Design and Analysis of Grid-Connected Hybrid Power Systems Based on Renewable Energy: Bangladesh Perspective

Abstract

Current power generation scenarios all over the world are not climate friendly as the generation systems are mainly dependent on fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gas (GHG) which contributes to global warming. This thesis presents an economical expediency of gridconnected hybrid (PV/Wind turbine) power system model by investigating the potentials of the wind and solar energy. It also conducts a feasibility analysis to explore the potentialities of green energy at different locations namely Kuakata, Sitakunda, Magnamaghat, Dinajpur, Rangpur and Khulna in Bangladesh. Initially, a flowchart of the proposed hybrid power system model is developed and then a hybrid model is designed with varying the contributions of renewable resources for the considered coastal region and the northern part of Bangladesh using a software tool named Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources (HOMER). The simulation results are calculated for finding the cost of energy (COE), net present cost (NPC), total annualize cost, annual real interest rate, capital recovery factor (CRF), fraction of renewable energy (RE) contribution and greenhouse gas emission in terms of tons/year from which an optimum combination of RE sources and fraction of different RE sources in the designed hybrid power plant are determined. Sensitivity variables, such as range of wind speed, solar radiation, PV panel price, wind turbine hub height, are defined as inputs during simulation. The optimization process is carried out repeatedly for the sensitivity variables and the results are refined accordingly. Also, a comparison is made between off-grid and grid connected models on the basis of COE and GHG emission. The simulation results show that the proposed grid-PV-wind hybrid power system model is most suitable, economical and eco-friendly for the considered regions in Bangladesh.