An Integrated Hybrid Power Supply for Off-Grid Applications Fed by Wind/Photovoltaic Energy Systems Using COA

The most of villages in our country received 98.5 to 99.5 percentage of their electrical energy from national distribution network. While some of them are faraway villages so connecting them to national network is expensive. This paper introduces a method to unit sizing hybrid wind/Photovoltaic generation system for a typical domestic load that is not located near the electric grid. The aim of this design is finding the configuration, among a set of systems components, which meets the desired system reliability requirements, with the lowest Loss of Power Supply Probability (LPSP) of energy over 20 years of operation. Using Cuckoo Optimization Algorithm (COA) the optimal capacity of these sources is determined, the total cost of system is minimized and the efficiency of this system in different operation situations with real information of the solar radiation and the wind speed in one of the north western remote areas of Iran is studied. An overall power management strategy is designed for the proposed system to manage power flows among the different energy sources and the storage unit in the system. The results show the preference of COA and indicate that the system composed with a wind generator, a photovoltaic generator and a battery can deliver energy in a stand-alone installation with an acceptable cost