Analysis of Hybrid Floating Photovoltaic and Hydro-Power plant with HOMER Pro Software

Hybrid configuration of Floating Solar Photovoltaic (FPV) and hydropower plant is more advantageous among all the possible hybrid topologies. The benefits of this configuration is that both FPV and hydropower plant compensates for the intermittency of each other, improved input to hydropower plant due to evaporation loss reduction, and ease of connectivity to the grid. Simulation of the hybrid FPV and hydropower plant with HOMER Pro software shows that it will improve the energy yield from the configuration and reduces the grid purchase of electricity. Grid connected FPV plant has a LCOE 6.40 Rs/kWh supplying an average load of 11.26kWh/day. Due to the intermittent nature of the solar output, the connected load will take power from the grid. For connected load, among total consumption, 55.6% of power will be taken from the grid, and the rest, 44.40%, is taken from the FPV plant. Hybrid configuration of hydro and FPV will have the LCOE 4.15 Rs/kWh. Considering the same load as in the previous case, among total consumption, 21 % will be supplied by the FPV, and the hydro power plant will fulfill 79%. In this case, grid purchase is nil. Also, a daily time series plot for connected load is obtained from the HOMER Pro simulation. Hence, a hybrid combination for connected load gives a better time series plot for consumption.