Energy resource quality assessment of PV/wind hybrid renewable energy system

Renewable energy is seen as one of the main solutions of energy crisis and climate change. With the widely application of renewable energy, it shows increasing interests on the sustainability assessment of energy system. Resource quality assessment is an important sub-indicator of sustainability index (SI) for evaluating energy systems. Hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) comprising of number of elements aims to convert any form of primary energy into final form of energy to be used for improving the quality of life. Energy conversion processes of the renewable energy components are characterized by the exergy efficiency. Although solar energy, wind energy and electrical energy are different in nature, exergy theory can be used to evaluate and compare them. The present study develops a method based on the thermodynamical analysis to quantify the resource quality of each type of renewable energy component of a PV/wind HRES. A case study of an optimized PV/wind power system in Central Queensland Region of Australia is presented in this paper. Through exergetic analysis of solar and wind energy resources and investigation on the generated electricity, the numerical results of exergy and exergy efficiency of the given system are discussed. It is found that the total exergy efficiency of renewable energy resources of the system is around twenty three percent. It is also found that wind energy shows greater quality than solar energy for the given HRES.