Determining wind turbine capacity for expansion of off grid internal combustion generators (ICG) system; why it becomes challenging?

Abstract

Combining renewable energy sources to Internal Combustion Generator (ICG) systems for standalone applications is becoming popular due to higher depletion rate of fossil fuel resources and global concerns on Green House Gas (GHG) emission. In this study, Hybrid Energy System (HES) modeling and simulation was done in order to investigate the impact of Wind Turbine Capacity (WTC) for expansion of such ICG systems. For that, ε- multi objective optimization was used to analyze the effect of varying WTC to Levelized Energy Cost (LEC) and ICG energy output. Obtained results show the importance of multi criterion analysis instead of classical cost optimization in expanding existing ICG systems in a cost effective environment friendly manner.