Design of a hybrid household power generation system for a rural area: A case study for Oodnadatta, Australia

In view of rising energy cost and declining technology cost, a total of 225,991 small scale system was installed in 2017, bringing the total to 2.9 million small-scale systems already been installed in different parts of Australia. Majority of those systems have been installed in the urban areas and they are connect to the national grid. However, there are still many isolated places in Australia where the residential houses are not connected to the grid. Therefore, the objective of this study is to design a hybrid system fully using the renewable sources. The photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind turbines system incorporating a battery backup system were considered to conduct a feasibility study for a residential power generation in Oodnadatta. An economic analysis was also performed to determine the total cost of the systems over the 20-year period. Study indicates that properly designed hybrid system can be an effective means of fulfilling 100% of power demand in this area. A total of eleven 280 W photovoltaic panels and one 2 kW horizontal axis wind turbine was found to be sufficient to provide 110% of the summer demand and 85% of the winter demand. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.