Techno-economic simulation assessment on on-grid solar photovoltaic and wind power system in alpha world city environments

Abstract

The world today is continuously striving towards carbon nuclear clean energy

technology. Hence, renewables like solar photovoltaic and wind power system are

increasingly attracting the attention of mankind. The present study introduces two ongrid

renewable electricity models in 10 alpha world cities. One is a roof-top solar PV

system with 37 kW, 200 mono-crystalline modules. Another one is a 50 MW wind farm

consisting of 25 wind turbines, each with 2 MW rated power and 90m rotor diameter.

The study first explores the month-wise and annual electricity generation potentiality of

the alpha cities based on Retscreen database. Then it performs an in-depth cost analysis

on both the system. Reduction in green house gas emission has been quantified, as well,

with reference to three conventional fossil fuel plants, viz. coal, natural gas and diesel

oil based on proposed MATLAB simulation runs. In addition, a techno-economic

simulation study has been pursued based on several economic feasibility indicators viz.,

net present value (NPV), annual life cycle savings (ALCS), and the benefit-cost (B-C)

ratio. In all the stages both the systems have been assessed with both Retscreen clean

energy project analysis software and the proposed MATLAB simulation platform. At

the end, the study compares the solar and wind power potentiality in each alpha city

and presents the project feasibility findings for both the technologies. The findings

from the study can be deployed as the basis of harnessing massive scale solar PV and

wind power energy from all similar climatic locations of the planet earth.