The system performance of autonomous photovoltaic-wind hybrid energy systems using synthetically generated weather data

The yearly system performance of autonomous photovoltaic-wind hybrid energy systems with battery storage is the subject of this article. The yearly system performance is simulated using synthetically generated solar radiation and wind speed data and compared to that simulated using measured hour-by-hour data. Two different synthetic weather data sets are generated: 3-day month and 4-day month, in which 3 and 4 days represent a month, resulting in a total of 36 and 48 days for a year. The hourly varying solar radiation data are synthesised from the clearness index value for each month. The daily constant wind speed data are synthesised using the Weibull wind speed distribution model, on a monthly basis. Using two different synthetic weather data sets, the effect of number of synthetic days on the system performance estimation is studied. Different sequences of synthetic solar and wind days lead to 36 and 576 combinations for 3- and 4-day months, respectively. Three predetermined combinations for both the 3- and 4-day months are chosen and the system performance of an autonomous photovoltaic-wind hybrid energy system with battery storage is simulated using these predetermined combinations. It is shown that the yearly system performance predicted from the 3- and 4-day synthetic data closely agrees with that obtained from the measured data, varying only slightly for different combinations. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.