A reliable methodology based on mine blast optimization algorithm for optimal sizing of hybrid PV-wind-FC system for remote area in Egypt

In this paper, a reliable methodology incorporated mine "blast algorithm (MBA) is applied to solve the optimal sizing of a hybrid system consisting of photovoltaic modules, wind turbines and fuel cells (PV/WT/FC) to meet a certain load of remote area in Egypt. The main objective of the optimal sizing process is to achieve the minimum annual cost of the system with load coverage. The sizing process is performed optimally based on real measured data for solar radiation, ambient temperature and wind velocity recorded by the solar radiation and meteorological station located at national research institute of astronomy and geophysics, Helwan city, Egypt. Three other meta-heuristic optimization techniques, particle swarm optimization, cuckoo search and artificial bee colony are applied to solve the problem and the results are compared with those obtained by the proposed methodology. A power management strategy that regulates the power flow between each system component is also presented. The obtained results show that; applying the proposed methodology will save about 24.8% in the annual total cost of the proposed system compared with PSO, 8.956% compared with CS and 11.5576% compared with ABC. The proposed algorithm based on MBA is candidate for solving the presented optimization problem of optimal sizing the hybrid PV/WT/FC system. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.