Techno-economic investigation of solar-wind potential to power an industrial prototype using a hybrid renewable energy system

Hybridization of solar and wind energy to supply an electrical load demand is considered as a realistic approach aiming to take the benefit of these power generation sources and facilitate their integration for a stand-alone and grid-connected application. However, an under-sizing of the hybrid system mays disturbs the operation of all-electric equipment; on the contrary, an over-sizing may turn higher the investment cost of the hybrid system. Therefore an appropriate size of the hybrid renewable plant could help to guarantee the minimal cost of integration with the maximum power reliability. A specific design under TRNSYS and Matlab has been used to assess weather condition of solar irradiation, wind speed, and temperature for the selected referee cities, after, a determined load demand profile of a laboratory prototype is used to describe daily energy consumption. Then a dynamic simulation of energy output performance for different hybrid configuration is analyzed during one year; as a result, only one optimized configuration is chosen for each referee cities with respect of minimal investment cost and maximal power reliability. Finally, a techno-economic investigation of the chosen optimized solution is presented as a result and discussed, as well as an environmental assessment.