Design and Optimization of Wind/Solar/Biogas/Biomass Hybrid System for Rural Areas of Pakistan /

Abstract

World has been transitioning towards renewable energy resources due to rapid depletion of conventional energy resources and environmental concerns. Despite of having huge potentials of renewable energy resources, Pakistan is still facing severe electricity short fall. In current scenario, renewable energy sources are the most feasible solution for fulfilling local energy demands. Nature has blessed Pakistan with immense amount of wind and solar energy. As Pakistan is agricultural country, it has a large amount of bio mass in the form of crop residue and forests. Pakistan’s growing dairy industry shows that there exists a good potential to extract energy in the form of biogas. This research is based upon the solar and wind data collected from Meteorological High Precision (MHP) units installed at different locations in Pakistan with the help of World Bank. Biomass data is obtained from the Bio mass mapping project done at USPCAS-E with the help of UNIDO and ESMAP. HOMER Pro software is used to get optimized hybrid system using available data. HOMER Pro has new optimization algorithm that significantly simplifies the design process by identifying economical options from available resources. The aim of this research is to develop and analyze optimized hybrid (PV/Wind/Biogas/Biomass) models for different districts from Punjab and Sindh. Results show that cost of energy per unit is within the feasible limit for all districts which is technically suitable for installation of hybrid energy system.