OPTIMAL SIZING, ECONOMIC STUDY AND RELIABILITY OF DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS OF PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS

This paper represents a comparative study between different configurations of a photovoltaic (PV) system. The objective of this study is to select the optimal system configuration for supplying the electrical loads of an emergency health clinic according to their energy requirements. These considered systems are stand alone PV system, and grid connected PV system. A computer program is developed to determine the optimal size, cost and reliability of each system based on selecting different values of loss of power supply probability (LPSP) for the different configurations of the PV systems. For each value of LPSP the different size combinations of solar array and battery is calculated. This method aims at finding the PV system configuration which meets the desired system reliability requirement with the minimum total cost over the life time of the system. To get optimum design of PV systems, it is needed to collect load data, meteorological data (solar radiation and temperature) for the site under consideration and data for the investment cost of the system. The Kharga Oasis located at The Western Desert of Egypt is selected as the site used for the case study.