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Energy, Economic and Environmental Analysis of a Hybrid Power Plant for Electrification, and Drinking and Irrigation Water Supply

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Abstract

The objective of this study consists of examining whether the coupling between wind turbines (WT) and photovoltaic modules (PV) with batteries (BT) or pumped hydro-storage (PHS) can produce a sufficient amount of energy in order to cover the electricity demands in an island, as well as the demand for producing desalinated water for drinking and irrigation purposes, in an effort to avoid the consumption of conventional fuels. A methodology for the simulation and assessment of such a Hybrid Renewable Energy System (HRES) is presented, combining various Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and covering both the energy and the water demands of the study area. A sensitivity analysis for the examination of how certain parameters affect energy, economic and environmental indices was also conducted. The results present the reliability of each storage system. The comparison shows a reduced use of the Local Production Station (LPS) from 25 to 16% and an increase of the months of autonomy in the case of use of BT technology. The Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) is estimated at 0.473 € for battery storage technology and 0.464 € for PHS, while the price drops to 0.349 € if an upper reservoir already exists in the island. Also, when coupling with battery, 27 more tons of CO2 are eliminated compared to PHS. Coupling with PHS leads to lower LCOE and fewer eliminated CO2 quantities, while coupling with BT leads to increased autonomy and the coverage rate of the storage system is less affected by variations in wind and solar potential.

Article Highlights

• Higher Levelized Cost of Energy and Payback Period for battery storage technology.

• More eliminated CO2 quantities when coupling with batteries.

• Less use of costly and polluting conventional fuels when coupling with batteries.

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Data Availability

Data that support the findings of this study are not publicly available due to restrictions applied to them but are available from the authors upon reasonable request and with the permission of the services that provided them.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

Abbreviations

AS:

annual savings (€)

C Ah :

storage capacity of the battery (Ah)

C bat :

storage capacity of the battery (kWh)

C p :

power coefficient

d A :

number of autonomy days

E n :

annual produced energy (kWh)

E PV :

energy produced by the PV (kWh)

E WT :

energy produced by the WT (kWh)

\({EM}_{CO_2}\) :

eliminated CO2 quantities (tn/year)

F grid :

emission factor of the grid (gr CO2/kWh)

F PV :

emission factor of the PV (gr CO2/kWh)

F WT :

emission factor of the WT (gr CO2/kWh)

g:

gravity acceleration (m/sec2)

G t :

solar irradiance on the tilted plane (W/m2)

G STC :

solar irradiance in STC (W/m2)

G NOCT :

solar irradiance in NOCT (W/m2)

H:

net head (m)

Initial Costs :

initial costs of the project (€)

N:

lifetime of the project (years)

n p :

efficiency of the pumps (%)

n T :

hydroturbine efficiency (%)

O & M Costs :

annual operation and maintenance costs (€)

P L :

average daily consumption (kWh/day)

P PV :

output of a PV (kWh)

P ST :

overproduced energy-excess (kWh)

P STC :

peak power of the PV in STC (kWh)

P WT :

output of the WT (kWh)

\({P}_{WT}^{max}\) :

maximum output of the PV (kWh)

PR bat :

performance ratio of the battery (%)

PR grid :

performance ratio of the grid connection (%)

PR inv :

performance ratio of the inverter (%)

PR PV :

performance ratio of the PV cell (%)

PR T :

performance ratio of the PV cell (%)

r :

discount rate (%)

SOC min :

minimum state of charge (kWh)

SOC max :

maximum state of charge (kWh)

t:

time step

T amb :

ambient temperature (oC)

T C :

cell temperature (oC)

T C, STC :

cell temperature in STC (oC)

T NOCT :

ambient temperature in NOCT (oC)

u cut − in :

cut-in speed of the WT (m/sec)

u cut − out :

cut-out speed of the WT (m/sec)

u rated :

rated speed of the WT (m/sec)

V bat :

nominal voltage of the battery (V)

V max :

the maximum state of charge of the upper reservoir (m3)

V min :

the minimum state of charge of the upper reservoir (m3)

V ST :

volume in the upper reservoir (m3)

AC:

alternating current

BT:

battery

DC:

direct current

DOD:

depth of discharge

HRES:

hybrid renewable energy system

LCOE:

levelized cost of energy

LPS:

local production station

MPPT:

maximum power point tracking

NOANN:

national observatory of Athens automatic network

NOCT:

normal operating cell temperature

PBP:

payback period

PHS:

pumped hydrostorage

PPC:

public power corporation

PV:

photovoltaic module

RES:

renewable energy sources

RO:

reverse osmosis

SOC:

state of charge

STC:

standard test conditions

WT:

wind turbine

n :

respective year

γ :

thermal coefficient of power (/oC)

ρ:

water density (kg/m3)

σ:

self-discharge rate (%)

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Acknowledgements

The research work was supported by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) under the HFRI PhD Fellowship grant (Fellowship Number: 266).

Funding

The research work was supported by the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) under the HFRI PhD Fellowship grant (Fellowship Number: 266).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 5 Iroon Polytechniou, 157 80, Athens, Greece

    Maria Margarita Bertsiou & Evangelos Baltas

Authors
  1. Maria Margarita Bertsiou
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  2. Evangelos Baltas
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Contributions

Maria Margarita Bertsiou: Data collection, analysis, study conception and design, the first draft of the manuscript, review and editing. Evangelos Baltas: Supervision, validation, review and editing. Both authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Maria Margarita Bertsiou.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Bertsiou, M.M., Baltas, E. Energy, Economic and Environmental Analysis of a Hybrid Power Plant for Electrification, and Drinking and Irrigation Water Supply. Environ. Process. 9, 22 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40710-022-00575-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40710-022-00575-x

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