Techno-economic Impacts Analysis of a Hybrid Grid Connected Energy System Applied for a Cattle Farm

Abstract

Increase in energy demand has made the renewable resources more attractive. Representing the largest sources of renewable energy, Solar and wind systems are expanding due to the rapid depletion of fossil fuel resources and the growing evidence of the global warming phenomena. This study aims to investigate the techno-economic impacts of a hybrid grid connected PV/wind energy system applied for a medium cattle farm in the north part of Algerian desert. The target location is a medium farm of 20 dairy cows in Ghardaia city, with the total annual electrical energy consumption of 6.716kWh, and a peak demand of about 7.7 kW. The system is optimized using the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) HOMER software according to the net present cost (NPC) value. Furthermore, three scenarios are proposed to assess the system configuration according to its impact on both technical and economic balance of the farm. It is found that under the specific climatic conditions of the studied location, the three optimized systems satisfy the typical farm load of 18kWh per day. The second scenario optimized system meets the requirement of paying back the total costs of system investment during the system's lifetime and the third scenario optimized system enhances the grid reliability by decreasing the power grid peak load by 70 kW and feeding to the grid 119MWh annually.