Autonomous hybrid renewable energy system optimization for minimum cost

The concept of microgrids based on locally available renewable energy sources (RES) is becoming very popular in remote locations. They are going to play a significant role in future power systems providing economical, reliable and environmental benefits as compare to the existing power systems. But it can be only achieved by providing considerable attention and efforts to resolve the copious economic, commercial, and technical challenges incurred in their development. This work presents an economic evaluation considering the installation and operating cost of such a microgrid for remote terrains. An optimization problem is formulated for capital cost and running costs. A comparative cost analysis of different configurations of hybrid renewable energy resource system (HRES) is carried out using practical data. It is found that hybrid energy system consisting of solar/wind/diesel generator along with battery is the most feasible system. With the appearance of such microgrids the current way of expanding the electricity demand will revolutionize, exclusively for remote location being served below par by the customary power system.