Design of Solar-Wind Hybrid Power System by using Solar-Wind Complementarity

Environmental degradation is a rapidly growing concern across the globe, which is primarily caused by conventional fossil fuels-based power generation. This study examines the feasibility of generating electricity by using renewable energy sources (RESs) based hybrid power system (HPS). A general planning framework for integrating solar and wind energies in a HPS is proposed, that exploits the solar-wind complementarity to stabilize the combined power output. Specifically, it evaluates the solar-wind complementarity by using Pearson's correlation coefficient, and determines the optimal shares of solar-wind energies in power generation by minimizing the standard deviation of HPS power output. The proposed framework is evaluated on a case study in Pakistan, where sufficient solar-wind synergy potential exists. Our results show that values of solar-wind complementarity varies considerably from -0.351 (high complementarity) to 0.411 (low complementarity). It is observed that by using optimized shares, HPS power outputs exhibit less variations than the outputs generated by standalone solar or wind energy-based power systems. Best location for deployment of solar-wind HPS is identified as the one that maximizes the solar-wind complementarity benefits.