speed
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49 Fig. 12. Hourly solar irradiation (GHI & DNI)

50
51 Table 2 Required technical and economic data of the RESs
52 Period of analysis 1year
53
54 18
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Time step 1hour
12 CSP plant PV Panel Wind Turbine TES Battery
13 Collector Luz LS-2 Type: Mono-crystalline Prated: 600 kW ȠTES 98% DOD 70%
type: silicon
14
15 HTF fluid: Therminol VP-1 APV: 1.64 m2 Vcut-in: 4 m/s (TES
Ibat 210 Ah
efficiency)
16 Power bloc 40 %
Vbat 24 V
efficiency:
17 Efficiency: 15 % Vcut-out: 25 m/s
DOD 70%
18
ȠCH 90%
19 Peak Power of a ȠDCH 90%
Absorber: Schott PTR80 single: panel 250 Wp Vrated: 13 m/s
20
21 Life time 25 y
Life time 25 y Life time 25 y Hours Life time 5y

22 CSF 100 $
C1-PV 150 $ C1-WT 250000 $ of 6h CSF 620 $

23 CPB 100 $
CI-PV 15 $ CM-WT 250 $ storage CR-bat 430 $
24 CREC 100 $
CM-PV 10 $ CBOS 150 $ CTES CSF 100 $
25 ȠDC/DC: 95%
ȠDC/AC: 95%
26 Salvage value -10%
27
28 5. Results and discussions
29 In this paper, the electric system cascade extended analysis methodology is employed for size and
30 cost optimization in renewable energy systems for both in-gridon-grid and off-grid modes. The
31 ESCEA results are obtained from MATLAB environment. The method validation is performed by
32 comparing results obtained by the ESCEA and the System Advisor Model results.
33 To organize our presentation of the results, we the results section is divided it into three sub-
34 sections. Section one deals with the in-gridon-grid mode that includes three different RESs without
35 storage: a photovoltaic park, a wind turbine farm and a concentrated solar power plant. The second
36 section presents two autonomous off-grid RESs: PV/Batteries system and CSP plant with thermal
energy storage. Finally, the third section presents a techno-economic analysis of the
37
methodology’s sizing results of different proposed RESs based on the previously defined
38 optimization criteria: the LPSP, the LCC, and the LCOE.
39
40 5.1. In-gridOn-grid mode
41 5.1.1. Grid connected CSP plant without ES
42
43 By relying on the ESCEA methodology and System Advisor Model, we have sized a concentrated
solar power plant is sized with different capacities (20, 50 and 100 MWe) to be supplied to the
44
local electrical grid and presented the results of the two tools in the Table 3. The cascade table of
45 a grid connected CSP plant of 50MWe for one average day is presented in Table 4.
46
47 Table 3 Sizing results of grid connected CSP plant without storage using ESCEA method and SAM
48 Total aperture Number Annual energy
49 reflective area (m2) of Loop (MWhe)
50 SAM ESCEA SAM ESCEA SAM ESCEA
51 Desired
20 MWe 84498 85460 45 45 22072,298 22155.123
power to
52 be 50 MWe 212440 212540 113 113 56118,832 56910,321
53
54 19
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 injected
100 MWe 422491 418180 225 223 112511,640 111268,210
(in-
12 gridon-
13 grid)
14 Maximum difference Δ 1.13% 0.8% 1.4%
15
The same table includes a comparison between the results obtained, and it seems clear to the
16 readers that the difference in the sizing results of the CSP plant, whether the total aperture
17 reflective area of concentrators or the number of loops does not exceed 1.13% and 0.8%
18 respectively as a maximum between the sizing results of the two tools for all specified capacities.
19 Fig. 13 presents the hourly electrical power output calculated by the ESCEA method and the SAM
20 tool for a CSP plant of 20 MWe without ES for the whole year.
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32 Fig. 13. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe without ES for the whole year
33
34 It is clear from the figure above that the electrical production of the CSP plant given by the two
35 sizing tools (ESCEA & SAM) reaches the desired value of 20MWe during the period from t =
36 2000 until t = 5500. This period which begins from Spring until late summer is characterized by
37 intense solar radiation for the site chosen for the case study, and this is the secret that the CSP plant
38 achieved the desired power during this time.
39 We used the same DNI profile in the two sizing tools (ESCEA & SAM) to plot in Fig. 14 the
40 hourly electricity production by the CSP plant of 20 MWe for one average day as a function of the
time of day and the direct normal irradiation, and we notice that the two curves of the electricity
41
production obtained are approximately merged, which is explained by a convergence of the sizing
42 results given by ESCEA and SAM.
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 20
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28 Fig. 14. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe without ES for one average day
29
30 5.1.2. In-gridOn-grid PV park
31
Implementing the ESCEA algorithm for sizing in-gridon-grid RES enabled us to obtain the
32
optimum sizing for a photovoltaic park directly grid-connected without energy storage. To deepen
33 our work, we scaled this system with different capacities starting from 50 kWe to 10 MWe, and
34 we summarized the results in Table 4 below. Also, the difference between the results of the ESCEA
35 methodology and the SAM is presented in the last row of the table.
36
37 Table 4 Sizing results of grid connected PV park without ES using ESCEA method and SAM
38 Number of PV Annual energy (MWhe)
SAM ESCEA SAM ESCEA
39
40 Desired
50 kWe 199 200 8.5198e+04 8.5236e+04
41 power to 500 kWe 1997 2003 8.0289e+05 8.0536e+05
42 1 MWe 3996 4007 1.6625e+06 1.6679e+06
be
43
3 MWe 11997 12032 4.8201e+06 8.5236e+04
44 injected
45 7 MWe 27999 28102 11.2514e+06 4.8393e+06
(in-
46 10 MWe 39996 40447 16.0658e+06 16.1943e+06
gridon-
47
48 grid)
49
50 Maximum difference Δ 1.13% 0.8%
51
52
53
54 21
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 The curves of DC electricity production by the PV park of 50 kWe calculated by the ESCEA and
12 the SAM, as a function of the time of day and the global horizontal irradiation are almost identical
13 as shown in Fig .15 because the results of sizing of this RES by the two tools are very close.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30 Fig. 15. SAM & ESCEA Hourly electrical power output for a PV park of 50 kWe for one average day
31
32 5.1.3. In-gridOn-grid WT farm
33 For the sizing of wind turbine farm of different capacities, we started by introducing the technical
34 data of the chosen wind turbine in the in-gridon-grid RES sizing algorithm of the ESCEA method
35 and in the SAM, after we fix each times the desired capacity and we finally implement the ESCEA
36 algorithm and the SAM simulation in order to find the corresponding optimal sizing. these latter
37 results are presented clearly in Fig. 16, where we graphically represent the sizing results obtained
38 by ESCEA and SAM, as a function of the desired capacity. as a final station, we measured the
39 percentage difference between the results of ESCEA and of SAM for each capacity value and we
40 showed that the difference did not exceed 0.9% in all the points processed.
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 22
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 SAM ESCEA
90
13 80
Number of WT

14 70
15 60
16 50
17 40
30
18
20
19 10
20 0
21 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
22 Capacity (MWe)
23
24 Fig. 16. Sizing results of WT farm with different capacities

25
26 Fig. 17 show that the annual energy produced obtained by the ESCEA method is very close to that
27 obtained by the SAM software, with a maximum difference of 1.26% corresponding to the capacity
of 50 MW.
28
29 SAM ESCEA
30 180
Anuual energy produced (GWh)

31 160
32 140
33
120
34
100
35
36 80
37 60
38 40
39 20
40
0
41 7 10 17 25 30 33 40 50
42
43 Capacity of WT farm (MW)
44 Fig. 17. Annual energy produced of a wind turbine farm with different capacities
45
46 5.2. Off-grid mode
47
5.2.1. Autonomous off-grid CSP plant with thermal energy storage
48
49 During the sizing process of autonomous off-grid CSP plant with TES, we adopted the SAM tool
50 as a first step, where we selected the various components of the plant (collector, Absorber and
51 Power bloc) and performed the simulation with a capacity of 20 MWe and a solar multiple=2.
52 After Sam's simulation, we obtained the annual electrical energy produced every hour shown in
53
54 23
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Fig. 18, and by relying on the latter as an annual load profile for ESCEA, we searched for the
12 sizing associated with it, this time based on the ESCEA methodology, and we got finally a
13 difference in sizing between the two tools that do not exceed 1.03% in total reflective aperture area
14 and 1.25% for the solar multiple. This convergence of results confirms and validates the new
15 advantages and improvements of the developed ESCEA in the sizing of CSP systems and the
16 determination of the SM parameter which defines the corresponding thermal storage.
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Fig. 18. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe with ES for the whole year
30
31 Since the results of the sizing of the two tools were not divergent, as we mentioned earlier, this
32 means that the drawing of the electricity productivity curves for the two tools, whether daily or
33 annual, must be close to a large extent, and this is confirmed by Fig. 18 and Fig. 19.
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49 Fig. 19. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe with TES for one average day
50
51 Fig. 20 and Fig. 21 show the annual thermal energy and the daily thermal energy into the TES
52 respectively.
53
54 24
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26 Fig. 20. Yearly thermal energy into TES
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48 Fig. 21. Daily thermal energy into TES

49
50 5.2.2. Autonomous PV/Batteries system
51 At this point, we have looked for the proper sizing of the PV/batteries system for the electrical
52 load shown in Fig. 22. The ESCEA method results showed that 36 PV panels of the type we
53
54 25
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 previously identified in Table 2 with 5.71 kWh total capacity of batteries were sufficient to satisfy
12 the load completely, i.e., the achievement of the technical optimization condition LPSP desired =
13 0%. As for the SAM tool, it also showed after simulating with the same number of required PVP
14 and battery capacity that the load is satisfied throughout the analysis period without resorting to
15 the electrical grid or any other external source with a negligible difference in annual energy
16 produced not exceeding 0.9% compared to ESCEA method.
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
Fig. 22. Yearly load profile
30
31 The battery state of charge given in Fig. 23 showed that it ends the analysis with a value greater
32 than the one initially, which means that the battery will have an initial amount of energy to ensure
33 the autonomy of the next day without back to other sources. Fig. 23 also shows that the pinch point
34 of the analysis is obtained at t = 811, representing an hour from February. The cascade table for
35 one day with average weather data of this month is presented in Table 6.
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 26
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26 Fig. 23. Battery state of charge (%)
27 The role of batteries in PV/Batteries systems is to store energy in periods of abundance and supply
28 it to the load in periods of deficits or dark periods. Fig. 24 shows that the batteries supply electricity
29 to load the entire analysis period to ensure the autonomy of the system.
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
Fig. 24. Electricity from battery to load
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 27
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Table 5 Cascade table of a 50MWe in-gridon-grid CSP plant for one average day
12 Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6
13
14 t DNI ECSP ECSP ECSP-grid(t) ECSP-grid(t)
(h) (Wh/m2) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh)
15 ESCEA SAM ESCEA SAM
16 1 0 0 0 0 0
17 2 0 0 0 0 0
18 3 0 0 0 0 0
4 0 0 0 0 0
19 5 0 0 0 0 0
20 6 134.996 0,89 0.80 0,84 0,76
7 315.057 2,00 1.95 1,90 1,85
21 8 462.22 4.47 4,37 4,24 4,155
22 9 633.465 25,98 25,16 24,68 23,90
23 10 671.421 36,25 36,16 34,43 34,35
11 678.635 35,28 35,08 33,51 33,32
24 12 713.542 36,09 35,78 34,28 33,99
25 13 668.215 33,73 33,52 32,04 31,84
26 14 664.434 31.88 31,63 30,28 30,04
15 551.383 27,07 26,86 25,716 25,52
27 16 478.466 24,18 23,64 22,97 22,46
28 17 332.494 16,72 16,40 15,88 15,58
18 116.956 0.79 0,76 0,75 0,72
29 19 0 0 0 0 0
30 20 0 0 0 0 0
31 21 0 0 0 0 0
22 0 0 0 0 0
32 23 0 0 0 0 0
33 24 0 0 0 0 0
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 28
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Table 6 Cascade table of an off-grid PV/Batteries system (NPV=36, CBat=571 kWh) for one average day
12 Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7 Column 8 Column 9
13
14 t GHI EPV ELoad Er CHES DCHES EN EACC
(h) (Wh/m2) (kWh) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh)
15 EN (t0)=0 EN (t0)=
16 3.29 kWh
17 1 0 0,00 0,92 -0,97 0,00 -1,21 -1,21 2,08
2 0 0,00 0,79 -0,83 0,00 -1,04 -1,04 2,26
18 3 0 0,00 0,72 -0,75 0,00 -0,94 -0,94 2,35
19 4 0 0,00 0,68 -0,71 0,00 -0,89 -0,89 2,41
20 5 0 0,00 0,68 -0,72 0,00 -0,90 -0,90 2,39
6 41,10 0,01 0,80 -0,83 0,00 -1,04 -1,04 2,26
21 7 149,11 0,33 1,00 -0,74 0,00 -0,92 -0,92 2,37
22 8 311,52 1,09 1,08 -0,11 0,00 -0,13 -0,13 3,16
9 476,90 2,41 1,08 1,15 1,04 0,00 1,04 4,33
23 10 612,81 3,14 1,20 1,72 1,55 0,00 1,55 4,84
24 11 687,76 3,47 1,27 1,96 1,76 0,00 1,76 5,05
25 12 703,72 3,52 1,38 1,89 1,70 0,00 1,70 4,99
13 673,79 3,37 1,51 1,62 1,45 0,00 1,45 4,75
26 14 583,16 2,94 1,65 1,05 0,95 0,00 0,95 4,24
27 15 453,69 2,33 1,82 0,30 0,27 0,00 0,27 3,56
28 16 299,68 1,57 2,01 -0,62 0,00 -0,78 -0,78 2,51
17 141,51 0,54 2,31 -1,91 0,00 -2,39 -2,39 0,90
29 18 37,59 0,08 2,47 -2,52 0,00 -3,15 -3,15 0,14
30 19 0,06 0,00 2,50 -2,63 0,00 -3,29 -3,29 0,00
20 0 0,00 2,45 -2,58 0,00 -3,22 -3,22 0,07
31 21 0 0,00 2,30 -2,42 0,00 -3,02 -3,02 0,27
32 22 0 0,00 1,95 -2,05 0,00 -2,57 -2,57 0,73
33 23 0 0,00 1,55 -1,63 0,00 -2,04 -2,04 1,25
24 0 0,00 1,18 -1,24 0,00 -1,55 -1,55 1,75
34
35 5.3. Techno-Economic Analysis
36 The sizing results of the CSP system without associated TES for different capacities were
37 benchmarked based on the technical and economic optimization indicators. As shown in figure 7,
38 the value of LCOE for this system is approximately 21 cents$/kWh, and the evolution of the LCC
39 depends on the capacity of the system.
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 29
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Fig. 25. Economic analysis of the ESCEA results of in-gridon-grid CSP system
27
28
The photovoltaic system connected directly to the electrical network without storage units presents
29
the low cost of electricity among the solar three in-gridon-grid systems, with a value of 11
30 cents$/kWh; this is due to the lower design cost LCC of this system by compared to other in-grid
31 systemsthe (CSP and Wind)CSP system: for 10 Mwe, the LCC of On-grid PV system is about 5.32
32 107 $ and 6.03 107 $ for on-grid CSP system,, as well as to significant energy productivity thanks Formatted: Superscript
33 to the considerable potential of global solar radiation in the site selected as a case study.
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49 Fig. 26. Economic analysis of the ESCEA results of in-gridon-grid PV system
50 Although the LCC for the on-grid WT system is equal to 3.74 107 $ which is the lowest for a Formatted: Superscript
51 capacity of 10 MWe compared to the on-grid PV and CSP systems, with 5.32 107 $ and 6.03 107 Formatted: Superscript
52 $, respectively, but Tthe low potential for of wind speed at the site chosen for the case study and Formatted: Superscript
53
54 30
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 the high cost of designing the grid-connected WT system made the WT system with the most
12 expensive LCOE, around 24 22.5 cents$/kWh for the sizing ESCEA result of the system at 10
13 MWe, as shown in the Fig. 5. We also notice that the value of the LCC and the energy produced
14 during the lifetime increase considerably with the sizing capacity, while the LCOE slowly
15 decreases from 24 cents$/kWh for the one1 MWe at to 22.5 cents/kWh for the 10 MWe capacity.
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31 Fig. 27. Economic analysis of the ESCEA results of in-gridon-grid WT system

32 Figure 5 shows how the optimization constraint, the LPSP, affects the ESCEA results to size the
33 stand-alone CSP system with integrated thermal storage. From the figure, we notice that for LPSP
34 = 0%, the ESCEA methodology defined the optimal size of the system with a full aperture
35 reflective area of 169,200 m2 and SM = 2, while for the two values of LPSP equal to 2 and 5%,
36 respectively, the area was reduced to 165,440 m2 and 161,680 m2, and SM took the values of 1.97
37 and 1.93.
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 31
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25 Fig. 28. The influence of the LPSP concept on the ESCEA sizing results of autonomous off-grid CSP/TES system
26 The ESCEA methodology has defined different PV / Battery system sizing solutions for the
27 different values of LPSP 0, 2, and 5%. The figure below shows how the LPSP influences the
28 number of photovoltaic panels and the total battery capacity.
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45 Fig. 29. The influence of the LPSP concept on the ESCEA sizing results of autonomous off-grid PV/Battery system
46 A techno-economic analysis of the off-grid RES is presented below in Table 7, based on the three
47 optimization criteria: the LPSP, the LCC and the LCOE. As shown in the table 7, the LPSP affects
48 considerably the sizing results of the ESCEA, so it naturally has an important effect on the
49 economic measures of autonomous off-grid systems. For example, we see that the LCC of the Formatted: Superscript
50 autonomous system CSP / TES has decreased from 1.59 108 $ for LPSP = 0% to 1.54 108 $ for Formatted: Superscript
51 LPSP = 5%. Likewise, from 4.71 104 $ to 4.46 104 $ for the PV/Batteries system. Returning to the
Formatted: Superscript
52 other economic indicator, the LCOE, we notice from Table 7 below that it remains constant for
Formatted: Superscript
53
54 32
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 the two systems and takes 21.1 cents$/kWh for the PV/Batteries system and 19.6 cents$/kWh for
12 the CSP/TES systemSince the LPSP affects the sizing results of ESCEA, it naturally has an
13 important effect on the economic measures of autonomous systems. For example, we see that the
14 LCC of the autonomous system CSP / TES has decreased from 1.59 108 for LPSP = 0% to 1.54
15 108 for LPSP = 5%. Likewise, from 4.71 104 to 4.46 104 for the PV/Batteries system. Returning to
16 the other economic indicator, the LCOE, we notice from Table 7 below that it remains constant
for the two systems and takes 21.1 cents$/kWh for the PV/Batteries system and 19.6 cents$/kWh
17
for the CSP/TES system.
18
19 Table 7 Techno-economic analysis of the ESCEA sizing results of autonomous off-grid systems
20
21 Off-grid PV/Battery system Off-grid CSP/TES system
22
23 Cbat LCC LCOE ACSP LCC LCOE
LPSP NPV SM
24 (kWh) ($) ($/kWh) (m )2
($) ($/kWh)
25
26 0% 36 571 4.71 104 0.211 169200 2 1.59 108 0.196
27
28 2% 35 553 4.59 104 0.211 165440 1.97 1.56 108 0.198
29
5% 33 541 4.46 104 0.211 161680 1.93 1.54 108 0.197
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 33
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 The table 8 below presents a comparison with previous paper. As shown in the table, the sizing
12 procedure of the different on-grid and off-grid RES based on the ESCEA methodology and the tri-
13
14 objective optimization functions, has been successful in finding the optimal configuration with the
15 minimum cost of electricity produced in comparing with other papers which used other algorithms
16
and software for the sizing of RESThe table 8 below presents a comparison with previous paper..
17
18 Table 8 comparison of the ESCEA results with previous paper

19 Study RES Method/Tools Location LCOE

20
[36] On-grid PV/Batteries Energy dispatch Shanghai, 0.058 ~ 0.098
21 system strategy China $/kWh
22
23 [9]  Off-grid CSP/PV/WT ESCEA Oujda,  0.1830
24 with Batteries and TES Morocco $/kWh
25  Off-grid PV/Battery  0.2383
26 system $/kWh
27  Off-grid WT/Battery  0.40
system $/kWh
28
 Off-grid CSP/TES  0.1963
29
system $/kWh
30
31 [29] WT/Batteries system Design space India 0.28 $/kWh
32 Approach and
33 Monte-Carlo
34 simulation
35 This  PV/Batteries system ESCEA with Oujda,  0.211
36 paper Tri-objective Morocco $/kWh
37  Off-grid CSP/TES techno-  0.196
38 economic sizing
optimization $/kWh
39 system
 0.225
40
41  On-grid WT system $/kWh
42  0.110
43  On-grid PV system $/kWh
44  0.210
45  On-grid CSP system
46
without TES
47
48
49 [22] Off-grid PV/WT with HOMER and Oujda, 0.379 $/kWh
50 batteries MESCA Morocco
51 [37] CSP/TES SAM Oujda, 0.25 $/kWh
52 Morocco
53
54 34
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 [32] 8 different configurations SAM Bechar, 0.096 ~ 0.148
12 of Parabolic trough with Algeria $/kWh
13 two different working fluid
14 with and without TES
15 Merits of the ESCEA methodology
16
17 The merits of the ESCEA methodology over other sizing methodologies and the improvements it
18 came with are shown are as follows:
19  The LPSP, the LCC and the LCOE are implemented together as tri-objective optimization
20 function into the ESCEA to optimize techno-economically the sizing results of RES.
21  Expanding the scope of the studied systems by sizing up the in-gridon-grid renewable
energy systems.
22
 Scaling various renewable energy systems, including Concentrated solar power systems.
23
 Accreditation and sizing of thermal storage and determination of solar multiple's value.
24
 Sizing of hybrid RES with multiple storage facilities [9].
25
 More realistic results are obtained by performing analysis for the period of 8760 h (1 year),
26 considering variations in meteorological data and load demand.
27  Achieve viable energy cost levels for different on-grid and off-grid RES: 0.21 $/kWh for
28 off-grid autonomous PV/Batteries system with LPSP=0%, 0.196 $/kWh for Off-grid
29
autonomous CSP/TES system LPSP=0%, 0.225 $/kWh for On-grid WT system, 0.110
30
$/kWh for On-grid PV system and 0.210 $/kWh for On-grid CSP system without
31
32 TESAchieve viable energy cost levels:..
33  A potent tool that helps to choose the most suitable RES for any site worldwide.
34 6. Conclusion
35
Based on recently created and enhanced algorithms of the ESCEA approach, this work
36
quantitatively examined the optimal size of various renewable energy systems in both off-grid and
37 on-grid modes. The LPSP, LCC, and LCOE are all combined in the ESCEA to maximize the sizing
38 findings from a technical and economic standpoint. The different RESs are sized by taking into
39 consideration the technical and economic data of all of their components, as well as the necessary
40 power for injection into the local electrical grid in on-grid mode or the desired LPSP for off-grid
41 autonomous systems. By comparing the ESCEA sizing results of RE generators and energy storage
42 and the yearly power output achieved after deployment of the ESCEA algorithms, the sizing results
43 were validated. The scope of this paper's research includes a number of renewable energy systems
44 that were investigated in two separate modes. The first mode contains three renewable energy
45 systems: a photovoltaic park, a wind turbine farm, and a concentrated solar power plant, all of
46 which are directly linked to the grid and have no energy storage. Two autonomous off-grid RE
47 systems with energy storage units are included in the second mode: autonomous PV/Batteries
system and autonomous CSP plant with thermal energy storage. A case study was carried out for
48
sizing different RESs in both modes using ESCEA method and SAM with the weather data of
49 Oujda city in Morocco. The validation by SAM showed the capability of the new ESCEA
50 improvements and functions in the sizing of the power generation and storage units of the different
51 on-grid and off-grid PV, Wind and CSP systems. The comparison between the two tools showed
52 that the difference in sizing results not exceeded 1.1% for CSP plants, 1% for PV systems, 0.9%
53
54 35
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 for wind turbines systems and a maximum difference of 1.5% in annual produced energy. The
12 ESCEA sizing results were found to have a viable cost of energy of 0.11 $/kWh for a grid-
13 connected PV system, 0.21 $/kWh for on-grid CSP system, 0.23 $/kWh for on-grid WT system,
14 0.21 $/kWh for off-grid PV/Battery system, and 0.19 $/kWh for off-grid CSP system with thermal
15 energy storage.
16 Finally, this article gave a more comprehensive assessment of the methodology's ability to scale
renewable energy systems, as well as modifications to it to cover a broader spectrum of grid-
17
connected systems. The application of the ESCEA technique with additional green energy sources
18 (e.g., biomass, geothermal...) and storage systems is an extension of this study (Hydro energy
19 storage)This work has quantitatively investigated the optimal sizing of different renewable energy
20 systems in both off-grid and in-grid modes based on new developed and improved algorithms of
21 the ESCEA methodology. The LPSP, the LCC, and the LCOE are implemented together into the
22 ESCEA to optimize the sizing results techno-economically. Validation of the results with the
23 System Advisor Model sizing tool was made by comparing the sizing results of RE generators and
24 energy storage and the annual electricity production obtained after implementation of the ESCEA
25 algorithms. The sizing procedure for the different RESs is done by taking into account the technical
26 and economic data of all the components of each RES and the desired power for injection into the
27 local electrical grid for the in-grid mode or the desired LPSP for off-grid autonomous systems.
28 The study's scope for this paper included numerous renewable energy systems in which two
29 different modes were studied. The first mode includes three renewable energy systems without
energy storage and directly connected to the grid: Photovoltaic Park, Wind turbines farm and a
30
concentrated solar power plant. The second mode includes two autonomous off-grid RE systems
31 with energy storage units: PV/Batteries system and CSP plant with thermal energy storage. A case
32 study was carried out for sizing different RESs in both modes using ESCEA method and SAM
33 with the weather data of Oujda city in Morocco. The validation by SAM showed the capability of
34 the new ESCEA improvements and functions in the sizing of the power generation and storage
35 units of the different in-grid and off-grid PV, Wind and CSP systems. The comparison between
36 the two tools showed that the difference in sizing results not exceeded 1.1% for CSP plants, 1%
37 for PV systems, 0.9% for wind turbines systems and a maximum difference of 1.5% in annual
38 produced energy. The economic analysis of the ESCEA sizing results shows that it achieved viable
39 levels cost of energy, 0.11 $/kWh for a grid-connected PV system, 0.21 for in-grid CSP system,
40 0.23 for in-grid WT system, 0.21 for off-grid PV/Battery system, and 0.19 for off-grid CSP system
41 with thermal energy storage.
Finally, this paper provided an expanded view of the methodology's capacity to scale renewable
42
energy systems and the improvements in it also to include the range of grid connected systems.
43 The extension of this work includes the use of ESCEA method with other sources of green energy
44 (e.g., Biomass, Geothermal…) and storage systems (Hydro energy storage).
45
46 References
47 [1] Aniello G, Shamon H, Kuckshinrichs W. Micro-economic assessment of residential PV and
48 battery systems : The underrated role of financial and fiscal aspects. Appl Energy
49 2021;281:115667. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115667.
50 [2] Angeliki Loukatou, Paul Johnson, Sydney Howell PD. Optimal valuation of wind energy
51 projects co-located with battery storage. Appl Energy 2021;283.
52 https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.116247.
53
54 36
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 [3] Papadopoulos V, Knockaert J, Develder C, Desmet J. Investigating the need for real time
12 measurements in industrial wind power systems combined with battery storage. Appl
13 Energy 2019;247:559–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.04.051.
14 [4] Ekren O, Ekren BY. Size optimization of a PV / wind hybrid energy conversion system with
15 battery storage using simulated annealing. Appl Energy 2010;87:592–8.
16 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2009.05.022.
17
[5] Shabani M, Dahlquist E, Wallin F, Yan J. Techno-economic comparison of optimal design
18
of renewable-battery storage and renewable micro pumped hydro storage power supply
19
systems : A case study in Sweden ☆. Appl Energy 2020;279:115830.
20
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115830.
21
22 [6] Firtina-ertis I, Acar C, Erturk E. Optimal sizing design of an isolated stand-alone hybrid
23 wind-hydrogen system for a zero-energy house. Appl Energy 2020;274:115244.
24 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115244.
25 [7] Ogunjuyigbe ASO, Ayodele TR, Akinola OA. Optimal allocation and sizing of PV / Wind
26 / Split-diesel / Battery hybrid energy system for minimizing life cycle cost , carbon emission
27 and dump energy of remote residential building. Appl Energy 2016;171:153–71.
28 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.03.051.
29 [8] Dufo-lópez R, Bernal-agustín JL, Yusta-loyo JM, Domínguez-navarro JA, Ramírez-rosado
30 IJ, Lujano J, et al. Multi-objective optimization minimizing cost and life cycle emissions of
31 stand-alone PV – wind – diesel systems with batteries storage 2011;88:4033–41.
32 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.04.019.
33 [9] Chennaif M, Zahboune H, Elhafyani M, Zouggar S. Electric System Cascade Extended
34 Analysis for optimal sizing of an autonomous hybrid CSP / PV / wind system with Battery
35 Energy Storage System and thermal energy storage. Energy 2021;227:120444.
36 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2021.120444.
37
[10] Ziyati D, Dollet A, Flamant G, Volut Y, Guillot E, Vossier A. A multiphysics model of
38
large-scale compact PV – CSP hybrid plants 2021;288:116644.
39
40 [11] Lian J, Zhang Y, Ma C, Yang Y, Chaima E. A review on recent sizing methodologies of
41 hybrid renewable energy systems. Energy Convers Manag 2019;199:112027.
42 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2019.112027.
43 [12] Carlo J, Meléndez J, Rossi M, Renzi M. Optimal sizing of a Hybrid Renewable Energy
44 System : Importance of data selection with highly variable renewable energy sources.
45 Energy Convers Manag 2020;223:113303.
46 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2020.113303.
47 [13] Ridha HM, Gomes C, Hazim H, Ahmadipour M. Sizing and implementing off-grid stand-
48 alone photovoltaic/battery systems based on multi-objective optimization and techno-
49 economic (MADE) analysis. Energy 2020:118163.
50 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2020.118163.
51
[14] Zhang W, Maleki A, Rosen MA, Liu J. Sizing a stand-alone solar-wind-hydrogen energy
52
53
54 37
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 system using weather forecasting and a hybrid search optimization algorithm. Energy
12 Convers Manag 2019;180:609–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2018.08.102.
13 [15] Das BK, Hasan M. Optimal sizing of a stand-alone hybrid system for electric and thermal
14 loads using excess energy and waste heat. Energy 2021;214:119036.
15 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2020.119036.
16
17 [16] El-bidairi KS, Duc H, Mahmoud TS, Jayasinghe SDG, Guerrero JM. Optimal sizing of
Battery Energy Storage Systems for dynamic frequency control in an islanded microgrid :
18
A case study of Flinders. Energy 2020;195:117059.
19 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2020.117059.
20
21 [17] Abushnaf J, Rassau A. Impact of energy management system on the sizing of a grid-
22 connected PV / Battery system. Electr J 2018;31:58–66.
23 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tej.2018.02.009.
24 [18] Liu J, Wang M, Peng J, Chen X, Cao S, Yang H. Techno-economic design optimization of
25 hybrid renewable energy applications for high-rise residential buildings. Energy Convers
26 Manag 2020;213:112868. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2020.112868.
27 [19] Zhang Y, Ma C, Lian J, Pang X, Qiao Y, Chaima E. Optimal photovoltaic capacity of large-
28 scale hydro-photovoltaic complementary systems considering electricity delivery demand
29 and reservoir characteristics. Energy Convers Manag 2019;195:597–608.
30 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2019.05.036.
31 [20] Abdin Z, Mérida W. Hybrid energy systems for o ff -grid power supply and hydrogen
32 production based on renewable energy : A techno-economic analysis. Energy Convers
33 Manag 2019;196:1068–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2019.06.068.
34
35 [21] Said A, Busaidi A, Kazem HA, Al-badi AH. A review of optimum sizing of hybrid PV –
Wind renewable energy systems in oman. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2016;53:185–93.
36
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.08.039.
37
38 [22] Zahboune H, Zouggar S, Krajacic G, Varbanov PS, Elhafyani M, Ziani E. Optimal hybrid
39 renewable energy design in autonomous system using Modified Electric System Cascade
40 Analysis and Homer software. Energy Convers Manag 2016;126:909–22.
41 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2016.08.061.
42 [23] Bahramara S, Moghaddam MP, Haghifam MR. Optimal planning of hybrid renewable
43 energy systems using HOMER : A review. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2016;62:609–20.
44 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.05.039.
45 [24] Giacomo M, Lionetti M, Manzolini G, Sparber W. Transition pathways optimization
46 methodology through EnergyPLAN software for long-term energy planning. Appl Energy
47 2019;235:356–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.10.099.
48
[25] Nassar YF, Abdunnabi MJ, Sbeta MN, Hafez AA, Amer KA, Ahmed AY, et al. Dynamic
49
analysis and sizing optimization of a pumped hydroelectric storage-integrated hybrid PV /
50 Wind system : A case study. Energy Convers Manag 2021;229:113744.
51 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2020.113744.
52
53
54 38
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 [26] Ameur Trad, Mohand Ameziane Ait Ali. Methodology of determining the optimum
12 performances of future concentrating solar thermal power plants in Algeria Internal Rate of
13 Return. Energy Convers Manag 2015;91:267–79.
14 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2014.12.013.
15 [27] Aly A, Bernardos A, Fernandez-peruchena CM, Solvang S, Branth A. Is Concentrated Solar
16 Power ( CSP ) a feasible option for Sub-Saharan Africa ?: Investigating the techno-
17 economic feasibility of CSP in Tanzania. Renew Energy 2019;135:1224–40.
18 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2018.09.065.
19 [28] Milani R, Szklo A, Susanne B. Hybridization of concentrated solar power with biomass
20 gasification in Brazil ’ s semiarid region. Energy Convers Manag 2017;143:522–37.
21 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2017.04.015.
22
23 [29] Roy A, Kedare SB, Bandyopadhyay S. Optimum sizing of wind-battery systems
incorporating resource uncertainty. Appl Energy 2010;87:2712–27.
24
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.03.027.
25
26 [30] Chennaif Mohammed, Zahboune Hassan, Elhafyani M. ZS. Techno-Economic Sizing of a
27 Stand-Alone Hybrid Energy and Storage for Water Pumping System. Adv. Smart Technol.
28 Appl. Case Stud., Springer, Cham; 2020, p. 291–9.
29 https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53187-4_33.
30 [31] Zhang HL, Baeyens J, Degrève J, Cacères G. Concentrated solar power plants: Review and
31 design methodology. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2013;22:466–81.
32 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2013.01.032.
33 [32] Boukelia TE, Mecibah MS, Kumar BN, Reddy KS. Investigation of solar parabolic trough
34 power plants with and without integrated TES (thermal energy storage) and FBS (fuel
35 backup system) using thermic oil and solar salt. Energy 2015;88:292–303.
36 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.05.038.
37 [33] National Renewable Energy Laboratory. System Advisor Model n.d. https://sam.nrel.gov/.
38
39 [34] Khatib T, Ibrahim IA, Mohamed A. A review on sizing methodologies of photovoltaic array
40 and storage battery in a standalone photovoltaic system. Energy Convers Manag
41 2016;120:430–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2016.05.011.
42 [35] Zahboune H, Zouggar S, Yong JY, Varbanov PS, Elhafyani M, Ziani E, et al. Modified
43 Electric System Cascade Analysis for optimal sizing of an autonomous Hybrid Energy
44 System. Energy 2016;116:1374–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.07.101.
45 [36] Zhang Y, Ma T, Elia P, Yamaguchi Y, Dai Y. A techno-economic sizing method for grid-
46 connected household photovoltaic battery systems. Appl Energy 2020;269:115106.
47 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115106.
48
[37] El Boujdaini L, Ait Lahoussine Ouali H, Mezrhab A, Moussaoui MA. Techno-economic
49
investigation of parabolic trough solar power plant with indirect molten salt storage. Proc
50 2019 Int Conf Comput Sci Renew Energies, ICCSRE 2019 2019:1–7.
51 https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCSRE.2019.8807690.
52
53
54 39
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 [38] Sohoni V, Gupta S, Mezrhab A, Nema R. A Critical Review on Wind Turbine Power Curve Formatted: English (United States)
12 Modelling Techniques and Their Applications in Wind Based Energy Systems. Journal of
13 Energy, 2016.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 40
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Nomenclature
12 Subscripts
13
14 RES Renewable Energy System
15 SAM System Advisor Model
HRES Hybrid Renewable Energy System
16
CT Cascade Table
17
ESCEA Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis
18 CSP Concentrated Solar Power
19 PV Photovoltaic
20 PVP Photovoltaic panel
21 WT Wind Turbine
22 ES Energy Storage
23 TES Thermal Energy Storage
24 BESS Battery Energy Storage System
25 LPSP Loss of Power Supply Probability (%)
26 NREL National Renewable energy laboratory
27 SOC State Of Charge
28 CF Capital Factor
29 DC Direct Current
30 AC Alternative Current
GA Genetic Algorithm
31
PSO Particle Swarm Optimization
32
PPA Power Pinch Analysis
33 kWh Kilowatt-hour
34 MWe Megawatt hour electric
35
36
37 Symbols
38 t Time step (h)
39 T analysis period (h)
40 DNI Direct Normal Irradiation (Wh/m2)
GHI Global Horizontal Irradiation (Wh/m2)
41
APV The PV panel receiving area (m 2)
42
NPV Number of photovoltaic panels
43
ȠPV The PV panel efficiency (%)
44 EPV The PV generated power (Wh)
45 EWT The WT generated power (Wh)
46 ECSP The CSP generated electrical power (Wh)
47 v Wind speed (m/s)
48 NWT Number of wind turbines
49 Vcut-in Cut-in wind speed (m/s)
50 Vcut-out Cut-out wind speed (m/s)
51 Vrated Rated wind speed (m/s)
52 PR Rated power of the wind turbine (W)
53
54 41
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 ȠSF Solar field efficiency
12 ASF Solar field aperture area
13 ȠSF Solar field efficiency (%)
14 Ƞpiping Piping losses efficiency (%)
15 Ƞparasitic Parasitic consumption efficiency (%)
16 Ƞrec Receiver efficiency (%)
ȠPB Power bloc efficiency (%)
17
EL The Load demand (Wh)
18
Er Balance between the energy generated and the load demand
19
CHES The energy charged in the energy storage
20 DCHES The energy discharged from the energy storage
21 EN(t-1) The net accumulated energy in the storage unit in the previous time interval (Wh)
22 EaccG(t) The global accumulated energy in the storage units
23 Edeficit The deficit of power supply during the time step (Wh)
24 Pinv Inverter power (W)
25 SM Solar Multiple
26 QU Thermal power of the solar field
27 QUR Thermal power of the solar field under nominal conditions
28 ȠPB Efficiency of conversion and transformation losses for injection into the grid
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 42
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 List of Figures
12 Fig. 1. Off-grid/In-gridOn-grid modes of RES ......................................................................................... 5
13
14 Fig. 2. Large-scale PV park connected to the grid .................................................................................... 6
15 Fig. 3. General layout of grid connected wind farms ................................................................................ 7
16
Fig. 4. General layout of grid connected CSP plant without TES .............................................................. 8
17
18 Fig. 5. Offgrid PV/Batteries system ......................................................................................................... 9
19 Fig. 6. CSP plant with Thermal Energy Storage ..................................................................................... 10
20
21 Fig. 7. Optimal sizing of RES ................................................................................................................ 11
22 Fig. 8. Steps to modelling RES using System Advisor Model ................................................................ 12
23
Fig. 9. The ESCEA algorithm for sizing in-gridon-grid RES .................................................................. 15
24
25 Fig. 10. The ESCEA algorithm for sizing autonomous off-grid RES ...................................................... 16
26 Fig. 11. Hourly wind speed .................................................................................................................... 18
27
Fig. 12. Hourly solar irradiation (GHI & DNI) ....................................................................................... 18
28
29 Fig. 13. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe without ES for the whole year ........ 20
30 Fig. 14. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe without ES for one average day ...... 21
31
32 Fig. 15. SAM & ESCEA Hourly electrical power output for a PV park of 50 kWe for one average day .. 22
33 Fig. 16. Sizing results of WT farm with different capacities ................................................................... 23
34
Fig. 17. Annual energy produced of a wind turbine farm with different capacities .................................. 23
35
36 Fig. 18. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe with ES for the whole year ............. 24
37 Fig. 19. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe with TES for one average day ........ 24
38
Fig. 20. Yearly thermal energy into TES ................................................................................................ 25
39
40 Fig. 21. Daily thermal energy into TES .................................................................................................. 25
41 Fig. 22. Yearly load profile .................................................................................................................... 26
42
43 Fig. 23. Battery state of charge (%) ........................................................................................................ 27
44 Fig. 24. Electricity from battery to load ................................................................................................. 27
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 43
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 List of Tables
12 Table 1 Cascade table for off-grid/In-gridOn-grid RES .......................................................................... 13
13
14 Table 2 Required data of the RESs ........................................................................................................ 18
15 Table 3 Sizing results of grid connected CSP plant without storage using ESCEA method and SAM ..... 19
16
Table 4 Sizing results of grid connected PV park without ES using ESCEA method and SAM ............... 21
17
18 Table 5 Cascade table of a 50MWe in-gridon-grid CSP plant for one average day.................................. 28
19 Table 6 Cascade table of an off-grid PV/Batteries system (NPV=36, CBat=571 kWh) for one average day 29
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 44
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
Revised Manuscript with No Changes Marked Click here to access/download;Revised Manuscript with No
Changes Marked;No Marks Manuscript.docx
Click here to view linked References
1
2
3
4
5 Tri-objective techno-economic sizing optimization of Off-grid and On-grid renewable energy
6
7 systems using Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis and System Advisor Model
8
9 Mohammed CHENNAIF*1, Mohamed MAAOUANE1, Hassan ZAHBOUNE1, Mohammed
10 ELHAFYANI1, Smail ZOUGGAR1
11
12 *Corresponding author. Tel.: +212 655 779 870. E-mail address:
13 mohammed.chennaif@gmail.com
14
15 1
Laboratory of Electrical Engineering and Maintenance – LEEM, High School of Technology,
16 University Mohammed 1st, Oujda, Morocco
17
18
19
Abstract
20 Renewable energy systems have become more attractive with the increase in energy demand due
21
22
to demographic growth, industrial development, and conventional sources' cost and their impact
23 on the environment. Finding the most suitable solution to obtain the optimum design of renewable
24 energy systems by considering techno-economic performance is a significant challenge to ensure
25 their efficiency at the lowest cost of energy produced. This paper has developed our Electric
26 System Cascade Extended Analysis with new merits and functionalities to be able to determine
27
28 the optimum capacities and sizes for different power generation and storage facilities of renewable
29 energy systems in both on-grid and off-grid. The Loss of Power Supply Probability as a system
30 reliability criterion, the Life Cycle Cost and the Levelized Cost of Energy as economic indicators,
31 are implemented together as tri-objective optimization functions into the ESCEA to optimize the
32
sizing results techno-economically. The sizing procedure takes as inputs hourly meteorological
33
34 data, load profile, and the technical and economic data for the generation and storage units. The
35 algorithm has been demonstrated with a case study on a site located in Oujda city in Morocco,
36 with different electrical energy demands. Validation of the developed methodology is performed
37 by comparing the obtained results with those from the System Advisor Model software. The results
38
39
from the Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis shows that it successfully identified the
40 optimal configuration with a difference with System Advisor Model of 1.1% in sizing results of
41 CSP plants, 1% for PV systems, 0.9% for wind turbines systems, and a maximum difference of
42 1.5% in annual produced energy. The economic analysis of the ESCEA sizing results shows that
43 it achieved viable levels cost of energy for all studied on-grid and off-grid renewable energy
44
45 systems and provided a comprehensive evaluation that help to choose the suitable RES for any site
46 worldwide.
47
48 Keywords: Renewable energy system, Sizing optimization, LCOE, LPSP, ESCEA and System
49 Advisor Model.
50
51 1. Introduction
52
53 The hope of reducing the cost of energy production and the associated environmental pollutants,
54 and the necessity of providing isolated sites with electricity, lead to the global shift towards
55
56
renewable energy systems (RES), as they are clean, unlimited and available everywhere. This
57 growing interest in the field of renewable energies has attracted studies to provide different
58 configurations outlining RESs in the literature: for instance, they can be single-source systems or
59
60
61 1
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 hybrid systems: for instance, they can be composed of photovoltaic (PV) panels coupled with
5
6 batteries [1], wind turbines systems [2,3,38] , PV panels mated with wind turbines and batteries
7 [4] or by coupling PV panels and wind turbines together with a micro-Pumped Hydro Energy
8 Storage [5]. Besides, other configurations can be hybrid wind/hydrogen [6], PV/Wind/Split-
9 diesel/Battery [7,8], PV/WT/CSP with Batteries and thermal energy storage [9] and PV/CSP
10
11
hybrid plants [10]. Further examples can be found in [11].
12 Despite several existing works devoted to the evaluation of renewable energy systems, research
13 on the optimal sizing of RESs still has important areas to explore such as techno-economic analysis
14 under different electricity tariffs and complete parametric analyses. For this reason, numerous
15 articles have studied the sizing challenge of RESs, whether single-source or hybrid and have
16
17 presented a set of algorithms to optimally size them in an ideal way overcome the problem of their
18 intermittent and unpredictable aspect, and to achieve the lowest cost of the energy produced under
19 the assumption of total and permanent satisfaction of demand.
20 The paper [12] has designed a tool capable of evaluating the optimal sizing of Hybrids Renewable
21 Energy Systems (HRES) based on a new Mixed Integer Linear Programming optimization
22
23 algorithm. Ogunjuyigbe et al. used the Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimally design a RES with
24 the objective of minimizing the Life Cycle Cost (LCC), CO2 emissions and dump energy [7]. An
25 optimal sizing methodology is presented in [13] to optimize the configuration of standalone
26 photovoltaic systems based on a novel adaptive differential mutation evolution. The paper [14]
27
28
presents the optimal sizing of an autonomous solar-wind-hydrogen hybrid system using a hybrid
29 algorithm based on three algorithms: chaotic search, search for harmony and simulated annealing.
30 Das et al. presented an optimal sizing of a standalone hybrid system for electric and thermal loads
31 using excess energy and waste heat [15]. The paper [16] proposes an optimization model for
32 determining the optimal size of the battery devices of standalone microgrids islanded microgrid.
33
34 The sizing of a grid-connected hybrid renewable energy system supplying electric power to a
35 household is presented in the paper [17]. Techno-economic sizing optimization of hybrid RES for
36 high-rise residential buildings is presented in the paper [18]. Rodolfo et al. presented in [8] an
37 application of the Strength Pareto Evolutionary algorithm to minimize the levelized cost of energy
38
39
and the equivalent carbon dioxide (CO2) life cycle emissions (LCE) of a RES. The paper [19]
40 proposed a novel approach for optimal sizing large-scale hydro-photovoltaic complementary
41 systems considering electricity delivery demand and reservoir characteristics. A techno-economic
42 analysis is presented in paper [20] for hybrid energy systems for off-grid power supply and
43 hydrogen production based on renewable energy. Ekren et al. [4] proposed the heuristic approach
44
45 which uses a stochastic gradient search for the global optimization to minimize the renewable
46 energy system total cost. A review of the optimum sizing of hybrid renewable energy systems in
47 Oman is offered by Albusaidi et al. [21].
48 Instead of the algorithms, there are also many simulation tools used in the literature to optimally
49
size RES and simulate them, with all components and links between different parts of the system:
50
51 Homer software, System Advisor Model and EnergyPLAN. Hassan et al. [22] used Homer pro
52 software to validate the Modified Electric System Cascade Analysis method results of sizing RES.
53 Further examples can be found in the review [23] of the state-of-the-art of articles, which use
54 HOMER for optimal planning of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems. Prina et al. presented the
55
56
Transition pathways optimization methodology through EnergyPLAN software for long-term
57 energy planning of RES, the main advantages of the proposed methodology are the high time
58 resolution and multi-objectives optimization [24]. The System Advisor Model (SAM) is a free
59
60
61 2
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 techno-economic software model developed by the National Renewable energy laboratory
5
6 (NREL) to estimate both the performance and cost of many types of renewable energy systems.
7 The energy production for different sizes of photovoltaic solar panels and wind farms was
8 estimated by the System Advisory Model (SAM) software to perform dynamic analysis and
9 optimize the sizing of a hybrid PV/Wind system with pumped hydroelectric storage-integrated
10
11
[25]. The software System Advisor Model is used by Ameur et al. [26] to present a methodology
12 for sizing and optimizing CSP power plants in Algeria. An investigation of CSP technology's
13 technical-economical possibilities in Tanzania using the software System Advisor Model is
14 presented by the paper [27]. The study [28] addressed the proposition of the hybridization concept
15 Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) with biomass and the simulation of benchmark power plants for
16
17 a suitable Brazilian site with three different power plant concepts using the System Advisor Model
18 (SAM).
19 The Electric System Cascade Analysis (ESCA) method is used in the design of PV systems for
20 electrification [30], supplying pumping systems [31,32], and Distributed Energy Generation
21 systems [33]. This ESCA method shows the impact of the tilt angle in sizing PV systems [34]. The
22
23 Modified ESCA or the MESCA method was developed and tested [6] on a hybrid
24 PV/Wind/Batteries power supply site in Oujda. The Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis
25 is an extended version of the ESCA proposed the first time in [9] to size optimally an autonomous
26 off-grid CSP/PV/Wind system with Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) and Thermal Energy
27
28
Storage (TES). The ESCEA developed uses the Power Pinch Analysis as a guideline; the PPA's
29 advantage is used as it is done mainly in the process industry.
30 Previous work that used ESCA or ESCEA has been successful in determining the optimal size of
31 a proposed renewable energy system, but their drawbacks are that they applied to one type of
32 renewable energy system, have never addressed grid-connected renewable energy systems with or
33
34 without energy storage, and did not provide in-depth techno-economic analysis based on multiple
35 improvement functions. These weaknesses present the significant contributions of this work. This
36 paper proposes an improved version of the ESCEA combined with a techno-economic analysis
37 based on a triple objective function implemented together into the ESCEA method to optimize
38
39
techno-economically the sizing results: the maximum allowable loss of power supply probability
40 (LPSP) as a function of system reliability, the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and the Levelized Cost of
41 Energy (LCOE) as economic indicators. The optimized methodology serves to respond to the
42 problem of optimal sizing of RES facing the challenges of unpredictability and intermittence solar
43 and wind energy, under the assumption of compliance with the technical and economic criteria
44
45 taken into account, i.e. total satisfaction demand assessed by the LPSP technical indicator, and
46 with the minimum cost of electricity produced, assessed by the LCC & LCOE economic indicators.
47 The ESCEA contains two algorithms: the first algorithm will be sizing three different generation
48 systems for grid connection application with no energy storage used for T = 8760 h (1 year):
49
Photovoltaic parks, Wind turbine farms, and Concentrated Solar Power plants. The second
50
51 algorithm will size RESs with an energy storage system for T = 8760 h: the autonomous
52 PV/Batteries system and the CSP system with Thermal Energy Storage. Finally, to validate the
53 sizing results on a more realistic case, the research is compared to an optimized solution provided
54 by the System Advisor Model software. This proposed improved process makes the ESCEA a
55
56
potent sizing tool with improved functionalities allowing it to size different RESs, whether a single
57 source or hybrid, isolated or grid-connected and with single or multiple storage systems, and helps
58
59
60
61 3
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 people working in the field of renewable energy choose the suitable RES for any location in the
5
6 world by taking into account the site weather data as input of the process.
7 This paper describes On-grid/Off-grid Renewables Energy Systems in the second section to give
8 the readers complete information. Section 3 will shed light on the ESCEA methodology and its
9 detailed two algorithms illustrated with effective techniques applied, also the description of the
10
11
System advisor Model is presented in this section. After methods. In Section 4, we describe a case
12 study selected to size different RESs in different application modes to prove that the ESCEA
13 method can be used in any site with the required input data and help to choose the suitable RES.
14 The ESCEA’s sizing result of different on-grid and off-grid RES, the validation with the case
15 study's SAM results, and the techno-economic analysis of the results will be presented in Section
16
17 5. Finally, in Section 6, we provide the most important conclusions from our results.
18
19
2. Renewable Energy Systems
20 Generally, Renewable Energy Systems include renewable energy generators and Energy Storage
21
22
or renewable energy generators without ES depending on the field of its use. According to the
23 available literature on optimum system sizing, the proportion of different types of RESs show that
24 RESs without Energy Storage: photovoltaic parks, wind turbines farms, and solar/CSP without
25 Thermal Storage Tank are the main kinds of RESs used in grid-connection mode. Therefore,
26 Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) or Thermal Energy Storage (TES) in RESs can effectively
27
28 overcome the obstacles of randomness, variability, and unpredictability of solar/wind energy,
29 which widens the range of RES applications: Off-grids or remote island and isolated area. Previous
30 studies have paid more attention to small-scale off-grid renewable energy systems, mainly solar or
31 wind energy systems. Owing to the excellent regulation performance and fast output regulation
32
ability of the Storage Energy System, this study divides RESs into two types, namely, RESs with
33
34 Energy Storage and RESs without Energy Storage (Fig.1).
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 4
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24 Fig. 1. Off-grid/On-grid modes of RES
25
26
27 2.1. Renewable Energy Systems without Energy Storage
28 RESs without energy storage mainly include Photovoltaic parks, Wind turbines farms, and CSP
29
30
plants without Energy Storage facilities. All these systems are often grid-connected. For electricity
31 generation in grid-connected applications, RESs with large scale total installed capacity are
32 suitable. Capacities of PV, Wind or CSP should be firstly determined considering energy resource
33 characteristics and desired electricity production.
34
35 2.1.1. Photovoltaic parks without ES
36
37
38 Solar irradiation is daytime energy with variable and random output; it increases during the day
39 and decreases. There is a less intense solar irradiation in the spring and winter compared to summer
40 and autumn [11]. Grid-connected PV parks use photovoltaic panels to convert falling solar energy
41
42
to electric energy by photovoltaic conversion, and with the help of converters, it adapts the
43 electrical energy produced for injection into the electricity grid (Fig.2). The energy produced by
44 the PV panel E1_PV depends on the Global Horizontal Solar Irradiation (GHI) falling on their
45 effective area (APV) and the hourly PVP’s efficiency ղPV(t) (%) (Eq.1):
46
47 E1_PV (t) = ղPV (t) × APV × GHI(t) (1)
48
49
50
The efficiency of the PVP is given by Eq.2 [9]:
51
52 ղPV (t) = ղRef × ղPT + [1-K T (TC (t)-TRef )] (2)
53
54 Where ηRef is the rated efficiency of PVP; ղPT is the efficiency of power tracking equipment; KT
55
is the temperature coefficient of efficiency; TRef is the temperature for rated PV efficiency in °C,
56
57 and TC is the computed ambient temperature in °C expressed by Eq.3:
58
59
60
61 5
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5 NOCT-20
6 TC (t) = TA (t) + DGI(t). (3)
800
7
8 TA is the ambient temperature in °C, NOCT is the normal operating cell temperature in °C.
9
10 The energy produced by the PV park EPV,T contains NPV panels is expressed as follows (Eq.4):
11
12
13 EPV,T (t) = NPV × EPV (t) (4)
14
15
16
17
18
19 DC = AC ~
20 ///
21
EPV
22 EPV-grid
23
24
25 Power grid
26 PV Park Power converters
27 Fig. 2. Large-scale PV Park connected to the grid
28
29
30 2.1.2. Wind Turbines farms without ES
31
32
In contrast to solar irradiation, the wind is usually available 24 h a day with an alternating potential,
33 generally with high wind speeds during the night and low wind speeds at day [29], and with lower
34 wind speeds in the summer and autumn compared to spring and winter.
35
36 The electrical power generated by the WT farm (Fig.3) during the current time step depends on
37 the number of WT installed (NWT), the wind speed (V) and the rated power of the wind turbine
38 (PR), it is given by Eq.5 [30]:
39
v-Vcut-in
40 PR × Vcut-in < v(t) < Vrated
41 Vr-Vin
42
43
EWT (t) = NWT × PR Vrated < v(t) < Vcut-out (5)
44
45 {0 V(t) < Vcut-in or v(t) > Vcut-out
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 6
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5 Where, Vrated is the rated speed of the wind turbine (m/s), Vcut-in is the Cut-in wind speed of the
6
7
wind turbine (m/s) and Vcut-out is the Cut-out of the wind turbine (m/s).
8 WT farm
9
10
11
12
13
EWT-grid
14
15 Collecting Farm grid
16 Point interface
17
18 Power grid
19
20
21
22 Fig. 3. General layout of grid connected wind farms
23
24 2.1.3. Concentrated Solar Power Plants without ES
25
26 Concentrated solar power systems consists of concentrate a large area of sunlight by using mirrors
27 or lenses onto an absorber. Based on the power block, electricity is generated when the
28
concentrated light is converted to heat which drives a steam turbine connected to an electrical
29
30 power generator (Fig.4). Since no storage is used, all the electrical energy produced is injected
31 directly into the electrical grid. the famous project of this CSP technology with no storage is the
32 Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System with a gross capacity of 392 megawatts (MW), It is
33 located at the base of Clark Mountain in California [Ivana]. CSP plants reflect only Direct Normal
34
35
Irradiation (DNI) on its focal line towards a receiver. The electrical power produced by the CSP
36 plant connected to grid depends on the total solar field area (ASF), DNI, Capacity Factor (CF) and
37 all the efficiencies of each floor, it can be written as Eq.6 [31].
38
39 ECSP (t) = DNI(t) × ȠSF × ASF × Ƞrec × Ƞpiping × ȠPB × (1-Ƞparasitic ) × CF (6)
40
41
42 Where 𝜂PB is the power block efficiency; 𝜂piping represents the losses of the THF circuit; 𝜂parasitic
43 is the efficiency of the parasitic consumption, 𝜂rec is the receiver efficiency, and 𝜂SF is the solar
44
45 field efficiency with a commonly used value of 48 to 50%.
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 7
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22 Solar field Power bloc
23 Fig. 4. General layout of grid connected CSP plant without TES
24
25
26 2.2. Renewable Energy Systems with Energy Storage
27
28
Solar and wind energy are still an uncontrollable energy supply, because their power generation
29 characteristics are closely connected with climate and weather conditions. Furthermore, ES can
30 adjust the output process through charge and discharge. Thus, it can reduce curtailment, and the
31 bundling output can better satisfy the load demand. Therefore, ESs, such as battery storage and
32 thermal energy storage tank has been widely applied in practice as an effective solution to
33
34 overcome energy fluctuation characteristics. In the following subsections, the RESs with Energy
35 Storage as complementary energy were summarized in detail.
36
37 2.2.1. Photovoltaic/Battery system
38
39 Batteries Electrical Energy Storage ( BEES) is used to overcome the randomness and
40 intermittency of PV output in Photovoltaic/Battery combination (Fig.5). The energy produced by
41 the PV array is used to meet the load demand while the excess is used to charge the BESS. Part of
42
43
the PV energy stored into the BESS during the daytime can satisfy the load demand during the
44 night-time or deficit’s periods. And so on, the energy storage guarantees the autonomy of the off-
45 grid RESs if they are optimally sized.
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 8
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6 PV Array
PV Array Switchboard
7
8
9
10
11 Batteries Electrical
12 Solar inverter
Bi-directional Energy Storage
13 inverter
14
15
16 AC Load
17
18 Fig. 5. Off-grid PV/Batteries system
19
20
21 2.2.2. CSP with Thermal Energy Storage Tank
22 Molten-salt energy storage (MSES) is a technology used for storing solar energy at a high
23 temperature. Presently, this technology has become very adapted to store thermal energy produced
24
25
by concentrated solar power (Fig.6). The energy produced by the CSP system is used to satisfy the
26 load directly, while the excess is stored in the thermal storage tank. The stored heat in the MSES
27 can later be converted into superheated steam to power steam turbines and generate electricity in
28 cloudy weather or at night to ensure the system's autonomy without resorting to other energy
29 sources or the grid.
30
31 The solar multiple (SM) factor determines the power to be stored in the TES. The SM is defined
32 as the ratio between the solar field's thermal power QU under design conditions and the power
33 block's thermal power under nominal conditions. (QUR)[32] (Eq.7).
34
35 QU
SM = (7)
36 QUR
37
38 When the solar field area increases, the power delivered by the CSP plant increases, and therefore
39 the power to be stored is high, thus, the SM value increases (>1). On the other hand, a value of
40 SM=1 means that there is no thermal storage.
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 9
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5 Solar field TES Power bloc
6
7
8
9
10
Steam turbine
11
HTF/Steam
12 switch
Hot tank
13
14 Con densation

15
16
17
18 Cold tank
19
20
21
22 Fig. 6. CSP plant with Thermal Energy Storage
23
24
25 3. Method and research
26
27 3.1. Optimal sizing of renewable energy systems
28
29 The optimal sizing of RESs is a crucial aspect that requires much importance before basing on
30 renewable resources to generate electricity for different regions and loads. Additionally, different
31 kinds of energy storage should be decided according to the site's meteorological conditions to
32
33
reduce the influence of the intermittent and volatility of solar and wind output on electricity
34 produced and real-time electricity balance, quality and cost (Fig.7).
35
36 • For large scale on-grid RES, electricity is supplied to the local. Therefore, an area rich in
37 renewable energies will be an energy source transmitted by ultra-high voltage DC/AC transmission
38
39
lines.
40
41 • It is impossible to completely meet the load demand by relying only on renewable energies for
42 areas with special load demands, due to the high-quality requirement of electricity and its
43 permanence. Therefore, it is essential to consider the integration of ES units to guarantee the
44 reliability of renewable energies and the autonomy of RESs.
45
46
47 • For RESs with ES, Batteries is primarily suggested for its flexibility as complementary energy
48 and its potential role in PV or Wind system. Other kinds of ES, such as Thermal Energy Storage,
49 can be used in CSP plant.
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 10
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
Minimum Cost

Optimal Sizing of the RES

6
Meteorological Data of the site of energy
7
8
9
Sizing Tool Optimal system
10 (Algorithm/
11 Software performance
12
13
14 Technical & Economic data of
Minimizing
15 the RES components
Carbon emission
16
17 Fig. 7. Optimal sizing of RES
18
19
20 3.2. System Advisor Model
21 The System Advisor Model (SAM) is a free techno-economic software model developed by the
22
23 National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the United States. SAM facilitates decision-making for
24 people in the renewable energy industry and enables detailed analysis of renewable energy
25 systems' performance and finances (Fig.8). Using SAM, the user can estimate the energy
26 production and energy cost of grid-connected renewable energy systems worldwide [33].
27
SAM can model many types of renewable energy systems:
28
29  PV systems
30  CSP systems for the production of electrical energy
31  Wind power, from individual WTs to large WT farms
32
33  Solar water heating
34  Combustion of biomass for electricity production
35
36 3.2.1. Detailed photovoltaic
37
38 The SAM software's detailed photovoltaic model calculates the electrical energy of a grid-
39 connected PV system using numerous models of PV panels and inverters. It requires module and
40 inverter data and information about the number of PV panels and inverters in the PV system. The
41 user can either provide his own panel's module and inverter information from the manufacturer's
42
43 datasheet or choose a module and inverter from the libraries. The detailed PV model estimates
44 losses due to the effect of temperature on the PV array's performance and provides options to
45 calculate shading and other losses in the system. The template also includes a system sizing wizard
46 to help the user determine the number of modules and inverters in the system.
47
48 3.2.2. Concentrate solar energy
49
50 Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) models of system advisor model intend for several types of CSP
51 systems that use a collector field to focus sunlight on a receiver and heat a fluid that provides heat
52
53 to a cycle steam feed for electricity production:
54  Parabolic trough with oil or salt heat transfer fluid, with or without TES.
55  Power tower with molten salt and optional TES, or direct steam and no TES.
56
 Linear Fresnel with molten salt and optional TES, or direct steam and no TES.
57
58  Stirling dish
59
60
61 11
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 3.2.3. Wind power
5
6
System Advisor Model's Wind Power model can model a single wind turbine or a wind farm with
7
8 more than many wind turbines. Combine the wind power performance model with the financial or
9 residential model for a behind-the-meter project that uses wind power to reduce the electricity bill
10 of a building or facilities, such as a residential WT or WTs on a farm or ranch for self-generation.
11 If not, combine it with one of the Power Purchase Agreement financial models for a project to sell
12
13
electricity at a negotiated price of electricity as part of a power purchase agreement, such as a
14 large-scale wind turbines farm.
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Fig. 8. Steps to modelling RES using System Advisor Model
27
28
29 Advantages of SAM
30
31 SAM has a set of advantages that distinguish it from other tools and made it the ideal tool to
32 validate the results in this paper. The merits of SAM are:
33
34  It presents a detailed analysis of renewable energy systems' performance and finances.
35
36  SAM can model and size many types of renewable energy systems (PV, Wind, CSP…).
37
38  The possibility of integrating storage units (Battery, TES) in the RESs or not.
39
40  Analysis of grid-connected RES.
41
42  It can estimate energy production (hourly, daily, and yearly).
43
44
 It can estimate energy cost of renewable energy systems.
45
46 3.3. Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis methodology
47
48 The optimal sizing procedure of renewable energy systems is a very complex operation, its
49 difficulty is finding the optimal capacity of generators to be installed and the capacities of the
50 storage units by adapting with the meteorological data of the site and the load profile to be supplied
51 or the desired power to inject into the grid. Our ESCEA algorithms, based on the site data and the
52
53
technical data of the components used, presents a simple tool to optimally sizing on-grid/off-grid
54 RESs. The ESCEA methodology includes two algorithms, the first (Fig.9) is used for the sizing
55 and analysis of RESs without storage and connected to grid (PV park, WT farm and CSP plant)
56 and the second algorithm (Fig.10) for the sizing of off-grid RESs (PV/Batteries system and CSP
57 plant with thermal energy storage). The implementation of the algorithms in MATLAB and
58
59 viewing the optimization criteria, we can have the optimal design of the desired RES.
60
61 12
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 The algorithms of the ESCEA method begin with the extraction of meteorological data from the
5
6 site chosen for the study according to the fixed period of analysis: solar irradiation, wind speed
7 and temperature. After extracting the site data, the algorithms take as inputs the technical and
8 economic data of the components used in the RES: the type of generators and their characteristics
9 (PV panels, Wind Turbines, CSP) and also the data of the associated storage systems in the case
10
11
of off-grid RESs. before implementing the algorithms to find the optimal configuration with the
12 minimum LCOE, the user must first set the RESs optimization constraints: the desired LPSP for
13 the RESs off-grid or the desired power to be injected into the electrical network for the on-grid
14 RESs. Finally, building the Cascading Table (CT) is the necessary next step, the columns of this
15 table are formed as follows (Table 1):
16
17 Table 1 Cascade table for off-grid/On-grid RES
18
19 Cascade table for On-grid RES without Cascade Table for Off-grid RES with ES
20 ES
21
22 Column 1: The time value (h) for Column 1: The time value (h) for the current step.
23 the current step.
24
25 Column 2: Solar irradiation (DGI Column 2: DNI (W/m2) for PV/ GHI (W/m2) for PV.
26 for PV systems / DNI
27 for CSP or Wind speed Column 3: The hourly generated energy by the RES
28 v (m/s) for wind (EPV(t) or ECSP(t)) (Wh).
29
30
turbines farm. Column 4: The hourly load demand ELoad(t).
31
32 Column 3: The hourly generated Column 5: Balance between the overall power
33 energy by the RES generated by the RES and the load during
34
35
(EPV(t) or ECSP(t)) the current time step Er (Wh):
(Wh), given by the
36 Er (t) = EG (t) × Ƞinv -EL (t) (11)
37 ESCEA methodology.
38
39 Column 4: The hourly generated Column 6: The energy charged in the ES CHES (Wh):
40 energy by the RES
41
(EPV(t) or ECSP(t)) CHES (t) = Er (t) × ȠCH (12)
42
43 (Wh), given by SAM.
44
Column 5: The hourly energy Column 7: The energy discharged from the ES
45
46 injected into the grid DCHES (Wh):
47 EPV-g(t) or ECSP-g(t) or
48 or EWT-g(t)) (Wh), DCHES (t) = Er (t)/ȠDCH (13)
49 given by the ESCEA.
50 ȠCH & ȠDCH is the ES charging and
51 discharging efficiencies.
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 13
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5 EPV-g (t) = EPV (t) × ȠT Column 8: Net accumulated energy of the ES EN
6 (8) (Wh):
7
ECSP−g (t) = EPV (t) × ȠT EN (t) = EN (t − 1) + CHES (t) + DCHES (t)
8
9 (9)
(14)
10 EWT (t) = EG (t) × ȠT
11 (10) If the net accumulated energy in the ES
12 takes a negative value, the initial state of
13 ղT represent the
the ES is modified using Eq.33, else EN
14 efficiency of the
15 (t=0) still equal to 0.
16
conversion and
17 transformation losses EN (t = 0) = -min(EN ) (15)
18 for injection into the
19 grid.
20
21 Column 6: The hourly energy Column 9: The global accumulated electrical energy
22 injected into the grid into the ES in the current time step EACC
23 (EPV-grid(t) or ECSP- (Wh):
24
(t)) or or E (t))
25 grid WT-grid
EACC (t) = (EN (t) + EN (t = 0) (16)
26 (Wh), given by SAM.
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 14
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5 Start
6
7 Wheater Data extraction; Analysis period and time step;
8 Initialize the RES installed Capacity
9
10
11 t=0
12
13 t=t+1
14
15 Calculate the Hourly generated
16 Energy by the ingrid RES
17 EPV or EWT or ECSP
18
19
20 Calculate the Hourly generated
21 Energy by the ingrid RES
EPV-g or EWT-g or ECSP-g
22
23
24 Increase the
25 t=T RES installed
26 Capacity
27 Yes
28
29 No
Electrical power
30 injected into grid < Electrical power
31 desired
32
33
34 Yes
35
Optimal capacity of the in-grid RES:
36
Lowest LCC and LCOE
37
38
39 End
40
Fig. 9. The ESCEA algorithm for sizing on-grid RES
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 15
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5 Start
6
7 Wheater Data extraction; Analysis period and time step;
8 Initialize installed Capacity of the autonomous offgrid RES
9
10
11 t=0
12
13 t=t+1
14
15 Calculate the Hourly generated
16 Energy by the ingrid RES
17 EPV or EWT or ECSP
18
19
20 Calculate the Hourly Balance
between the overall power generated
21
No by the RES and the load Er(t)
22
23
24
25 Yes Er(t) > 0 No
26
27 Charging the ES Discharging the ES
28 CHES(t) DCH ES(t)
29
30
The global accumulated
31 electrical energy into the ES
32 Eacc(t)
33
34
35 t=T Increase the RES
36 installed Capacity
37 Modify the initial
38 state of the ES Yes
39 Eacc(t=0)= -min (Eacc)
40
41 Yes min (Eacc) < 0
42 Yes
No
43
44
LPSP > LPSPdesired
45
46
47 No
48
49 Extract the optimal capacity of the offgrid
50 RES and ES & Calculate the LCC & LCOE
51
52 End
53
54 Fig. 10. The ESCEA algorithm for sizing autonomous off-grid RES
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 16
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 3.4. Reliability parameters and system cost
5
6 3.4.1. Loss of Power Supply Probability
7
8 The LPSP is currently one of the most popular index to evaluate the reliability of RESs and
9 optimize the size of power generation and storage facilities, and it is defined as the percentage of
10 power supply that cannot satisfy the load demand [34]. Hassan et al. [35] used LPSP to confirm a
11
12
good optimization of an autonomous off-grid PV/wind hybrid system using electric system
13 cascade analysis to minimize the annual cost and increase the system reliability. For a specified
14 analysis period only when the RES with ES is not able to satisfy the load demand, the LPSP is
15 defined as follows:
16
T
17 ∑t=0 Edefecit
18 LPSP = ∑T
(17)
t=0 EL
19
20 EL(t) is the hourly load demand and Edeficit(t) represents the deficit of energy supply during the
21 period of analysis.
22
23 3.4.2. Life Cycle Cost
24
25 The total Life Cycle Cost (LCC) is an estimated measure of the total cost accumulated of the RES
26 during his life cycle. Four principal parts are considered: the initial set-up costs (IC), operation and
27 maintenance costs (OM), component replacement costs (RC) [36], and revenues include salvage
28 value S. The total LCC is calculated by Eq. (18):
29
30 LCC = IC + RC + OM + S (18)
31
32 3.4.3. Levelized Cost of Energy
33
34 The LCOE is an economic indicator corresponds to the full price of energy over the lifetime of the
35 system that produce it. Each mode of electricity production has a different cost from another mode.
36 The LCOE is calculated as follows (Eq.19):
37
LCC
38 LCOE = T
Et (19)
39 ∑ t
40 t=0(1+r)
41
42 r is the discount rate; T is the lifetime of the RES and Et is the electrical energy generated in the
43
44 year t.
45
46 4. Case study
47
48 The developed methodology (ESCEA) and the System Advisor Model were used to size different
49 renewable energy systems in both modes: on-grid and off-grid. A photovoltaic park, a wind
50 turbines farm and a concentrated solar power plant of different capacities connected to the grid
51
52 without energy storage are sized and studied. For off-grid application, two stand-alone systems
53 with different load profiles are presented in this case study: PV/Battery system and CSP system
54 with thermal energy storage.
55 The Solar and wind potential of the considered site, a residential area located in Oujda-Maroc
56
57
(latitude: 34° 41’, longitude 1°, and 54’), varies significantly with time of the day and period of
58 the year, as shown in figures 11 and 12.
59
60
61 17
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 In this case study, the wind and solar energies are assumed constant for each hour of the analysis
5
6 of the ESCEA method and the SAM environment. for the sizing of off-grid RESs, LPSP must be
7 equal to the desired LPSP for the optimal solution found. The analysis is done for one year (T =
8 8760 h) with hourly solar irradiance, wind speed and load demand.
9 The technical and economic information of the renewable energy generators and energy storage
10
11
units used in the method and SAM for this case study are summarized in Table 2.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30 Fig. 11. Hourly wind speed
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54 Fig. 12. Hourly solar irradiation (GHI & DNI)
55
56
57 Table 2 Required technical and economic data of the RESs
58 Period of analysis 1year
59
60
61 18
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 Time step 1hour
5
CSP plant PV Panel Wind Turbine TES Battery
6
7 Collector Luz LS-2 Type: Mono-crystalline Prated: 600 kW ȠTES 98% DOD 70%
8 type: silicon
9
HTF fluid: Therminol VP-1 APV: 1.64 m2 Vcut-in: 4 m/s (TES
10 efficiency) Ibat 210 Ah
11 Power bloc 40 %
efficiency: Vbat 24 V
12 Efficiency: 15 % Vcut-out: 25 m/s
13 DOD 70%
14 ȠCH 90%
15 Peak Power of a ȠDCH 90%
Absorber: Schott PTR80 single: panel 250 Wp Vrated: 13 m/s
16
17 Life time 25 y Life time 25 y Hours Life time 5y
18 Life time 25 y
19 C1-PV 150 $ C1-WT 250000 $ of 6h CSF 620 $
CSF 100 $
20 CI-PV 15 $ CM-WT 250 $ storage CR-bat 430 $
CPB 100 $
21 CM-PV 10 $ CBOS 150 $ CTES CSF 100 $
22 CREC 100 $
23 ȠDC/DC: 95%
24 ȠDC/AC: 95%
Salvage value -10%
25
26
27
5. Results and discussions
28 In this paper, the electric system cascade extended analysis methodology is employed for size and
29
30
cost optimization in renewable energy systems for both on-grid and off-grid modes. The ESCEA
31 results are obtained from MATLAB environment. The method validation is performed by
32 comparing results obtained by the ESCEA and the System Advisor Model results.
33 To organize our presentation, the results section is divided into three sub-sections. Section one
34 deals with the on-grid mode that includes three different RESs without storage: a photovoltaic
35
36 park, a wind turbine farm and a concentrated solar power plant. The second section presents two
37 autonomous off-grid RESs: PV/Batteries system and CSP plant with thermal energy storage.
38 Finally, the third section presents a techno-economic analysis of the methodology’s sizing results
39 of different proposed RESs based on the previously defined optimization criteria: the LPSP, the
40
41
LCC, and the LCOE.
42 5.1. On-grid mode
43
44 5.1.1. Grid connected CSP plant without ES
45
46 By relying on the ESCEA methodology and System Advisor Model, a concentrated solar power
47 plant is sized with different capacities (20, 50 and 100 MWe) to be supplied to the local electrical
48
49
grid and presented the results of the two tools in the Table 3. The cascade table of a grid connected
50 CSP plant of 50MWe for one average day is presented in Table 4.
51
52 Table 3 Sizing results of grid connected CSP plant without storage using ESCEA method and SAM
53 Total aperture Number Annual energy
54
55 reflective area (m2) of Loop (MWhe)
56 SAM ESCEA SAM ESCEA SAM ESCEA
57 Desired
20 MWe 84498 85460 45 45 22072,298 22155.123
58 power to
be 50 MWe 212440 212540 113 113 56118,832 56910,321
59
60
61 19
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 injected
5 100 MWe 422491 418180 225 223 112511,640 111268,210
(on-grid)
6
Maximum difference Δ 1.13% 0.8% 1.4%
7
8 The same table includes a comparison between the results obtained, and it seems clear to the
9
10 readers that the difference in the sizing results of the CSP plant, whether the total aperture
11 reflective area of concentrators or the number of loops does not exceed 1.13% and 0.8%
12 respectively as a maximum between the sizing results of the two tools for all specified capacities.
13 Fig. 13 presents the hourly electrical power output calculated by the ESCEA method and the SAM
14
15
tool for a CSP plant of 20 MWe without ES for the whole year.
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30 Fig. 13. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe without ES for the whole year
31
32
33 It is clear from the figure above that the electrical production of the CSP plant given by the two
34 sizing tools (ESCEA & SAM) reaches the desired value of 20MWe during the period from t =
35 2000 until t = 5500. This period which begins from Spring until late summer is characterized by
36
37
intense solar radiation for the site chosen for the case study, and this is the secret that the CSP plant
38 achieved the desired power during this time.
39 We used the same DNI profile in the two sizing tools (ESCEA & SAM) to plot in Fig. 14 the
40 hourly electricity production by the CSP plant of 20 MWe for one average day as a function of the
41 time of day and the direct normal irradiation, and we notice that the two curves of the electricity
42
43 production obtained are approximately merged, which is explained by a convergence of the sizing
44 results given by ESCEA and SAM.
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 20
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27 Fig. 14. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe without ES for one average day
28
29 5.1.2. On-grid PV park
30
31
Implementing the ESCEA algorithm for sizing on-grid RES enabled us to obtain the optimum
32
33 sizing for a photovoltaic park directly grid-connected without energy storage. To deepen our work,
34 we scaled this system with different capacities starting from 50 kWe to 10 MWe, and we
35 summarized the results in Table 4 below. Also, the difference between the results of the ESCEA
36 methodology and the SAM is presented in the last row of the table.
37
38 Table 4 Sizing results of grid connected PV park without ES using ESCEA method and SAM
39
40 Number of PV Annual energy (MWhe)
41 SAM ESCEA SAM ESCEA
42 Desired
43 50 kWe 199 200 8.5198e+04 8.5236e+04
44 power to 500 kWe 1997 2003 8.0289e+05 8.0536e+05
45
46 be 1 MWe 3996 4007 1.6625e+06 1.6679e+06
47 3 MWe 11997 12032 4.8201e+06 8.5236e+04
48 injected
49 7 MWe 27999 28102 11.2514e+06 4.8393e+06
(on-grid)
50 10 MWe 39996 40447 16.0658e+06 16.1943e+06
51
52 Maximum difference Δ 1.13% 0.8%
53
54 The curves of DC electricity production by the PV park of 50 kWe calculated by the ESCEA and
55 the SAM, as a function of the time of day and the global horizontal irradiation are almost identical
56 as shown in Fig .15 because the results of sizing of this RES by the two tools are very close.
57
58
59
60
61 21
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26 Fig. 15. SAM & ESCEA Hourly electrical power output for a PV park of 50 kWe for one average day
27
28 5.1.3. On-grid WT farm
29
30 For the sizing of wind turbine farm of different capacities, we started by introducing the technical
31 data of the chosen wind turbine in the on-grid RES sizing algorithm of the ESCEA method and in
32 the SAM, after we fix each times the desired capacity and we finally implement the ESCEA
33
34 algorithm and the SAM simulation in order to find the corresponding optimal sizing. these latter
35 results are presented clearly in Fig. 16, where we graphically represent the sizing results obtained
36 by ESCEA and SAM, as a function of the desired capacity. as a final station, we measured the
37 percentage difference between the results of ESCEA and of SAM for each capacity value and we
38
showed that the difference did not exceed 0.9% in all the points processed.
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 22
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6 SAM ESCEA
90
7
80

Number of WT
8
9 70
10 60
11 50
12 40
13 30
14 20
15 10
16
0
17
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
18
19 Capacity (MWe)
20
21 Fig. 16. Sizing results of WT farm with different capacities
22
23
24 Fig. 17 show that the annual energy produced obtained by the ESCEA method is very close to that
25 obtained by the SAM software, with a maximum difference of 1.26% corresponding to the capacity
26 of 50 MW.
27
28 SAM ESCEA
29 180
Anuual energy produced (GWh)

30
31 160
32 140
33
34 120
35
100
36
37 80
38
39 60
40 40
41
42 20
43 0
44 7 10 17 25 30 33 40 50
45
46 Capacity of WT farm (MW)
47
48 Fig. 17. Annual energy produced of a wind turbine farm with different capacities
49
50
51 5.2. Off-grid mode
52
53
5.2.1. Autonomous off-grid CSP plant with thermal energy storage
54
55 During the sizing process of autonomous off-grid CSP plant with TES, we adopted the SAM tool
56 as a first step, where we selected the various components of the plant (collector, Absorber and
57 Power bloc) and performed the simulation with a capacity of 20 MWe and a solar multiple=2.
58 After Sam's simulation, we obtained the annual electrical energy produced every hour shown in
59
60
61 23
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 Fig. 18, and by relying on the latter as an annual load profile for ESCEA, we searched for the
5
6 sizing associated with it, this time based on the ESCEA methodology, and we got finally a
7 difference in sizing between the two tools that do not exceed 1.03% in total reflective aperture area
8 and 1.25% for the solar multiple. This convergence of results confirms and validates the new
9 advantages and improvements of the developed ESCEA in the sizing of CSP systems and the
10
11
determination of the SM parameter which defines the corresponding thermal storage.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29 Fig. 18. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe with ES for the whole year
30 Since the results of the sizing of the two tools were not divergent, as we mentioned earlier, this
31
32 means that the drawing of the electricity productivity curves for the two tools, whether daily or
33 annual, must be close to a large extent, and this is confirmed by Fig. 18 and Fig. 19.
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55 Fig. 19. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe with TES for one average day
56
57 Fig. 20 and Fig. 21 show the annual thermal energy and the daily thermal energy into the TES
58 respectively.
59
60
61 24
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24 Fig. 20. Yearly thermal energy into TES
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53 Fig. 21. Daily thermal energy into TES
54
55 5.2.2. Autonomous PV/Batteries system
56
57 At this point, we have looked for the proper sizing of the PV/batteries system for the electrical
58
59 load shown in Fig. 22. The ESCEA method results showed that 36 PV panels of the type we
60
61 25
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 previously identified in Table 2 with 5.71 kWh total capacity of batteries were sufficient to satisfy
5
6 the load completely, i.e., the achievement of the technical optimization condition LPSP desired =
7 0%. As for the SAM tool, it also showed after simulating with the same number of required PVP
8 and battery capacity that the load is satisfied throughout the analysis period without resorting to
9 the electrical grid or any other external source with a negligible difference in annual energy
10
11
produced not exceeding 0.9% compared to ESCEA method.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29 Fig. 22. Yearly load profile
30
31 The battery state of charge given in Fig. 23 showed that it ends the analysis with a value greater
32
than the one initially, which means that the battery will have an initial amount of energy to ensure
33
34 the autonomy of the next day without back to other sources. Fig. 23 also shows that the pinch point
35 of the analysis is obtained at t = 811, representing an hour from February. The cascade table for
36 one day with average weather data of this month is presented in Table 6.
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 26
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24 Fig. 23. Battery state of charge (%)
25
26 The role of batteries in PV/Batteries systems is to store energy in periods of abundance and supply
27 it to the load in periods of deficits or dark periods. Fig. 24 shows that the batteries supply electricity
28 to load the entire analysis period to ensure the autonomy of the system.
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51 Fig. 24. Electricity from battery to load
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 27
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 Table 5 Cascade table of a 50MWe on-grid CSP plant for one average day
5
6 Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6
7
8 t DNI ECSP ECSP ECSP-grid(t) ECSP-grid(t)
9 (h) (Wh/m2) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh)
10 ESCEA SAM ESCEA SAM
11 1 0 0 0 0 0
12 2 0 0 0 0 0
13 3 0 0 0 0 0
14 4 0 0 0 0 0
15 5 0 0 0 0 0
16 6 134.996 0,89 0.80 0,84 0,76
17 7 315.057 2,00 1.95 1,90 1,85
18 8 462.22 4.47 4,37 4,24 4,155
19 9 633.465 25,98 25,16 24,68 23,90
20 10 671.421 36,25 36,16 34,43 34,35
21 11 678.635 35,28 35,08 33,51 33,32
22 12 713.542 36,09 35,78 34,28 33,99
23 13 668.215 33,73 33,52 32,04 31,84
24 14 664.434 31.88 31,63 30,28 30,04
25 15 551.383 27,07 26,86 25,716 25,52
26 16 478.466 24,18 23,64 22,97 22,46
27 17 332.494 16,72 16,40 15,88 15,58
28 18 116.956 0.79 0,76 0,75 0,72
19 0 0 0 0 0
29
20 0 0 0 0 0
30
21 0 0 0 0 0
31
22 0 0 0 0 0
32 23 0 0 0 0 0
33 24 0 0 0 0 0
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 28
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 Table 6 Cascade table of an off-grid PV/Batteries system (NPV=36, CBat=571 kWh) for one average day
5
6 Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 Column 5 Column 6 Column 7 Column 8 Column 9
7
8 t GHI EPV ELoad Er CHES DCHES EN EACC
9 (h) (Wh/m2) (kWh) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh) (MWh)
10 EN (t0)=0 EN (t0)=
11 3.29 kWh
12 1 0 0,00 0,92 -0,97 0,00 -1,21 -1,21 2,08
13 2 0 0,00 0,79 -0,83 0,00 -1,04 -1,04 2,26
14 3 0 0,00 0,72 -0,75 0,00 -0,94 -0,94 2,35
15 4 0 0,00 0,68 -0,71 0,00 -0,89 -0,89 2,41
16 5 0 0,00 0,68 -0,72 0,00 -0,90 -0,90 2,39
17 6 41,10 0,01 0,80 -0,83 0,00 -1,04 -1,04 2,26
18 7 149,11 0,33 1,00 -0,74 0,00 -0,92 -0,92 2,37
19 8 311,52 1,09 1,08 -0,11 0,00 -0,13 -0,13 3,16
20 9 476,90 2,41 1,08 1,15 1,04 0,00 1,04 4,33
21 10 612,81 3,14 1,20 1,72 1,55 0,00 1,55 4,84
22 11 687,76 3,47 1,27 1,96 1,76 0,00 1,76 5,05
12 703,72 3,52 1,38 1,89 1,70 0,00 1,70 4,99
23
13 673,79 3,37 1,51 1,62 1,45 0,00 1,45 4,75
24
14 583,16 2,94 1,65 1,05 0,95 0,00 0,95 4,24
25
15 453,69 2,33 1,82 0,30 0,27 0,00 0,27 3,56
26 16 299,68 1,57 2,01 -0,62 0,00 -0,78 -0,78 2,51
27 17 141,51 0,54 2,31 -1,91 0,00 -2,39 -2,39 0,90
28 18 37,59 0,08 2,47 -2,52 0,00 -3,15 -3,15 0,14
29 19 0,06 0,00 2,50 -2,63 0,00 -3,29 -3,29 0,00
30 20 0 0,00 2,45 -2,58 0,00 -3,22 -3,22 0,07
31 21 0 0,00 2,30 -2,42 0,00 -3,02 -3,02 0,27
32 22 0 0,00 1,95 -2,05 0,00 -2,57 -2,57 0,73
33 23 0 0,00 1,55 -1,63 0,00 -2,04 -2,04 1,25
34 24 0 0,00 1,18 -1,24 0,00 -1,55 -1,55 1,75
35
36 5.3. Techno-Economic Analysis
37
38
The sizing results of the CSP system without associated TES for different capacities were
39 benchmarked based on the technical and economic optimization indicators. As shown in figure 7,
40 the value of LCOE for this system is approximately 21 cents$/kWh, and the evolution of the LCC
41 depends on the capacity of the system.
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 29
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25 Fig. 25. Economic analysis of the ESCEA results of on-grid CSP system
26
27
28
The photovoltaic system connected directly to the electrical network without storage units presents
29 the low cost of electricity among the solar on-grid systems, with a value of 11 cents$/kWh; this is
30 due to the lower design LCC of this system by compared to the CSP system: for 10 Mwe, the LCC
31 of On-grid PV system is about 5.32 107 $ and 6.03 107 $ for on-grid CSP system,as well as to
32 significant energy productivity thanks to the considerable potential of global solar radiation in the
33
34 site selected as a case study.
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
Fig. 26. Economic analysis of the ESCEA results of on-grid PV system
55
56 Although the LCC for the on-grid WT system is equal to 3.74 107 $ which is the lowest for a
57 capacity of 10 MWe compared to the on-grid PV and CSP systems, with 5.32 107 $ and 6.03 107
58
59
$, respectively, but the low potential of wind speed at the site chosen for the case study made the
60
61 30
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 WT system with the most expensive LCOE, around 22.5 cents$/kWh for the sizing ESCEA result
5
6 of the system at 10 MWe, as shown in the Fig. 5. We also notice that the value of the LCC and the
7 energy produced during the lifetime increase considerably with the sizing capacity, while the
8 LCOE slowly decreases from 24 cents$/kWh for 1 MWe to 22.5 cents/kWh for the 10 MWe
9 capacity.
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30 Fig. 27. Economic analysis of the ESCEA results of on-grid WT system
31
32 Figure 5 shows how the optimization constraint, the LPSP, affects the ESCEA results to size the
33
34 stand-alone CSP system with integrated thermal storage. From the figure, we notice that for LPSP
35 = 0%, the ESCEA methodology defined the optimal size of the system with a full aperture
36 reflective area of 169,200 m2 and SM = 2, while for the two values of LPSP equal to 2 and 5%,
37 respectively, the area was reduced to 165,440 m2 and 161,680 m2, and SM took the values of 1.97
38
39
and 1.93.
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 31
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23 Fig. 28. The influence of the LPSP concept on the ESCEA sizing results of autonomous off-grid CSP/TES system
24
25
The ESCEA methodology has defined different PV / Battery system sizing solutions for the
26 different values of LPSP 0, 2, and 5%. The figure below shows how the LPSP influences the
27 number of photovoltaic panels and the total battery capacity.
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49 Fig. 29. The influence of the LPSP concept on the ESCEA sizing results of autonomous off-grid PV/Battery system
50
51 A techno-economic analysis of the off-grid RES is presented below in Table 7, based on the three
52 optimization criteria: the LPSP, the LCC and the LCOE. As shown in the table 7, the LPSP affects
53 considerably the sizing results of the ESCEA, so it naturally has an important effect on the
54
55 economic measures of autonomous off-grid systems. For example, we see that the LCC of the
56 autonomous system CSP / TES has decreased from 1.59 108 $ for LPSP = 0% to 1.54 108 $ for
57 LPSP = 5%. Likewise, from 4.71 104 $ to 4.46 104 $ for the PV/Batteries system. Returning to the
58 other economic indicator, the LCOE, we notice from Table 7 below that it remains constant for
59
60
61 32
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 the two systems and takes 21.1 cents$/kWh for the PV/Batteries system and 19.6 cents$/kWh for
5
6 the CSP/TES system.
7
8 Table 7 Techno-economic analysis of the ESCEA sizing results of autonomous off-grid systems
9
10 Off-grid PV/Battery system Off-grid CSP/TES system
11
12
13 Cbat LCC LCOE ACSP LCC LCOE
LPSP NPV SM
14 (kWh) ($) ($/kWh) (m2) ($) ($/kWh)
15
16
17 0% 36 571 4.71 104 0.211 169200 2 1.59 108 0.196
18
19 2% 35 553 4.59 104 0.211 165440 1.97 1.56 108 0.198
20
21 5% 33 541 4.46 104 0.211 161680 1.93 1.54 108 0.197
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 33
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 The table 8 below presents a comparison with previous paper. As shown in the table, the sizing
5
6 procedure of the different on-grid and off-grid RES based on the ESCEA methodology and the tri-
7
8 objective optimization functions, has been successful in finding the optimal configuration with the
9
10 minimum cost of electricity produced in comparing with other papers which used other algorithms
11
12 and software for the sizing of RES.
13 Table 8 comparison of the ESCEA results with previous paper
14
15 Study RES Method/Tools Location LCOE
16
17 [36] On-grid PV/Batteries Energy dispatch Shanghai, 0.058 ~ 0.098
18 system strategy China $/kWh
19
20 [9]  Off-grid CSP/PV/WT ESCEA Oujda,  0.1830
21 with Batteries and TES Morocco $/kWh
22  Off-grid PV/Battery  0.2383
23
24 system $/kWh
25  Off-grid WT/Battery  0.40
26 system $/kWh
27
 Off-grid CSP/TES  0.1963
28
29 system $/kWh
30
31 [29] WT/Batteries system Design space India 0.28 $/kWh
32 Approach and
33
34 Monte-Carlo
35 simulation
36 This  PV/Batteries system ESCEA with Oujda,  0.211
37 paper Tri-objective Morocco
38
$/kWh
39  Off-grid CSP/TES techno-  0.196
40 economic sizing
optimization $/kWh
41 system
42  0.225
43
44  On-grid WT system $/kWh
45  0.110
46  On-grid PV system $/kWh
47
48  0.210
49  On-grid CSP system
50
51 without TES
52
53
54
55 [22] Off-grid PV/WT with HOMER and Oujda, 0.379 $/kWh
56 batteries MESCA Morocco
57 [37] CSP/TES SAM Oujda, 0.25 $/kWh
58
Morocco
59
60
61 34
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 [32] 8 different configurations SAM Bechar, 0.096 ~ 0.148
5
6 of Parabolic trough with Algeria $/kWh
7 two different working fluid
8 with and without TES
9
10 Merits of the ESCEA methodology
11
12 The merits of the ESCEA methodology over other sizing methodologies and the improvements it
13 came with are shown are as follows:
14
15
 The LPSP, the LCC and the LCOE are implemented together as tri-objective optimization
16 function into the ESCEA to optimize techno-economically the sizing results of RES.
17  Expanding the scope of the studied systems by sizing up the on-grid renewable energy
18 systems.
19
20
 Scaling various renewable energy systems, including Concentrated solar power systems.
21  Accreditation and sizing of thermal storage and determination of solar multiple's value.
22  Sizing of hybrid RES with multiple storage facilities [9].
23  More realistic results are obtained by performing analysis for the period of 8760 h (1 year),
24
25 considering variations in meteorological data and load demand.
26  Achieve viable energy cost levels for different on-grid and off-grid RES: 0.21 $/kWh for
27 off-grid autonomous PV/Batteries system with LPSP=0%, 0.196 $/kWh for Off-grid
28
29 autonomous CSP/TES system LPSP=0%, 0.225 $/kWh for On-grid WT system, 0.110
30 $/kWh for On-grid PV system and 0.210 $/kWh for On-grid CSP system without TES:.
31
32  A potent tool that helps to choose the most suitable RES for any site worldwide.
33
34
6. Conclusion
35 Based on recently created and enhanced algorithms of the ESCEA approach, this work
36
37
quantitatively examined the optimal size of various renewable energy systems in both off-grid and
38 on-grid modes. The LPSP, LCC, and LCOE are all combined in the ESCEA to maximize the sizing
39 findings from a technical and economic standpoint. The different RESs are sized by taking into
40 consideration the technical and economic data of all of their components, as well as the necessary
41 power for injection into the local electrical grid in on-grid mode or the desired LPSP for off-grid
42
43 autonomous systems. By comparing the ESCEA sizing results of RE generators and energy storage
44 and the yearly power output achieved after deployment of the ESCEA algorithms, the sizing results
45 were validated. The scope of this paper's research includes a number of renewable energy systems
46 that were investigated in two separate modes. The first mode contains three renewable energy
47 systems: a photovoltaic park, a wind turbine farm, and a concentrated solar power plant, all of
48
49 which are directly linked to the grid and have no energy storage. Two autonomous off-grid RE
50 systems with energy storage units are included in the second mode: autonomous PV/Batteries
51 system and autonomous CSP plant with thermal energy storage. A case study was carried out for
52 sizing different RESs in both modes using ESCEA method and SAM with the weather data of
53
54
Oujda city in Morocco. The validation by SAM showed the capability of the new ESCEA
55 improvements and functions in the sizing of the power generation and storage units of the different
56 on-grid and off-grid PV, Wind and CSP systems. The comparison between the two tools showed
57 that the difference in sizing results not exceeded 1.1% for CSP plants, 1% for PV systems, 0.9%
58 for wind turbines systems and a maximum difference of 1.5% in annual produced energy. The
59
60
61 35
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 ESCEA sizing results were found to have a viable cost of energy of 0.11 $/kWh for a grid-
5
6 connected PV system, 0.21 $/kWh for on-grid CSP system, 0.23 $/kWh for on-grid WT system,
7 0.21 $/kWh for off-grid PV/Battery system, and 0.19 $/kWh for off-grid CSP system with thermal
8 energy storage.
9 Finally, this article gave a more comprehensive assessment of the methodology's ability to scale
10
11
renewable energy systems, as well as modifications to it to cover a broader spectrum of grid-
12 connected systems. The application of the ESCEA technique with additional green energy sources
13 (e.g., biomass, geothermal...) and storage systems is an extension of this study (Hydro energy
14 storage).
15
16 References
17
18 [1] Aniello G, Shamon H, Kuckshinrichs W. Micro-economic assessment of residential PV and
19 battery systems : The underrated role of financial and fiscal aspects. Appl Energy
20 2021;281:115667.
21
22 [2] Angeliki Loukatou, Paul Johnson, Sydney Howell PD. Optimal valuation of wind energy
23 projects co-located with battery storage. Appl Energy 2021;283.
24
25 [3] Papadopoulos V, Knockaert J, Develder C, Desmet J. Investigating the need for real time
26 measurements in industrial wind power systems combined with battery storage. Appl
27
28
Energy 2019;247:559–71.
29 [4] Ekren O, Ekren BY. Size optimization of a PV / wind hybrid energy conversion system with
30
31
battery storage using simulated annealing. Appl Energy 2010;87:592–8.
32 [5] Shabani M, Dahlquist E, Wallin F, Yan J. Techno-economic comparison of optimal design
33
34 of renewable-battery storage and renewable micro pumped hydro storage power supply
35 systems : A case study in Sweden ☆. Appl Energy 2020;279:115830.
36
37 [6] Firtina-ertis I, Acar C, Erturk E. Optimal sizing design of an isolated stand-alone hybrid
38 wind-hydrogen system for a zero-energy house. Appl Energy 2020;274:115244.
39
40 [7] Ogunjuyigbe ASO, Ayodele TR, Akinola OA. Optimal allocation and sizing of PV / Wind
41 / Split-diesel / Battery hybrid energy system for minimizing life cycle cost , carbon emission
42 and dump energy of remote residential building. Appl Energy 2016;171:153–71.
43
44 [8] Dufo-lópez R, Bernal-agustín JL, Yusta-loyo JM, Domínguez-navarro JA, Ramírez-rosado
45 IJ, Lujano J, et al. Multi-objective optimization minimizing cost and life cycle emissions of
46
47 stand-alone PV – wind – diesel systems with batteries storage 2011;88:4033–41.
48 [9] Chennaif M, Zahboune H, Elhafyani M, Zouggar S. Electric System Cascade Extended
49
50 Analysis for optimal sizing of an autonomous hybrid CSP / PV / wind system with Battery
51 Energy Storage System and thermal energy storage. Energy 2021;227:120444.
52
53 [10] Ziyati D, Dollet A, Flamant G, Volut Y, Guillot E, Vossier A. A multiphysics model of
54 large-scale compact PV – CSP hybrid plants 2021;288:116644.
55
56 [11] Lian J, Zhang Y, Ma C, Yang Y, Chaima E. A review on recent sizing methodologies of
57 hybrid renewable energy systems. Energy Convers Manag 2019;199:112027.
58
59 [12] Carlo J, Meléndez J, Rossi M, Renzi M. Optimal sizing of a Hybrid Renewable Energy
60
61 36
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 System : Importance of data selection with highly variable renewable energy sources.
5
6 Energy Convers Manag 2020;223:113303.
7 [13] Ridha HM, Gomes C, Hazim H, Ahmadipour M. Sizing and implementing off-grid stand-
8
9 alone photovoltaic/battery systems based on multi-objective optimization and techno-
10 economic (MADE) analysis. Energy 2020:118163.
11
12 [14] Zhang W, Maleki A, Rosen MA, Liu J. Sizing a stand-alone solar-wind-hydrogen energy
13 system using weather forecasting and a hybrid search optimization algorithm. Energy
14 Convers Manag 2019;180:609–21.
15
16 [15] Das BK, Hasan M. Optimal sizing of a stand-alone hybrid system for electric and thermal
17 loads using excess energy and waste heat. Energy 2021;214:119036.
18
19 [16] El-bidairi KS, Duc H, Mahmoud TS, Jayasinghe SDG, Guerrero JM. Optimal sizing of
20 Battery Energy Storage Systems for dynamic frequency control in an islanded microgrid :
21
22
A case study of Flinders. Energy 2020;195:117059.
23 [17] Abushnaf J, Rassau A. Impact of energy management system on the sizing of a grid-
24
25
connected PV / Battery system. Electr J 2018;31:58–66.
26 [18] Liu J, Wang M, Peng J, Chen X, Cao S, Yang H. Techno-economic design optimization of
27
28 hybrid renewable energy applications for high-rise residential buildings. Energy Convers
29 Manag 2020;213:112868. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2020.112868.
30
31 [19] Zhang Y, Ma C, Lian J, Pang X, Qiao Y, Chaima E. Optimal photovoltaic capacity of large-
32 scale hydro-photovoltaic complementary systems considering electricity delivery demand
33 and reservoir characteristics. Energy Convers Manag 2019;195:597–608.
34
35 [20] Abdin Z, Mérida W. Hybrid energy systems for o ff -grid power supply and hydrogen
36 production based on renewable energy : A techno-economic analysis. Energy Convers
37 Manag 2019;196:1068–79.
38
39 [21] Said A, Busaidi A, Kazem HA, Al-badi AH. A review of optimum sizing of hybrid PV –
40 Wind renewable energy systems in oman. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2016;53:185–93.
41
42 [22] Zahboune H, Zouggar S, Krajacic G, Varbanov PS, Elhafyani M, Ziani E. Optimal hybrid
43
renewable energy design in autonomous system using Modified Electric System Cascade
44
45 Analysis and Homer software. Energy Convers Manag 2016;126:909–22.
46
47
[23] Bahramara S, Moghaddam MP, Haghifam MR. Optimal planning of hybrid renewable
48 energy systems using HOMER : A review. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2016;62:609–20.
49 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.05.039.
50
51 [24] Giacomo M, Lionetti M, Manzolini G, Sparber W. Transition pathways optimization
52 methodology through EnergyPLAN software for long-term energy planning. Appl Energy
53 2019;235:356–68.
54
55 [25] Nassar YF, Abdunnabi MJ, Sbeta MN, Hafez AA, Amer KA, Ahmed AY, et al. Dynamic
56 analysis and sizing optimization of a pumped hydroelectric storage-integrated hybrid PV /
57
58
Wind system : A case study. Energy Convers Manag 2021;229:113744.
59
60
61 37
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 [26] Ameur Trad, Mohand Ameziane Ait Ali. Methodology of determining the optimum
5
6 performances of future concentrating solar thermal power plants in Algeria Internal Rate of
7 Return. Energy Convers Manag 2015;91:267–79.
8
9 [27] Aly A, Bernardos A, Fernandez-peruchena CM, Solvang S, Branth A. Is Concentrated Solar
10 Power ( CSP ) a feasible option for Sub-Saharan Africa ?: Investigating the techno-
11 economic feasibility of CSP in Tanzania. Renew Energy 2019;135:1224–40.
12
13 [28] Milani R, Szklo A, Susanne B. Hybridization of concentrated solar power with biomass
14 gasification in Brazil ’ s semiarid region. Energy Convers Manag 2017;143:522–37.
15
16 [29] Roy A, Kedare SB, Bandyopadhyay S. Optimum sizing of wind-battery systems
17 incorporating resource uncertainty. Appl Energy 2010;87:2712–27.
18
19 [30] Chennaif Mohammed, Zahboune Hassan, Elhafyani M. ZS. Techno-Economic Sizing of a
20 Stand-Alone Hybrid Energy and Storage for Water Pumping System. Adv. Smart Technol.
21
22
Appl. Case Stud., Springer, Cham; 2020, p. 291–9.
23 [31] Zhang HL, Baeyens J, Degrève J, Cacères G. Concentrated solar power plants: Review and
24
25
design methodology. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 2013;22:466–81.
26 [32] Boukelia TE, Mecibah MS, Kumar BN, Reddy KS. Investigation of solar parabolic trough
27
28 power plants with and without integrated TES (thermal energy storage) and FBS (fuel
29 backup system) using thermic oil and solar salt. Energy 2015;88:292–303.
30
31 [33] National Renewable Energy Laboratory. System Advisor Model n.d. https://sam.nrel.gov/.
32
[34] Khatib T, Ibrahim IA, Mohamed A. A review on sizing methodologies of photovoltaic array
33
34 and storage battery in a standalone photovoltaic system. Energy Convers Manag
35 2016;120:430–48.
36
37 [35] Zahboune H, Zouggar S, Yong JY, Varbanov PS, Elhafyani M, Ziani E, et al. Modified
38 Electric System Cascade Analysis for optimal sizing of an autonomous Hybrid Energy
39 System. Energy 2016;116:1374–84.
40
41 [36] Zhang Y, Ma T, Elia P, Yamaguchi Y, Dai Y. A techno-economic sizing method for grid-
42 connected household photovoltaic battery systems. Appl Energy 2020;269:115106.
43
44 [37] El Boujdaini L, Ait Lahoussine Ouali H, Mezrhab A, Moussaoui MA. Techno-economic
45 investigation of parabolic trough solar power plant with indirect molten salt storage. Proc
46
47
2019 Int Conf Comput Sci Renew Energies, ICCSRE 2019 2019:1–7.
48 [38] Sohoni V, Gupta S, Nema R. A Critical Review on Wind Turbine Power Curve Modelling
49
50 Techniques and Their Applications in Wind Based Energy Systems. Journal of Energy,
51 2016.
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 38
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 Nomenclature
5
6 Subscripts
7
8 RES Renewable Energy System
9 SAM System Advisor Model
10 HRES Hybrid Renewable Energy System
11
12 CT Cascade Table
13 ESCEA Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis
14 CSP Concentrated Solar Power
15 PV Photovoltaic
16
17 PVP Photovoltaic panel
18 WT Wind Turbine
19 ES Energy Storage
20 TES Thermal Energy Storage
21
BESS Battery Energy Storage System
22
23 LPSP Loss of Power Supply Probability (%)
24 NREL National Renewable energy laboratory
25 SOC State Of Charge
26
CF Capital Factor
27
28 DC Direct Current
29 AC Alternative Current
30 GA Genetic Algorithm
31 PSO Particle Swarm Optimization
32
33 PPA Power Pinch Analysis
34 kWh Kilowatt-hour
35 MWe Megawatt hour electric
36
37
38
39
Symbols
40 t Time step (h)
41 T analysis period (h)
42 DNI Direct Normal Irradiation (Wh/m2)
43 GHI Global Horizontal Irradiation (Wh/m2)
44
45 APV The PV panel receiving area (m2)
46 NPV Number of photovoltaic panels
47 ȠPV The PV panel efficiency (%)
48 EPV The PV generated power (Wh)
49
50 EWT The WT generated power (Wh)
51 ECSP The CSP generated electrical power (Wh)
52 v Wind speed (m/s)
53 NWT Number of wind turbines
54
Vcut-in Cut-in wind speed (m/s)
55
56 Vcut-out Cut-out wind speed (m/s)
57 Vrated Rated wind speed (m/s)
58 PR Rated power of the wind turbine (W)
59
60
61 39
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 ȠSF Solar field efficiency
5
6 ASF Solar field aperture area
7 ȠSF Solar field efficiency (%)
8 Ƞpiping Piping losses efficiency (%)
9 Ƞparasitic Parasitic consumption efficiency (%)
10
Ƞrec Receiver efficiency (%)
11
12 ȠPB Power bloc efficiency (%)
13 EL The Load demand (Wh)
14 Er Balance between the energy generated and the load demand
15
CHES The energy charged in the energy storage
16
17 DCHES The energy discharged from the energy storage
18 EN(t-1) The net accumulated energy in the storage unit in the previous time interval (Wh)
19 EaccG(t) The global accumulated energy in the storage units
20 Edeficit The deficit of power supply during the time step (Wh)
21
22 Pinv Inverter power (W)
23 SM Solar Multiple
24 QU Thermal power of the solar field
25 QUR Thermal power of the solar field under nominal conditions
26
27 ȠPB Efficiency of conversion and transformation losses for injection into the grid
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 40
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 List of Figures
5
6 Fig. 1. Off-grid/On-grid modes of RES ........................................................................................................ 5
7
8 Fig. 2. Large-scale PV park connected to the grid ........................................................................................ 6
9
10 Fig. 3. General layout of grid connected wind farms .................................................................................... 7
11
12 Fig. 4. General layout of grid connected CSP plant without TES ................................................................ 8
13
Fig. 5. Offgrid PV/Batteries system .............................................................................................................. 9
14
15 Fig. 6. CSP plant with Thermal Energy Storage ......................................................................................... 10
16
17 Fig. 7. Optimal sizing of RES ..................................................................................................................... 11
18
19 Fig. 8. Steps to modelling RES using System Advisor Model ................................................................... 12
20
21 Fig. 9. The ESCEA algorithm for sizing on-grid RES................................................................................ 15
22
23 Fig. 10. The ESCEA algorithm for sizing autonomous off-grid RES......................................................... 16
24 Fig. 11. Hourly wind speed ......................................................................................................................... 18
25
26 Fig. 12. Hourly solar irradiation (GHI & DNI) ........................................................................................... 18
27
28 Fig. 13. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe without ES for the whole year ........ 20
29
30 Fig. 14. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe without ES for one average day ...... 21
31
32 Fig. 15. SAM & ESCEA Hourly electrical power output for a PV park of 50 kWe for one average day .. 22
33
Fig. 16. Sizing results of WT farm with different capacities ...................................................................... 23
34
35 Fig. 17. Annual energy produced of a wind turbine farm with different capacities ................................... 23
36
37 Fig. 18. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe with ES for the whole year ............. 24
38
39 Fig. 19. Hourly electrical power output for a CSP plant of 20 MWe with TES for one average day......... 24
40
41 Fig. 20. Yearly thermal energy into TES .................................................................................................... 25
42
43
Fig. 21. Daily thermal energy into TES ...................................................................................................... 25
44 Fig. 22. Yearly load profile ......................................................................................................................... 26
45
46 Fig. 23. Battery state of charge (%) ............................................................................................................ 27
47
48 Fig. 24. Electricity from battery to load ...................................................................................................... 27
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 41
62
63
64
65
 1
2
3
4 List of Tables
5
6 Table 1 Cascade table for off-grid/On-grid RES ........................................................................................ 13
7
8 Table 2 Required data of the RESs ............................................................................................................. 18
9
10 Table 3 Sizing results of grid connected CSP plant without storage using ESCEA method and SAM...... 19
11
12
Table 4 Sizing results of grid connected PV park without ES using ESCEA method and SAM ............... 21
13 Table 5 Cascade table of a 50MWe on-grid CSP plant for one average day .............................................. 28
14
15 Table 6 Cascade table of an off-grid PV/Batteries system (NPV=36, CBat=571 kWh) for one average day 29
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61 42
62
63
64
65
Credit Author Statement

Authors’ contribution statements

Paper title: Tri-objective techno-economic sizing optimization of off-grid and In-

grid renewable energy systems using Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis
and System Advisor Model

Mohammed CHENNAIF developed the theoretical modeling, performed the

numerical simulations, implemented the cascade analysis of the methodology and
wrote the manuscript. The results are interpreted by Pr. Hassan Zahboune and
MAAOUANE Mohamed. The manuscript is corrected by Pr. Hassan
ZAHBOUNE, Pr. Mohamed Larbi ELHAFYANI and Pr. Smail ZOUGGAR.
Pr. Hassan ZAHBOUNE and MAAOUANE Mohamed discussed the results
and commented on the manuscript. Also, Pr. Mohamed Larbi ELHAFYANI
supervised the work.
Declaration of Interest Statement

Declaration of interests

☒ The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships
that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

☐The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered
as potential competing interests:
Cover Letter

Mohamed CHENNAIF
High School of Technology, University Mohammed 1
Laboratory of Electrical Engineering and
Maintenance (LEEM)
BP: 473, 60000 Oujda, Morocco
+212655779870
mohammed.chennaif@gmail.com
May 24, 2021
To: Elsevier “Applied Energy”
– The International Journal -

Dear Dr. Jinyue Yan,

I am pleased to submit an original research article entitled “Tri-objective techno-economic sizing

optimization of off-grid and In-grid renewable energy systems using Electric System Cascade Extended
Analysis and System Advisor Model” authored by Mohammed CHENNAIF, Mohamed MAAOUANE,
Hassan ZAHBOUNE, Mohamed Larbi ELHAFYANI and Smail ZOUGGAR, for consideration for
publication in Applied Energy journal.
This manuscript has presented a developed version of our Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis
combined with a techno-economic analysis based on a triple objective function implemented together into
the ESCEA methodology to optimize techno-economically the sizing results: the maximum allowable loss
of power supply probability (LPSP) as a function of system reliability, the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and the
Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) as economic indicators. The new merits and functionalities of the
Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis made it able to determine the optimum capacities and sizes for
different power generation and storage facilities of renewable energy systems in both in-grid and off-grid
modes with minimum cost of energy produced, the manuscript also includes validation of the methodology
by comparing the results obtained with the results of the System Advisor Model developed by the National
Renewable Energy Laboratory of the U.S.
We believe that this manuscript is appropriate for publication by Applied Energy because it covers research
in energy conversion and conservation, energy storage, analysis and optimization of energy processes, with
a strong focus on the optimal use of energy resources.
The novelty of this work lies in improving the ESCEA methodology with a triple techno-economic
optimization function and developing new algorithms to make it able to find the optimal sizing with
minimum cost of energy produced for various renewable energy systems (PV, CSP, and Wind) with or
without energy storage (Batteries and Thermal Energy Storage), whether in-grid mode or standalone off-
grid mode. The validation of the results with the System Advisor Model showed the effectiveness of the
methodology in the sizing of renewable energy systems. The economic analysis of the ESCEA sizing results
shows that it achieved viable levels cost of energy for all studied in-grid and off-grid renewable energy
systems and provided a comprehensive evaluation that help to choose the suitable RES for any site
worldwide.
We inform you that we have submitted the paper before to Applied Energy journal entitled, Unfortunately,
we received from you a rejection of the paper before the review for the following reason:
"*Lack of scientific originality/novelty: The novelty/originality shall be justified by highlighting that the
manuscript contains sufficient contributions to the new body of knowledge. The knowledge gap needs to
be clearly addressed in Introduction". First of all, we would like to thank you for your invitation to us to
resubmit the paper after addressing the aforementioned comment, and in belief in our work, we did our best
to address the comment in the format of point-to-point below:

“Dear Editor-in-Chief Dr. Jinyue Yan:

Thank you for your letter and for your comment concerning our manuscript, the comment is very valuable
and helpful for improving our paper. In light of your comment, we have tried our best to revise the
introduction and make the key core contributions of the paper clear for readers and reviewers.

We would like to tell you, sir, that our work and experience for many years in the field of sizing and
optimizing renewable energy systems makes us always up to date with this field, and believing in the
scientific contributions presented in this paper in this field, we mention the most prominent of them as
follows:

• The paper proposed an improved version of our ESCEA methodology by integrating it with a techno-
economic analysis based on a triple objective function implemented together into the ESCEA method to
optimize techno-economically the sizing results: the maximum allowable loss of power supply probability
(LPSP) as a function of system reliability, the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and the Levelized Cost of Energy
(LCOE) as economic indicators.

• The optimized methodology contains two algorithms: the first algorithm is first time proposed for sizing
three different generation systems for grid connection application with no energy storage used for T = 8760
h (1 year): Photovoltaic parks, Wind turbine farms, and Concentrated Solar Power plants. The second
algorithm will size RESs with an energy storage system for T = 8760 h: the autonomous PV / Batteries
system and the CSP system with Thermal Energy Storage.

• The research is compared to an optimized solution provided by the System Advisor Model software.

• The economic analysis of the ESCEA sizing results shows that it achieved viable cost levels of energy
produced for all studied in-grid and off-grid renewable energy systems and provided a comprehensive
evaluation that helps to choose the suitable RES for any site worldwide.

Below we presented the main revisions and clarifications in the introduction:

 The first paragraph presents the most important issues in the field of renewable energy (the cost of
energy production; the associated environmental pollutants) and the reasons for being attracted to it,
and presents the most recent renewable energy systems and storage systems accompanying them:
‘The hope of reducing the cost of energy production and the associated environmental pollutants, and the
necessity of providing isolated sites with electricity, lead to the global shift towards renewable energy
systems (RES), as they are clean, renewable and available everywhere. Different configurations outline
RESs in the literature: for instance, they can be single-source systems or hybrid systems: for instance, they
can be composed of photovoltaic (PV) panels coupled with batteries [1], wind turbines paired with batteries
[2,3], PV panels mated with wind turbines and batteries [4] or by coupling PV panels and wind turbines
together with a micro–Pumped Hydro Energy Storage [5]. Besides, other configurations can be hybrid
wind/hydrogen [6], PV/Wind/Split-diesel/Battery [7,8], PV/WT/CSP with Batteries and thermal energy
storage [9] and PV/CSP hybrid plants [10]. Further examples can be found in [11].’
 the second paragraph presents the state of the art in this field by citing the algorithms and software
recently proposed in recent works for the sizing and the technical and economic optimization of
renewable energy systems:
‘Despite several existing works devoted to the evaluation of renewable energy systems, research on the
optimal sizing of RESs still has important areas to explore such as techno-economic analysis under different
electricity tariffs and complete parametric analyses. For this reason, numerous articles have studied the
sizing challenge of RESs, whether single-source or hybrid and have presented a set of algorithms to
optimally size them in an ideal way to achieve the lowest cost of the energy produced, under the assumption
of total and permanent satisfaction of demand.
The paper [12] has designed a tool capable of evaluating the optimal sizing of Hybrids Renewable Energy
Systems (HRES) based on a new Mixed Integer Linear Programming optimization algorithm. Ogunjuyigbe
et al. used the Genetic Algorithm (GA) to optimally design a RES with the objective of minimizing the Life
Cycle Cost (LCC), CO2 emissions and dump energy [7]. An optimal sizing methodology is presented in
[13] to optimize the configuration of standalone photovoltaic systems based on a novel adaptive differential
mutation evolution. The paper [14] presents the optimal sizing of an autonomous solar-wind-hydrogen
hybrid system using a hybrid algorithm based on three algorithms: chaotic search, search for harmony and
simulated annealing. Das et al. presented an optimal sizing of a standalone hybrid system for electric and
thermal loads using excess energy and waste heat [15]. The paper [16] proposes an optimization model for
determining the optimal size of the battery devices of standalone microgrids islanded microgrid. The sizing
of a grid-connected hybrid renewable energy system supplying electric power to a household is presented
in the paper [17]. Techno-economic sizing optimization of hybrid RES for high-rise residential buildings is
presented in the paper [18]. Rodolfo et al. presented in [8] an application of the Strength Pareto Evolutionary
algorithm to minimize the levelized cost of energy and the equivalent carbon dioxide (CO2) life cycle
emissions (LCE) of a RES. The paper [19] proposed a novel approach for optimal sizing large-scale hydro-
photovoltaic complementary systems considering electricity delivery demand and reservoir characteristics.
A techno-economic analysis is presented in paper [20] for hybrid energy systems for off-grid power supply
and hydrogen production based on renewable energy. Ekren et al. [4] proposed the heuristic approach which
uses a stochastic gradient search for the global optimization to minimize the renewable energy system total
cost. A review of the optimum sizing of hybrid renewable energy systems in Oman is offered by Albusaidi
et al. [21].
Instead of the algorithms, there are also many simulation tools used in the literature to optimally size RES
and simulate them, with all components and links between different parts of the system: Homer software,
System Advisor Model and EnergyPLAN. Hassan et al. [22] used Homer pro software to validate the
Modified Electric System Cascade Analysis method results of sizing RES. Further examples can be found
in the review [23] of the state-of-the-art of articles, which use HOMER for optimal planning of Hybrid
Renewable Energy Systems. Prina et al. presented the Transition pathways optimization methodology
through EnergyPLAN software for long-term energy planning of RES, the main advantages of the proposed
methodology are the high time resolution and multi-objectives optimization [24]. The System Advisor
Model (SAM) is a free techno-economic software model developed by the National Renewable energy
laboratory (NREL) to estimate both the performance and cost of many types of renewable energy systems.
The energy production for different sizes of photovoltaic solar panels and wind farms was estimated by the
System Advisory Model (SAM) software to perform dynamic analysis and optimize the sizing of a hybrid
PV/Wind system with pumped hydroelectric storage-integrated [25]. The software System Advisor Model
is used by Ameur et al. [26] to present a methodology for sizing and optimizing CSP power plants in
Algeria. An investigation of CSP technology's technical-economical possibilities in Tanzania using the
software System Advisor Model is presented by the paper [27]. The study [28] addressed the proposition
of the hybridization concept Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) with biomass and the simulation of
benchmark power plants for a suitable Brazilian site with three different power plant concepts using the
System Advisor Model (SAM).’
 The following paragraph reviews our various works and other works that previous versions of the
ESCEA methodology have been adopted:
‘The Electric System Cascade Analysis (ESCA) method is used in the design of PV systems for
electrification [30], supplying pumping systems [31,32], and Distributed Energy Generation systems [33].
This ESCA method shows the impact of the tilt angle in sizing PV systems [34]. The Modified ESCA or
the MESCA method was developed and tested [6] on a hybrid PV/Wind/Batteries power supply site in
Oujda. The Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis is an extended version of the ESCA proposed the
first time in [9] to size optimally an autonomous off-grid CSP/PV/Wind system with Battery Energy Storage
System (BESS) and Thermal Energy Storage (TES). The ESCEA developed uses the Power Pinch Analysis
as a guideline; the PPA's advantage is used as it is done mainly in the process industry’

 The following paragraph reviews our various works and other works that previous versions of the
ESCEA methodology have been adopted:
‘The Electric System Cascade Analysis (ESCA) method is used in the design of PV systems for
electrification [30], supplying pumping systems [31,32], and Distributed Energy Generation systems [33].
This ESCA method shows the impact of the tilt angle in sizing PV systems [34]. The Modified ESCA or
the MESCA method was developed and tested [6] on a hybrid PV/Wind/Batteries power supply site in
Oujda. The Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis is an extended version of the ESCA proposed the
first time in [9] to size optimally an autonomous off-grid CSP/PV/Wind system with Battery Energy Storage
System (BESS) and Thermal Energy Storage (TES). The ESCEA developed uses the Power Pinch Analysis
as a guideline; the PPA's advantage is used as it is done mainly in the process industry’

 The next paragraph gives a detailed presentation of the key core contributions of the manuscript to the
new body of knowledge:
‘Previous work that used ESCA or ESCEA has been successful in determining the optimal size of a
proposed renewable energy system, but their drawbacks are that they applied to one type of renewable
energy system, have never addressed grid-connected renewable energy systems with or without energy
storage, and did not provide in-depth techno-economic analysis based on multiple improvement functions.
These weaknesses present the significant contributions of this work. This paper proposes an improved
version of the ESCEA combined with a techno-economic analysis based on a triple objective function
implemented together into the ESCEA method to optimize techno-economically the sizing results: the
maximum allowable loss of power supply probability (LPSP) as a function of system reliability, the Life
Cycle Cost (LCC) and the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) as economic indicators. The optimized
methodology contains two algorithms: the first algorithm will be sizing three different generation systems
for grid connection application with no energy storage used for T = 8760 h (1 year): Photovoltaic parks,
Wind turbine farms, and Concentrated Solar Power plants. The second algorithm will size RESs with an
energy storage system for T = 8760 h: the autonomous PV/Batteries system and the CSP system with
Thermal Energy Storage. Finally, to validate the sizing results on a more realistic case, the research is
compared to an optimized solution provided by the System Advisor Model software. This proposed
improved process make the ESCEA a potent sizing tool with improved functionalities allowing it to size
different RESs, whether a single source or hybrid, isolated or grid-connected and with single or multiple
storage systems, and helps people working in the field of renewable energy choose the suitable RES for
any location in the world by taking into account the site weather data as input of the process.’

We would also like to point out that we revised the Highlights to make the key core contributions very clear
as follows:

• Tri-objective Techno-economic sizing optimization of in-grid and off-grid renewable energy

systems basing on the Electric System Cascade Extended Analysis methodology.

• LPSP, LCC, and LCOE are the objective functions for optimization.

• Expanding the scope of the studied systems including the in-grid and off-grid modes and
construction of the Cascade tables for in-grid RESs.

• Case study for the city of Oujda in Morocco.

• The performances of the extended method are compared with System Advisor Model.

• Achieving viable cost of electricity produced.

• The methodology presents a potent tool helpful to choose the most suitable RES for any site
worldwide.

We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another
journal.
All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission in Applied Energy.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Mohamed CHENNAIF
Laboratory of Electrical Engineering and Maintenance (LEEM)
High School of Technology, University Mohammed 1