Feasibility Study of Replacement of Hybrid Renewable Energy – A Case Study
Motupalli Priyanka1, Niranchana R2, S Selvakumar3, Nithya Venkatesan4

1Motupalli Priyanka, School of Electrical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai (TamilNadu), India.

2Niranchana R, School of Electrical Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai (TamilNadu), India.

3S Selvakumar, Research Scholar, College of Engineering Guindy, Chennai (TamilNadu), India.

4Nithya Venkatesan, Research Scholar, College of Engineering Guindy, Chennai (TamilNadu), India.

Manuscript received on 05 April 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 14 April 2019 | Manuscript Published on 24 May 2019 | PP: 235-241 | Volume-8 Issue-6S3 April 2019 | Retrieval Number: F10480486S319/19©BEIESP

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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open-access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Abstract: In the recent years, the world has witnessed a major shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Renewable energy facilitates cost-effective solutions for prevailing energy issues faced by numerous countries. With the increase in costs of the fuels, depleting reserves of conventional sources of energy and the issue of oil crisis, renewable energy seems to be an excellent alternative with its abundance, potential to produce pollution free energy, minimize carbon footprint, and greenhouse emissions and ensure energy security. This research describes the potential study of making a feasibility assessment of switching the conventional grid connected system into a renewable energy system which could be used as a possibility for supplying power to VIT located at Chennai. The idea for this research study is to make VIT, Chennai energy self-sufficient in such a way that it meets its load requirements though roof top installed solar panels and installing small-scale domestic wind turbines. First the ability to meet the load requirements from solar standalone system is analyzed followed by a wind stand-alone system. Following this the feasibility analysis of a hybrid system involving solar and wind energy sources has been done. The primary objective is to minimize the cost and the components’ size of the RES system and arrive at an optimal solution to meet the load demand throughout the day. Initial Costs, the Operating cost, Net Present Cost(NPC) and Levelized Cost of Energy(COE)have been used as the basis for Cost analysis. The results in this study show that the integration of this hybrid system into the existing campus provides a cost savings of $ 3, 59,087 (2, 50, 58,634.93 ₹) NPC and $ 28,442.01 (1984805.76 ₹) operating cost when compared to the cost of grid. The above results are obtained by doing the analysis using the HOMER software.

Keywords: VIT University. Energy Consumption. Hybrid Energy system. Optimization Analysis. Homer Software.
Scope of the Article: Knowledge Modelling, Integration, Transformation, and Management