Design of isolated hybrid systems minimizing costs and pollutant emissions

Hybrid power systems based on renewable energy sources, especially photovoltaic and wind energy are an effective option to solve the power-supply problem for remote and isolated areas far from the grids. This paper presents a study and design of a complete hybrid system for providing the electrical loads in a family house in Palestine according to their energy requirements. A computer program is developed to achieve this and to determine the specifications of the whole system components. It uses the data of wind and solar radiation measurements of the selected rural zone and all the required information about the electrical loads. Also, the hybrid systems minimizing, simultaneously, the total cost throughout the useful life of the installation, pollutant emissions (CO2) and dump load are taken into consideration. It is found that providing electricity to a family house in a rural zone using hybrid systems is very beneficial and competitive with the other types of conventional energy sources, especially considering the decreasing prices of these systems and their increasing efficiencies and reliability. They have also the advantage of maintaining a clean environment. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.