Study of a standalone wind and solar PV power systems

Abstract

This study utilizes hourly average wind speed and hourly total global solar radiation data for the years 2007–2009 to study the energy yield from (i) a standalone wind power system of 6kW rated capacity and (ii) a standalone 6kW photovoltaic (PV) power system. These wind and PV power systems are installed in the campus of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The annual energy yields from standalone wind and solar PV power plants each of 6kW installed capacity were found to be 8,000 kWh and 10,364 kWh with respective capacity factors of 14.3% and 19.7%. The propose wind turbine could displace 2 tons of green house gases annually from entering in to the local atmosphere and the solar PV power plant could be able to reduce around 3 tons of these gases annually.