Author(s)

Faten Hosney Fahmy, Ninet Mohamed Ahmed, Hanaa Mohamed Farghally

Electronics Research Institute, Giza, Egypt..

The main objective of this work is to design an optimal—efficient economic power renewable energy system that feeds the required electric load of a small scale brackish reverse osmosis desalination unit and a tourism motel located in Hurghada, Egypt. Four renewable energy power systems are presented in this paper to select the most optimum one of them. These suggested renewable energy systems are PV-wind hybrid system, stand-alone wind system, stand-alone photovoltaic system and PV-wind-fuel cell hybrid system. The sizing, optimization and economic estimation of the proposed systems were performed using HOMER software. HOMER solves the optimization problem to minimize the global cost and provides the optimum wind turbine, PV, battery and fuel cell ratings. In addition, a comparison between the four different suggested power system configurations is illustrated in details. PV-wind hybrid system realized the lowest net present cost and levelized cost of energy. Also, this system was able to provide energy approximately all the day. The battery state of charge varies between 83% and 99% and it was found that, the PV-wind hybrid system is more suitable than the others for the selected site and the suggested electrical load.

PV; Wind Turbine; Fuel Cell; Hybrid System; Net Present Cost; HOMER

F. Fahmy, N. Ahmed and H. Farghally, "Optimization of Renewable Energy Power System for Small Scale Brackish Reverse Osmosis Desalination Unit and a Tourism Motel in Egypt," Smart Grid and Renewable Energy, Vol. 3 No. 1, 2012, pp. 43-50. doi: 10.4236/sgre.2012.31006.