Abstract
Solar power plants are expected to play a significant role in India’s power sector. The country plans to achieve an installed capacity of 100 GW by 2022. However, in a stand-alone mode, solar power plants are not able to deliver a consistent power supply, as per the demand requirement, to Electricity Supply Companies (ESCOMs). This is mainly because of the nature of intermittency associated with solar energy. Hybridization of renewable energy (RE) resources would significantly contribute toward solving this issue by providing a stable and sustainable supply.
Biomass is a potential renewable resource for hybridization. Considering the technology maturity and economics, this study addresses solar photovoltaics and biomass hybrid systems for power generation and is restricted to decentralized applications. A detailed techno-economic case study has been presented for a 5-MW solar photovoltaic and biomass hybrid system in the present paper. At a capital cost of the hybrid plant at INR 10 crores/MW, the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and capacity utilization factor (CUF) for only solar (1-shift) are respectively INR 4.5/kWh and 10.7%. With sunshine hours in 1-shift mode in hybrid (both solar and biomass), the LCOE is INR 8.5/kWh and CUF is 24%, because the biomass system requires a higher capital investment (compared to solar) and less utilization (restricted to sunshine hours) for energy generation. If biomass system along with solar is utilized for 24 × 7 operation, the cost of generation reduces to INR 5.4/kWh (CUF 75%). However, PV-based hybrid plants with biomass system offer advantage only during the day time. The present results show that PV-biomass is a viable system and, more importantly, provides stable power to the grid during daytime without any battery support. Further, the biomass plant can be used to operate the plant beyond solar hours depending on the power demand and biomass availability.
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Notes
1$ = INR 53 in 2012
Abbreviations
- CV fuel :
-
Calorific value of biomass (kJ/kg)
- F B :
-
Feed rate of biomass to the boiler (Tph)
- I ac1 :
-
Output current of inverter-1 (A)
- I acN :
-
Output current of inverter-N (A)
- I ar1 :
-
Output current of array-1
- I arN :
-
Output current of array-N
- IRR :
-
Internal rate of return (%)
- LCOE:
-
Levelized cost of electricity (INR/kWh)
- N actual :
-
Number of modules at optimized condition
- N ref :
-
Number of modules at reference condition
- P AC :
-
Total plant AC capacity (MWp)
- P ac :
-
AC power output of a single inverter (MWp)
- P DC :
-
Total plant DC capacity (MWp)
- P dc :
-
DC power input to a single inverter (MWp)
- P mod :
-
Nominal power output of a module (MWp or Wp)
- P s :
-
Steam inlet pressure to the turbine (bar)
- Q :
-
Thermal energy to the power block (MWth)
- q̇ :
-
Turbine heat rate (kJ/kWh)
- SIF:
-
Solar irradiance factor
- T s :
-
Steam inlet temperature to the turbine (°C)
- V ac :
-
Average AC voltage output from the inverters (V)
- V ar :
-
Average output voltage of arrays (V)
- η b :
-
Efficiency of the boiler
- η inv :
-
Efficiency of the inverter
- η pb :
-
Efficiency of power block
- AC:
-
Alternating current
- CSP:
-
Concentrated solar power
- CUF:
-
Capacity utilization factor
- DC:
-
Direct current
- DHI:
-
Diffuse horizontal irradiance (W/m2)
- DNI:
-
Direct normal irradiance (W/m2)
- GHI:
-
Global horizontal irradiance (W/m2)
- HTF:
-
Heat transfer fluid
- INR:
-
Indian rupees
- MMPT:
-
Maximum power point tracking
- MT:
-
Metric tonne
- MW/GW:
-
Megawatt/gigawatt
- PV:
-
Photovoltaics
- Tph:
-
Tonnes per hour
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Suresh, N.S., Thirumalai, N.C. & Dasappa, S. Modeling of Solar and Biomass Hybrid Power Generation—a Techno-Economic Case Study. Process Integr Optim Sustain 3, 101–114 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41660-018-0069-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41660-018-0069-7