The techno-economic and environmental aspects of a hybrid PV-diesel-battery power system for remote farm houses

In this study, the solar radiation data of Balikesir in Turkey are analysed to assess the techno-economic viability and environmental performance of a hybrid Photovoltaic (PV)-diesel-battery system to meet the load requirements of a typical remote farm house. Several aspects of the system are studied through the Cost of Energy (CoE), the operational hours of diesel generator, unmet load, excess electricity generation, percentage of fuel savings, etc. The CoE for this kind of hybrid system is found to be 1.245 US$/kWh. Simulations are performed for three cases (diesel only, PV-diesel and PV-diesel-battery). It is found that a diesel-only system produces 63 900 kWh of electricity and 69.7 tonnes of CO2, 13.0 kg of PM, 1.53 tonnes of NOx emissions per year. Using PV-diesel and PV-diesel-battery systems helps reduce the emissions for CO2 to 61.0 and 42.0 tonnes, for PM to 11.4 and 7.83 kg and for NOx to 1.34 and 0.92 tonnes, respectively. The diesel-only system is more economical if the fuel price remains below US$2/L. Otherwise, PV-diesel and PV-diesel-battery systems become more cost-effective. Also, the environmental impact improvement factor is found as 0.127 and 0.399 for CO2, 0.123 and 0.397 for PM and 0.124 and 0.398 for NOx for both PV-diesel and PV-diesel-battery systems, respectively.