Energy analysis of solar farm planning in weh island, aceh, indonesia

Abstract

The paper discusses the simulation study and analysis of output energy produced by 5MW solar farm located in Weh Island, Aceh Province, Indonesia. Weh Island is a tourist area. Currently, a diesel power plant supplies all of its electricity requirement. Most of the user were household, hotels and public facilities. Weh Island consists of 8,858 family houses, 124 medium and small hotels. 48 educational facilities (formal schools and traditional Islamic schools) 48 healthcare facilities (consisting of 2 hospitals, 6 public healthcare centre, and 23 public healthcare service units). The daily peak load of electricity usage occurred at two points; 03.00 pm and 08.00 pm, with the peak load reaches 4,667 kW and 5,009 kW respectively. The solar farm was designed based on the peak electrical load (5MWp) using grid-connected system to ensure continuous availability in the area, as solar farms are only able to operate during the day. The system used 300 Wp Monocrystalline technology panels with 16.4% efficiency and inverter with 20Kw capacity and 98.8% efficiency. Each of the inverter was designed to serve 66 to 67 solar panels. Therefore, in order to produce 5MW of electricity, the solar farm was developed with 16,668 solar panels and 250 inverters on 32,309 m2 of land space area. The simulation model of the solar farm was developed using PVsyst simulation software. The simulation study was conducted based on monthly solar radiation, temperature and daily radiation time of the Weh Island during one year. The result of the study showed that the system produced sum annual energy of 7991 MWh/year and the solar panel obtained the average radiation of 5.2 kWh/m2/day. The highest energy output was 792.4 MWh which was produced in January, and the lowest energy output was 603.3 MWh which was produced in September. Furthermore, when the usage time distribution of the electricity was formulated into the model, the simulation result showed that the solar farm system were able to accommodate the electricity requirement in Weh Island.