Design and simulation of a PV and a PV-Wind standalone energy system: A case study for a household application in Nicosia, Cyprus

Abstract

In this work the design and simulation of two stand-alone renewable energy sources (RES) based systems for application in a household in Cyprus is presented. More specifically, the household is located in Nicosia and is used as the residence of a typical Cypriot family for which a baseline scenario of energy consumption is specified in order to define the annual load profile of the house. The first system is based on photovoltaic (PV) modules for the generation of electricity by harvesting the very high solar potential of Cyprus while the second one is a hybrid system combining PVs with a domestic wind turbine in order to take advantage of the wind potential especially during winter. Since both systems are stand alone the energy produced is stored in a battery bank. The software used for the modeling and simulation processes is TRNSYS. A comparison of the two systems in terms of both technical and economical aspects is presented in this study where it is concluded that the wind potential of the specific location of the house, which generally applies on the entire island, cannot substitute and compete in any way with the very high solar potential.