Optimal structure selection for small-size hybrid renewable energy plants

Hybrid Wind/Photovoltaic plants are often complemented with suitable energy storage devices to improve flexibility in grid connected applications and the continuity of supply in island mode service. The design of generation plants including energy storage devices is a quite complex task, moreover, no tools are today available to systematically compare the features of different possible architectures on the basis of given wind speed, solar irradiation and load diagrams. A probabilistic design approach is then proposed in this paper to select the most suitable internal structure of permanently grid connected, or island mode operating plants. The paper is mainly focused on low power Hybrid Wind/Photovoltaic plants for distributed generation, however, the proposed procedure may also be adapted to high power systems.