Optimal sizing of a hybrid renewable energy system: A sociotechno-economic-environmental perspective

Abstract

Unprecedented power outages and load shedding significantly impact power supply reliability in a power distribution network. Therefore, a hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) is developed, and its socio-techno-economic-environmental (STEE) viability in supplying reliable electricity to the village is being examined in this paper. STEE factor-based multi-target optimization and sizing technique is designed using the HOMER PRO software. The factors considered are namely social (land cost, human progress index, and employment generation factor), technical (unmet load, renewable energy portion, duty factor, and excess energy factor), economical (annualized cost of system, cost of energy, and total net present cost), and environmental (carbon emission and particulate matter). Three HRES setups are investigated, with various combinations of photovoltaic (PV), wind turbine (WT), battery (BAT), biogas generator (BG), and diesel generator (DG) and the optimal configuration is selected by STEE performance analysis. Compared to other evaluated setups, the HRES design with PV-WT-BAT-BG-DG is optimal for a consistent power supply. A sensitivity analysis for the optimal setup's macro-economic variables and component costs is performed to achieve a more feasible optimal setup. Furthermore, the optimal setup's cost of energy (0.1813 /kWh) is lower than that of the most recent study in the literature. The closeness of the HOMER results (cost of energy (0.1813/kWh) and particle swarm optimization results (cost of energy (0.1799 $/kWh)) for the optimal HRES setup supports the validity of the HOMER method used in this investigation.