Probabilistic performance assessment of autonomous solar-wind energy conversion systems

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a general probabilistic model of an autonomous solar-wind energy conversion system (SWECS) composed of several wind turbines (wind farm), several photovoltaic (PV) modules (solar park), and a battery storage feeding a load. The model takes into consideration outages due to the primary energy fluctuations and hardware failure. It allows the simulation of wind farms and solar parks containing either identical or different types of wind turbines and PV modules with the load being fed from either the renewable sources, or the battery storage, or both. A methodology is also presented to determine an upper limit on the size of the battery storage required to satisfy a given load profile taking into consideration the charging/discharging of the batteries.