Optimum Sizing and Performance Assessment of Solar PV-DG Hybrid System for Energy Self Sufficiency of Jaggery Making Units

Jaggery making is one of the widely accepted food processing business establishment in India and plays major role in improving economy of country by leap and bounds. While country supplies healthy sweetener with high nutritional value, most of these units are located in remote rural areas; lacking conventional grid infrastructures. Therefore, these units are fulfilling their energy demand by using diesel generators (DG), creating significant environmental impact. Because of equatorial sun belt location of India, major parts of the country receive sufficient amount of solar irradiation for the entire year. Accordingly, solar energy can be optimally utilized to meet the growing energy demand of such business units to augment environmental and financial issues. In this study, Solar Photo voltaic-DG based hybrid power system is designed and developed to provide continuous power supply to jaggery making units located in remote rural areas. Moreover, Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) based controller is developed for optimum power generation control of Solar PV-Diesel Generator Hybrid system. Primary objective of the proposed hybrid model is to reduce the operational expenditure as well as green house gas (GHG) emission and provide solution for intermittent nature of solar PV system and fluctuating load demand. Performance analysis of the hybrid model is done using solar PVsyst simulation tool. The simulation results are analysed and compared for two cases; fixed tilt and seasonal tilt angles. The results show that solar PV-DG hybrid system significantly reduces the fuel consumption as compared to conventional single DG operated system to supply the same load requirement. Thus, the proposed hybrid system offers economical and environmental sustainability and transforms energy deficient jaggery units into energy self reliant units.