A new perspective in optimum sizing of hybrid renewable energy systems: Consideration of component performance degradation issue

The ever increasing demand for energy and the concerns on the environmental sustainability issue all around the world lead to more interest in alternative sources for energy production. However, as the current costs of the alternative sources such as solar, wind energy conversion systems etc. are relatively higher as compared to the conventional means of energy production, an optimum sizing approach is quite necessary in order to avoid over-sizing of such systems without lowering the reliability of load demand supply in all possible conditions including the variability of meteorological conditions or the changing power demand of load. There are many research papers available in the literature dealing with this optimum sizing issue. Even the mentioned papers significantly contribute to the wider penetration of such sources, none of them consider the power output degradation of alternative energy sources due to aging during their pre-defined operating life time. Besides, there are a few studies utilizing detailed dynamic models of energy sources apart from first-degree linear equations based models that may fall short in presenting the exact dynamics of the related system. Thus, an "observe and focus" algorithm based optimization of a hybrid alternative energy system considering the power output degradation and detailed models of each hybrid system component is performed in this study. Related details presented within the paper can provide a new perspective in optimum sizing of such hybrid systems and may further be considered in future updates of famous sizing software programs commercially or freely available in websites of several laboratories or universities. Copyright (C) 2012, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.