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Cost Analysis of Solar-Wind Based Hybrid Renewable Energy System

Chapter · March 2021

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-15-8221-9_256

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Cost Analysis of Solar-Wind Based Hybrid
Renewable Energy System
Chandani Sharma 1✉
Email chandani19nov@gmail.com

Madan Pal Singh 1

Sushma Chaudhary 1
1 Quantum University, Dehradun Highway, Mandawar,
Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India

Abstract
Several forms of energy exist in human environment. When it comes to
exploration of energy resources, renewable energy sources cannot be
underestimated. There are numerous applications of solar and wind energy. The
abundant, intermittent and variable nature of both solar and wind energy can be
used to develop hybrid renewable energy systems. A lot of research has been
carried out on developing such hybrid systems and raising efficiency based on
combination of solar and wind energy. This paper discusses the generation of
power and unit sizing for hybrid system developed by integration of solar and
wind renewable energy technologies. A standalone system is designed by
estimating the load profile of a typical house in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan is an
evergreen source of availability for both energies. The datasets have been
collected using RET Screen software. The system is tested under varying
conditions of wind speed, solar irradiance and temperature in MATLAB. The
datasets are used as an input to the hybrid model and experimented under
variable parameters to achieve most efficient response as per load demanded by
systems. Thereafter, the load determined for hybrid home is analyzed using
various cost calculations. The cost of electricity and its return is visualized in
accordance with load driving hybrid home.

Keywords
 Hybrid renewable energy systems
Unit sizing
RET screen software
MATLAB
Cost of electricity

1. Introduction
Human nature attracts us towards free entities present in the world. Sun, wind and
water are three very important and free entities which a human is using for its
survival. Survival needs have been changed so far by decades and centuries. In
contrast to it, electricity has become an important aspect of survival because almost
everything, including machines, appliances, mobile phones, industries, etc.
everything is dependent on electricity today. Since conventional forms of producing
electricity are getting depleted, Renewable energy area is being explored at a very
fast pace to enhance the power efficiency and make them more reliable and
beneficial for multiple application areas.
AQ1

When it comes to the generation of electricity, renewable energies cannot be

exempted. One of the chief characteristic of electricity is that it is not a primary
energy freely present in nature in remarkable amounts and therefore must be
produced. Electricity can be generated by many means like, fossil fuels, nuclear,
hydro, tidal, geothermal, natural gas, etc. On average worldly demands for
dependency on fossil fuel is very intense. It is a known fact that fossil fuels are
draining out gradually and their consumption must be reduced to save them for
future generations. Moreover, the reformation of fossil fuels will take millions of
years to build up again, hence it is necessary to look for other alternatives.

Previously the methods used to generate electricity were few like coal, hydro, etc.
As humans made themselves better and better, different generation techniques and
equipment came into existence that aimed towards the minimum use of fossil fuels
and more use of natural resources (wind, solar and air). Another advantage of using
natural resources is less pollution in the environment and producing more and more
electricity to reach the demand at a faster rate through solar, wind, and water and
bio sources. Exponential increase in electricity demand is seen in recent years and
is of major concern nowadays.

Globally, world is developing at a very high pace. From a small LED to the large
industries, the demand for electricity has been increased so far that new generation
techniques should be developed to fulfill the world electricity demand. Today we
have almost all the methods, equipments and techniques to generate electricity and
that too from different sources. The world electricity generation from year 1980–
2015 is shown in Fig. 1. The statistics have not been shown for 2016 to 2019 as
now more emphasis is being given to natural resources.

Fig. 1
Electricity generation from different sources

It can be seen in the graph that our dependency on fossil fuel is very high in the
preceding years. In contrast, renewable energy is a wide area of research for the
fulfillment of electricity demand. Today, the global generation of modern renewable
energy is approximately 5.9 THz. This generation contributes only 5% of the total
world energy generation. It includes the hydro, wind, solar, geothermal and bio-fuel
[1, 2, 3].

The present study utilizes the beautiful gift of nature, which is free energy (wind
and solar), study for the generation of electricity. A number of researches have been
carried out in the field of solar, wind and combination of both known as hybrid.
Since, hybrid is a good and fresh field of research, working in this area would be if
not big a small support to future research. Therefore, Hybrid generation systems are
analyzed.

Hybrid systems using more than a single power source can greatly enhance the
certainty of load demands all the time. Even higher generating capacities can be
achieved by hybrid system. In stand-alone systems, we are able to provide
fluctuation free output to the load irrespective of weathers condition. To get the
energy output of the PV system converted to storage energy, and constant power
delivered by the wind turbine, an efficient energy storage mechanism is required,
which can be realized by the battery bank.

The paper focuses on Unit Sizing and cost analysis of Solar-Wind Hybrid system.
Firstly, a Solar-Wind hybrid model is designed using photovoltaic panel and wind
sub modules, next its cost calculations are performed and finally the annual cost of
electricity is evaluated analyzing the payback period. The cost estimates are
considered for a standalone hybrid system which is having high transmission cost.
As such, Jaisalmer in Rajasthan is suited to be most appropriate for observation.
The places where the transmission lines are still not connected to the grid are
generally considered and Jaisalmer is amongst them.

1.1. Hybrid Renewable Energy System

Hybrid renewable energy systems (HRES) are becoming popular in the form of
standalone systems for providing electricity in remote areas. This is due to the
technological advances being made in renewable energy field with the concept to
eliminate rise in prices of petroleum products.

HRES is constructed using Solar and Wind modules as availability of both the
parameters is in accordance with site chosen for experimental calculations. The
model is implemented using Simulink tool in MATLAB [22-26]. The model
performs experimental simulations for datasets observed from site of Jaisalmer. The
model is tuned to deliver a constant output irrespective of fluctuations in irradiance
and temperature of solar panel and wind speed in area [4]. As a result variable
environmental conditions also do not effect systems and Solar-Wind based system
adapts itself to adjust accordingly. The model of HRES is shown in the Fig. 2.

Fig. 2
Solar-wind based hybrid renewable energy system
The model includes Solar wind energy system along with different converters,
battery pack and switching circuits. The model is studied and made compatible to
understand its working when Hybrid model is used in electricity generation. A
series of observations are carried out to see all the possible cases which can occur
during its practical installation. These cases include absence of individual
parameters including solar or wind and thirdly both. All the simulation results have
been observed carefully for all the mentioned cases. The power generation from
hybrid system cannot be realized with its practical working for example, in case of
absence of solar and wind energy, hybrid system generates energy with the help of
batteries to infinite time in simulation but we do not see this case practically. Thus,
main purpose of studying this model is to understand its working and analyze
output for such cases.

Next, MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) is used to combine solar and wind
energy system. MPPT tracks the maximum power generated by the system.
Consider that, solar panels generate voltage from 3 to 5 V throughout a day, then
tracking the 5 V output for whole day is maintained by MPPT. For the designed
system, boost converter is used in implementation to maintain Maximum Power
Point constant for the wind and solar energy system. Boost converter is a DC to DC
converter that steps up voltage (while stepping down the current) from its supply to
its load. In circuit of boost converter the fast switching is done through IGBT
(Insulated gate bipolar transistor), which is the only reason why ripples have
appeared in simulation results [4-12].

The hybrid system consists of three inputs namely, Solar irradiance (W/m2),
temperature (°C) and wind speed (m/s). Solar irradiance and temperature are input
to solar energy system and wind speed is input to wind energy system. Model
simulation has been performed repeatedly and maximum changes are observed up
to 7 s with three inputs namely solar irradiance, temperature and wind speed. These
are in accordance with datasets of Jaisalmer due to availability of both solar and
wind in this area [13-15].

1.2. Sizing of Hybrid System for Jaisalmer

1.2.1. Geographical Conditions of Jaisalmer

Collection of geographical data has been done with the help of RET Screen
software. This is similar to the HOMER software which is used to collect
geographical data and do the cost calculations. Solar irradiance, wind speed and
temperature data has been collected for the Jaisalmer location [18-20]. Selection of
Jaisalmer location was a good choice because its wind and solar irradiance profile
are almost flat. Solar irradiance versus months and wind speed versus months graph
are shown in Figs. 3 and 4 respectively.

Fig. 3
Jaisalmer yearly solar irradiance profile
Fig. 4
Jaisalmer yearly wind speed profile
It is observed from figure that, the maximum solar radiation is found in the month
of June with daily irradiance of 6.62 kWh/m2/day, whereas minimum radiation was
found during the month of December with daily irradiance 3.55 kWh/m2/day. The
average radiation throughout the year was 5.17 kWh/m2/day.

The wind speed was maximum in the month of June with 4.9 m/s and minimum was
found in the month of October with 3.4 m/s. The average wind speed throughout the
year was 3.9 m/s.

1.2.2. Load Profile for Jaisalmer

Acquisition of load data for hybrid system can be done via different methods. The
load of a typical house in Jaisalmer is taken and scaled to the generation level of the
system. Another method could be to take load equal to the generation of the system.
Presently it is considered that load profile of a house is considered to output
generated from systems and calculations are preceded in accordance with that [5].
Load profile is acquired in three segments March-June, July–October and
November–February.
AQ2
Load during dry season (March–June)

During summer the power demand increases compared to winter and rainy season.
Load profile during months from March to June is shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5
Jaisalmer daily load profile (March–June)

It can be seen in Fig. 5 that the demand has a maximum value of 3.5–3.7 kW. Load
during dry season is depicted in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6
Jaisalmer daily load profile (July–October)
Load during dry season (July–October)

The demand fluctuates around 3.5 kW on an average and gradually reduces for
winter season.

Load During Winter Season (November–February)

During winter season of the year, there is limited use of electric appliances example
fan, hence load will be almost negligible and all other loads remain same as shown
in Fig. 7.

Fig. 7
Jaisalmer daily load profile (November–December)
Using above data sets, series of simulations are carried out on designed model.

1.3. Simulation of Hybrid System with Datasets

Even under fluctuating and variable output of individual systems (solar and wind),
Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT) module helps to maintain constant MPP
(fixed flat response constant voltage). This voltage is input to the inverter and
battery bank. Solar power plot for same is shown in Fig. 8.

Fig. 8
Solar power plot
It can be seen from solar power plot that an average of 11 kW power in generated
by solar energy system throughout the year. Further, the system is simulated for
wind statistics. The wind data is given as input with the time gap of 0.5 s. The wind
turbine generates AC power and in order to integrate it with solar Model it needs to
be converted into DC power. Therefore, a rectifier circuit is used to do so. The
observations obtained after simulation are shown as Wind AC and DC power plots
in Fig. 9.

Fig. 9
Wind power plot. a AC, b DC
The output of Rectifier circuit acting as input to the inverter and battery bank of
330 V is shown in Fig. 10.

Fig. 10
Hybrid system output using MPPT
Now, to estimate different fluctuations in load throughout the year, a variable load
was simulated up to 10 kW considering observation for 0 to 4 s. The load was
changed to 14 kW for excessive use and simulated from 4 to 5 s. For all mentioned
simulations, MPP almost turned out to be similar to the one observed earlier at
330 V which means that model almost fits the requirements.

2. Specifications of Model
The Hybrid Renewable Energy model developed has different specifications. These
are listed in hybrid model are shown in Table 1.

Table 1
Different specifications of hybrid model

Energy capacity 9.3 kWh

Battery capacity 36 Ah

Voltage range Charge 400– 450 Vdc

Discharge 350–430 Vdc

Maximum current Charge 11.9 A

Discharge 14.3 A

The components considered for the study are:

• Solar panels

• Wind turbine

• Battery pack

The specification of the wind turbine and PV panels used in this evaluation are
provided in Tables 2 and 3 respectively.

Table 2
PV specifications

Operating voltage (V) 24 V

Lifetime 25 years
MPPT current 7.15–9.55 A
Number of cells 60
 Type Polycrystalline
Rating (W) 235 W
Capital cost ( ) 9400

Table 3
Wind specifications

Start up speed 3 m/s

Rated speed 14 m/s
Blade length 2.5 m
Rotor diameter 5m
Capital cost 195,000

The specified parameters were taken while considering the difference between the
power generation and power demand.

3. Cost Analysis of Hybrid System

After carrying out multiple observations of simulation on hybrid model, the
following calculations are determined on basis of series of simulations:
1. Solar Panel Cost Calculation:

Cost of one panel = 135.2 $, Number of panels used = 48.

Therefore, the Total cost = 135.52 * 48 = 6505.92 $

Since, Lifetime of solar panel = 25 year.

25 year → 6505.92 $

1 year →
(6505.92)$

25

1 year → 260.2368 $

Therefore, per year cost of solar panel = 230.2368 $

2. Wind Turbine Cost Calculation:

 One wind turbine cost = 2739.17 $, Number of turbines used = 3.

Therefore, Total cost = 2739.17 * 3 = 8217.51 $

As lifetime of wind turbine = 25 year.

25 year → 8217.51 $

1 year →
(8217.51)$

25

1 year → 328.7004 $

Therefore, Per year cost of wind turbine = 328.7004 $

3. Battery Cost Calculation:

Cost of battery = 6000 $

As, lifetime of battery = 10 year,

10 year → 6000 $

1 year →
(6000)$

10

1 year → 600 $

Therefore, per year cost of battery = 600 $

4. Capital Cost Calculation:

Let annual cost of solar panel = Cp.

Let annual cost of wind turbine = Cw.

Let annual battery cost = Cb.

Let total annual capital cost of the system = Ca

Ca = Cp + Cw + Cb 1
= 260.2368 + 328.7004 + 600

= 1188.9372$
Therefore, Annual capital cost = 1188.9372 $.
5. Maintenance and Operating Cost:

Let annual operating and maintenance cost = Cm.

So, Cm = 50.72 $.

Therefore, Annual maintenance and operating cost = 50.72 $.

6. Energy Consumption:

According to the load profile discussed in Sect. 1.3, the annual energy
demand is calculated as below:

July to October

Peak demand from July to October is observed as 5 kW per day.

Number of days from July to October = 123 days.

So, for 123 days power consumption = 123 * 5 = 615 kW.

November to February

Peak demand from March to June is observed as 4 kW per day.

Number of days from November to February = 120 days.

So, for 122 days power consumption = 120 * 4 = 480 kW.

March to June

Peak demand from March to June is observed as 5 kW per day.

Number of days from March to June = 122 days.

So, for 122 days power consumption = 122 * 5 = 610 kW.

Let yearly power consumption = Py, Then

Py = 615 + 610 + 480 = 1705 kW

The load profile estimated is for a day and for calculation of annual energy
consumption, power consumption needs to be determined for 24 h. Therefore,

Let annual energy consumption = Ac

So, Ac = 1705 ∗ 24 = 40920 kWh

7. Cost of Electricity

The annual energy consumption is calculated and comes out to be 40,920 kWh.
Next is to calculate the annual capital cost and thirdly to define the annual
maintenance cost which is given by:

COE = (C a + C m ) 2
(1188.9372 + 50.72)
=
40920

= 0.0302946 $/kWh

8. Payback Period

Payback period is the number of years required to recover the cost of the
investment and cost benefit for the system. Calculation of payback period
can be simply done by the formula mentioned below.

Let payback period = Pb.

Let total capital cost for 25 years = Ca * 25 = 29,723.43 $

(C t ) 3
Pb =
(COE  ∗ Ac )

(29723.43)
=
(0.044975 ∗ 40920)

= 16.15 or 16 years

4. Results
The paper presents the unit sizing and cost analysis of stand-alone solar-wind
hybrid Renewable Energy System (RES) for a typical home in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan.
This study was done on solar and wind energy system simulated in MATLAB,
which was implemented on datasets captured from RET Screen software for
mentioned location. The motive was to reduce the use of conventional energy and
promote green and clean renewable energy to make electricity available in remote
areas at affordable rates. According to the load profile of Jaisalmer, the hybrid
system was able to satisfy the demand as per electricity load. This hybrid system
proves to be efficient even in worst cases such as absence of sunlight or low wind
speed or both. The integral part behind working of the hybrid system under such
conditions is the battery pack which makes it continuously operative.

The cost analysis of major components (solar panels, wind turbine and battery
pack) is done in terms of capital maintenance and operating cost. The Cost of
electricity and payback period is also calculated. It was seen that, if we increase the
cost of electricity, the payback period reduces which in turn increases the profit
earned. Hence, system is efficient in its operative mechanism also.

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