An approach to evaluate the general performance of stand-alone wind/photovoltaic generating systems

This paper reports the development of a computer approach for evaluating the general performance of stand-alone wind/photovoltaic generating systems. Simple models for different system components are developed, integrated, and used to predict the behavior of generating systems based on available wind/solar and load data. The model is useful for evaluating the performance of stand-alone generating systems and gaining a better insight in the component sizes needed before they are built. Simulation results are presented for performance evaluation of a stand-alone generating system that has been previously designed to supply the average power demand of a typical residential house. An electric water heater model is used as a dump load, and the excess available wind/solar-generated power is used to heat the water. The heated water is used as the inlet water to the main house water heater, which is assumed to be nonelectric. It is shown that this strategy can be effective in reducing the amount of fuel used by the main residential water heater.