Cost Analysis of an Off-Grid Solar/Wind/Battery Based Renewable Energy System for Variable Load

Off-grid renewable energy systems have been fascinating to provide energy to different sectors in all the directions like sustainability, viability and environmental safe-conduct, particularly for the societies living in remote areas where expansion of grid is not relevant. Renewable energy system shows numerous combinations built on the basis of renewable sources that can be practiced together to provide power in the form of a dedicated off-grid system supported by battery-bank storage and diesel generator as backup systems. In this article, wind turbine-PV-battery storage-inverter was used as system components and these were simulated and optimized for the entire NIT Silchar campus in the state of Assam, India. The primary load demand of the entire campus is 11,378.94 kWh/day and peak load of 671.62 kW. A popular freeware HOMER modelling software has been used to analyze the stand-alone RES system. Solar energy and wind are used as prime sources to generate power and supply it straight to the load. If excess electricity is produced, it is used to charge the battery bank. The campus’s load consists of power required for lighting, pumping of water, hotel electricity load, different department electricity load and various quarters load which are situated inside the campus. While analyzing this energy system, the simulation is done and results are optimized on the basis of power load, meteorological data sources. The economics of energy components and other parameters in which the net present cost (NPC) is to be minimized to select an economically viable energy system. However, other criteria, such as additional power generation, capacity shortage, COE, were also acknowledged to investigate the technological ability to choose an excellent system in techno-economic perspectives. The two approaches are used as a comparative criterion to select an energy system from the chosen options that give sufficient merit to one of the measuring tools (Net present cost and low cost of energy).