PV and Wind Utilization Analysis for a Canadian Small Arctic PV-Wind-Diesel Hybrid Microgrid

Canadian Arctic remote communities mostly rely on diesel gensets (DGSs) to produce electricity, which is expensive and emits greenhouse gasses (GHG) that pollute the environment and affect the air quality. These communities can utilize their photovoltaic (PV) and wind potential to reduce both their fuel consumption and the associated GHG emissions. This paper follows up a first study which presented the impact of PV integration on the power plant of a remote community. In this current study, the addition of wind turbines (WTs) and their combination with PV is evaluated for the same representative community. The PV utilization analysis results in a contribution of nearly 22% of the yearly community energy requirement. As for the analysis of the wind system, the energy contribution reaches close to 36%. When combining PV and WTs, the portion of energy supplied by the renewable energy (RE) system reaches 44%. Two technical alternatives are also considered to reduce the curtailment associated with the PV production. These result in slight improvements in terms of fuel savings and PV penetration.