Normalized techno-economic index for renewable energy system assessment

Quantitative evaluation of renewable energy systems' techno-economic performance is important but difficult, because the resource condition, investment of system, and subsidy policy vary from place to place. This study aims to develop a normalized techno-economic index to synthesize all the factors. The optimization of solar and wind energy system is realized by simulating the long-term implementation, and a normalized techno-economic index is developed by using the mathematical normalization method to synthesize these numerical results. The normalized index we proposed mainly considers 6 independent economic and environmental indicators, especially the carbon dioxide emission which was not considered in previous work and was also added into the calculation of the index. This index can be widely applied around the world, irrespective of geographic location and system type. Taking 16 cities of Shandong province with typical temperate monsoon climate as research locations where are abundant of solar and wind energy resources, we present the evaluation strategies of normalized techno-economic index. The results show that the wind power system has great advantages in most cities in Shandong. Under this climatic condition, wind system is more economical than photovoltaic system.