COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC, WIND, AND

HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEMS: CASE STUDY OF THAILAND

A Thesis

Presented to the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering

California State University, Sacramento

Submitted in partial satisfaction of

the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE

in

Mechanical Engineering

by

Sirajitr Komrit

SPRING
2020
 COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC, WIND, AND

HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEMS: CASE STUDY OF THAILAND

A Thesis

by

Sirajitr Komrit

Approved by:

__________________________________, Committee Chair

Professor Farshid Zabihian

__________________________________, Second Reader

Professor Troy Topping

____________________________
Date

ii
Student: Sirajitr Komrit

I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the

University format manual, and this thesis is suitable for electronic submission to the

library and credit is to be awarded for the thesis.

__________________________, Graduate Coordinator ___________________

Professor Farshid Zabihian Date

Department of Mechanical Engineering

iii
 Abstract

of

COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC, WIND, AND

HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEMS: CASE STUDY OF THAILAND

by

Sirajitr Komrit

SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, and RETScreen are used to model photovoltaic system

(PVS), wind turbine system (WTS), and PV-wind hybrid system (PVWHS) for residential

applications in Thailand. All four softwares were validated to determine their accuracy

by comparing the estimated annual energy production to the actual energy yield from the

real systems. For PVS validation, results from SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, and RETScreen

contain error of 3.61, -3.91, 5.52 and 6.90 %, respectively. For WTS validation, results

from HOMER and RETScreen has 15.68% and 18.13% deviation from the real systems’.

Simulation results from SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, and RETScreen shows that 6.6 kW PVS

and 6.051/1 kW (solar/wind) PVWHS are the economical renewable energy system in

terms of performance and energy production in Chaiyaphum with high solar and low wind

speed resources, and Sa Kaeo with high solar and wind resources, respectively.

iv
 The PVS, WTS, and PVWHS simulations were performed in different area across

Thailand; Chanthaburi, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Kanchanaburi, Ubon Ratchathani,

Samutprakan, Chiang Rai, and Maha Sarakham. HOMER optimizer feature was used and

found that only Chanthaburi with 7.7 m/s average wind speed is suitable to install

PVWHS. However, PVS is the most economical system for the rest of the locations. The

sensitivity analysis was conducted to create a most-efficient-system-type diagram with

respect to specific solar and wind resources.

v
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank Professor Farshid Zabihian from the

bottom of my heart who had helped me from the very beginning where I could not find

any thesis topic I am interested in. This thesis is the second project he advised me to

research on as he cares, has patience with his students, offers ideas and opportunities,

whenever we need. He always encourages and never gives up on his students. I can

definitely say that if it was not for him, I would not be writing this Acknowledgement

page today.

Secondly, thank you tremendously Professor Troy Topping for all of your kind

support and help since my very first day as a CSUS student from maintaining my student

status for F1 visa all the way to submitting a document on my behalf while I was out of

the state to ensure that I can graduate in time. He always be there for students who are in

need no matter how small the matter is.

Thirdly, thank you Thomas E. Jones, executive Director of Aerospace Museum

of California for providing data of photovoltaic system in Aerospace Museurm of

California to make this research possible.

Lastly, I would like to thank my friends, classmates, family for all the help and

supports. We have been through together from helping each other inside and outside of

classes, discussing ideas, inspiring one another whenever one of us is in need.

vi
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. vi

List of Tables .......................................................................................................... ix

List of Figures ......................................................................................................... xi

List of Abbreviations .............................................................................................. xiii

Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION …………………… ............................. …………………….. 1

Objectives ..................................................................................................... 2

2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................... 3

2.1 Modeling Approach ................................................................................ 3

2.2 All Renewable Energy Simulation Tools Available ................................. 6

2.3 Modeling Tools Suitable for PV System .................................................. 7

2.4 Modeling Tools Suitable for Wind & Hybrid System ............................... 9

2.5 Simulation Results from Softwares Compared to Real Systems .............. 10

2.6 System Modeling with Financial Analysis.............................................. 16

3. METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................... 18

3.1 Meteorological Database ........................................................................ 18

3.2 Load Characteristics............................................................................... 19

3.3 Building Characteristics and Appliances ................................................ 21

3.4 Utility Grid ............................................................................................ 22

3.5 Performance and Financial Parameters ................................................... 23

vii
 3.6 Software Review .................................................................................... 29

4. MODEL VALIDATION .................................................................................. 33

4.1 Model Validation for Photovoltaic System ............................................. 33

4.2 Model Validation for Wind Turbine System ........................................... 49

4.3 Model Validation for Photovoltaic Wind Hybrid System........................ 52

5. SIMULATIONS OF PHOTOVOLTAIC, WIND TURBINE, HYBRID ................

SYSTEM IN CHAIYAPHUM AND SA KAEO ............................................ 53

5.1 Photovoltaic System Simulations in Chaiyaphum ................................... 53

5.2 Wind Turbine System Simulations in Chaiyaphum ................................ 63

5.3 Photovoltaic Wind Hybrid System Simulations in Chaiyaphum ............. 67

5.4 Photovoltaic, Wind, Hybrid Systems Simulations in Sa Kaeo ................. 68

6. SIMULATIONS FOR 7 LOCATIONS ACROSS THAILAND ........................ 73

6.1 Determining the Most Optimized System for Each Location .................. 73

6.2 Identifying the Most Efficient System Type with Optimal Chart ............ 80

7. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 83

Appendix A. Electricity Bills of Residential Property in Thailand ........................... 85

Appendix B. Specification Sheets of Components ................................................. 87

Appendix C. Screenshots of Results from HOMER ............................................... 91

Reference ............................................................................................................... 94

viii
 LIST OF TABLES
Tables Page

1. Software summary from literature review ..... .………………………………. 14

2. Monthly load of a residential house in Thailand .……………………………. 20

3. Devices and daily energy usage .………….…………………………………. 21

4. Information of electric bills data of Aerospace museum of California………. 36

5. Input parameters for PVS simulations ................... …………………………. 37

6. Monthly demand and peak load of Aerospace Museum of California ..... ……37

7. Comparison of energy production from a real system and 4 softwares.. …… 44

8. Monthly energy deviation compared to the reference system …….……… ... 45

9. Results from HOMER and RETScreen in comparison to reference system…. 51

10. Optimization results for PVS from HOMER .................................................. 59

11. List of optimized tilt angles for lowest CoE ................................................... 59

12. Input parameters for PVS simulations in Chaiyaphum ………………………60

13. Performance and financial simulation results from 4 softwares………………61

14. A comparison of financial parameters to AEC solar system ......……………. 62

15. WTS optimization results from HOMER ....................................................... 66

16. Simulation results from HOMER for PVS, WTS, PVWHS .......……………. 67

17. Outputs of several system configurations from HOMER sensitivity feature ... 71

18. Payback period of PVWHS#3 according to demand load ............................... 72

19. Geographic information of all 7 locations in different regions ……… ...... … 75

20. Optimization results via HOMER for Chanthaburi ...... ………………………75

ix
21. Optimization results via HOMER for Nakhon Si Thammarat ......................... 76

22. Optimization results via HOMER for Kanchanaburi ...................................... 76

23. Optimization results via HOMER for Ubon Ratchathani ................................ 77

24. Optimization results via HOMER for Samutprakan........................................ 77

25. Optimization results via HOMER for Chaing Rai .......................................... 77

26. Optimization results via HOMER for Maha Sarakham ................................... 78

27. A summary table showing the optimized system for each location ..... ………78

28. Initial capital cost of each component in 7 cities ............................................ 80

x
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figures Page

1. GHI data from NSRDB in hourly scale in SAM .................................................2

2. Monthly residential load from January, 2018 to March 2019 ..............................2

3. Average daily load profile in hourly scale ..........................................................2

4. 177.8 kW PV system on the roof of Aerospace Museum of California ...............2

5. PV system configuration of Aerospace Museum of California ...........................2

6. Simulation outputs from SAM ...........................................................................2

7. System configuration inputs for PVsyst .............................................................2

8. Simulation outputs from PVsyst .........................................................................2

9. Monthly energy production estimated via PVsyst...............................................2

10. Monthly energy production estimated via HelioScope........................................2

11. System designed in Helioscope and hourly energy production via HOMER .......2

12. Input page of PV system in RETScreen .............................................................2

13. Monthly energy production via RETScreen .......................................................2

14. Full year average cloud coverage of Sacramento ................................................2

15. Precipitation chance of Sacramento with February being the highest ..................2

16. Monthly deviations in chart format of SAM, PVsyst, HOMER and

RETScreen ........................................................................................................2

17. Location of the wind farm and average wind speed at 65 meters [48] .................2

18. Power curve of wind turbine of the reference system [48] ..................................2

19. Average annual GHI from NASA database in Chaiyaphum ...............................2

xi
20. Effect of degradation rate of 0.5% on inverter over years from SAM .................2

21. Hourly power output via HOMER .....................................................................2

22. Monthly average wind speed in Chaiyaphum, Thailand .....................................2

23. Power curve of 1000W F-1000M5 Max Power turbine [51] ...............................2

24. An error shown when input insufficient wind speed in RETScreen ....................2

25. Average monthly GHI data from NASA of Sa Kaeo ..........................................2

26. Average monthly wind speed from NASA of Sa Kaeo .......................................2

27. Location of each province in Thailand ...............................................................2

28. Optimal chart for the optimized system type according to solar insulation and

wind speed .........................................................................................................2

xii
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

SAM System Advisor Manager

HOMER Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables

RETScreen Renewable-energy and Energy-efficiency Technology Screening

software

PVS Photovoltaic system

WTS Wind turbine system

PVWHS Photovoltaic wind hybrid system

GHI Global horizontal irradiance

NREL National Renewable Energy Laboratory

NSRDB National solar Radiation Data Base

KTOE Kilotonne of Oil Equivalent

GHGs Greenhouse Gases

LPSP Loss of power supply probability

NPC Net Present Cost

CoE Levelized Cost of Energy

CUF Capacity Utilization Factor

PR Performance Ratio

CRF Capital Recovery Factor

VMPP Maximum Power Point Voltage

IMPP Maximum Power Point Current

MPPT Maximum Power Point Tracking

xiii
 1

Chapter 1

Introduction

In 2015, Ministry of Energy of Thailand has announced a new policy to raise the

capacity of renewable energy resources to cope with the increasing energy demand. The

Department of Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency set a roadmap from 2015-

2036 for the country to achieve 30% renewables generation. The total renewables

generation is planned to increase to 39.4 KTOE of 131 KTOE total energy consumption

from electricity, heat and biofuels, while reducing the GHGs emission by 25% [1]. The

2036 goal demands that the new capacity of renewable energy will raise from 7,279 MW

capacity in 2014 to 19,635 kW [2]. The potential renewable resources in Thailand are

biomass, biogas, hydro, wind, and solar. However, the department planned to increase the

capacity of all renewable resources but emphasized on wind and solar energy because total

solar capacity will increase from 1,570 MW in 2014 to 6,000 MW, and wind energy will

be raised from 615 MW in 2017 to 3,000 MW in 2036 as the total alternative energy

capacity of Thailand in 2014 was 7,279 MW, and is planned to raise to 19,635 MW in 2036

[3]. Thailand currently has several large solar and wind farms and currently planning to

build a 2.7 GW of 16 floating solar plants on nine hydroelectric dam reservoirs [4].

Therefore, this research is intended to increase capacity of solar and wind energy

to support the policy by modeling PV systems (PVS), wind turbine systems (WTS), and

PV wind-hybrid systems (PVWHS) to identify which system is the most suitable system
 2

in terms of performance and system cost for several locations throughout Thailand.

Renewable energy simulation softwares such as SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, and RETScreen

will be used to model the systems. Before fully utilizing softwares, the models need to be

validated and determined their accuracy by comparing simulation results to outputs of a

real system. Once the models are verified, a simulation model will be developed to answer

the question that which type of system––PVS, WTS, or PVWHS, is best to invest on for a

location with certain solar irradiation and wind speed.

Objectives

1. To identify the capabilities of simulation softwares and learn about their advantages

and disadvantages of SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, and RETScreen and use their potentials

to simulate systems for residential applications in Thailand.

2. To validate and verify the accuracy of SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, and RETScreen in PVS

and WTS simulations and determine if a software is reliable to use to predict

performance and financial outputs of renewable energy systems.

3. To develop a model to estimate energy production, and financial parameters of, WTS,

and PVWHS installed in the same location and determine the most efficient system of

the three.
 3

Chapter 2

Literature review

The literature review of this paper is divided into six parts: Modeling approaches,

all available renewable energy tools, modeling tools suitable for PV stand-alone

simulation, modeling tools suitable for wind & hybrid system, accuracy of softwares

compared to results from real systems, and system modeling with financial analysis. The

first section explains all the possible methods for modeling renewable energy systems. The

second section focuses primarily on all software available for renewable energy modeling

software. The third and fourth sections revolve around softwares dedicatedly developed for

PV, wind, and solar-wind hybrid systems. The fifth section describes the comparison of

software when used to predict an actual system. The sixth section is system modellings

with financial parameters.

2.1 Modeling Approach

Vikas Khare et al. [5, p. 1] reviewed various techniques and softwares that can be

used to model, PVWHS for feasibility, performance, economical analysis, optimization.

The methods included analytical method with mathematical model, linear programming,

loss of power supply probability (LPSP), numerical algorithm, MATLAB Simulink,

HOMER software, LINDO software, and fuzzy logic. For the LPSP technique, two
 4

methods can be used for modeling solar wind hybrid application, which are chronological

based and probabilistic techniques.

Yang Hongxing et al. [6, p. 2] used LPSP approach based on chronological simulation to

model hybrid system for a telecommunication station with 1500W demand load on a

remote island in south east coast of China with lowest annualized system cost. Out of 10

simulations, the system with lowest % of LPSP, the most financial system with lowest loss

of power supply probability, was found to be 1.98 for the location. The system consisted

of 114 PV panels with one 6 kW wind turbine, and 10 GFW-1000 lead-acid batteries. The

minimum annualized cost was found to be $9708 and annual energy yield of 1.76 kW.

However, the method contains a large computation work load as drawbacks of the method.

W.D. Kellogg et al. [7] used a simple numerical algorithm to size and determine

the optimum system of PVWHS, for residential applications in remote area in Montana

and stated that the solar wind hybrid system provides more reliable energy production.

Salwan S. and K. Sopian [7] used MATLAB to simulate a hybrid system for energy

production estimation at three cities in Iraq namely Basrah, Mosul, and Baghdad. Solar

irradiation, wind speed data and specification sheets of PV module and wind turbine were

required as input parameters. The system capacity was 6 kW consisting of 5 kW solar

panels and 1 kW wind turbine. The estimated energy production of the 6 kW system in

three cities were found to be 8787, 8597, and 7553 kWh from PV modules, and 620, 607,

and 617 kWh from wind power, respectively.

 5

Sathyajith Mathew’s [8] research shows an estimation of energy yield of a wind

stand-alone system in several sites in India using Rayleigh distribution method to derive

wind velocity in terms of probability density and cumulative functions. The results showed

that the system provided 6.02 kWh/m2/month on average in Trivandrum, 20.12

kWh/m2/month in Aleppy, 60.69 kWh/m2/month in Idukki. Tsang J. et al. [9] also

employed Rayleigh and Weibull wind speed distribution to estimate performance of wind

systems in Taiwan and obtained availability factor ranged between 0.794 and 0.929, turbine

efficiency of 0.246 to 0.290, and capacity factor of 0.450 to 0.642 for a year for a station

in Lanyu.

Tao Ma et al. [10] used HOMER software to perform a feasibility analysis of an

off-grid solar-wind hybrid system for a remote island in Hong Kong. Using thousands of

simulations, the author found that the most optimized system consists of 145 kW PV

modules generating 177,882 kWh annual energy yield, 10.4 kW wind turbine generating

29,584 kWh per year, and 144 batteries with 6 strings in parallel. The net present cost

(NPC), the total present value of the capital cost and operating cost of the system during

its life cycle, and Cost of Energy (CoE) were $693,114 and $0.595/kWh, respectively.

However, the energy of 100,883 kWh was wasted due to the system being off grid and

different timing of using and generating electricity.

According to all reviews above, it is known that many methods involves heavy

calculation such as LPSP, numerical algorithm, and Rayleigh distribution for modeling,

and can contain some error due to using estimation, assumptions to derive simple formula
 6

of complex equations, or to reduce computational work. MATLAB is a potential tool to

estimate performance of a renewable energy system. However, one of the disadvantages is

that MATLAB and most of the methods described except for LPSP and HOMER need the

system size as input parameters and therefore cannot perform optimization or sensitivity

analysis when the system size is unknown.

On the other hand, using software dedicatedly developed for modeling renewable

energy system such as HOMER can reduce the calculation workload by more than half,

and can perform both energy and economical analysis with optimization and sensitivity

analysis features. Therefore, in this paper, renewable energy software-based methods will

be used for modeling renewable energy system in Thailand.

2.2 All Renewable Energy Simulation Tools Available

D. Connolly et al. [11] reviewed initially 68 tools of renewable energy simulation

tools namely AEOLIUS, BALMOREL, BCHP Screening Tool, COMPOSE, E 4cast,

EMCAS, EMINENT, EMP, EnergyPLAN, energyPRO, ENPEP-BALANCE, GTMax,

H2RES, HOMER, HYDROGEMS, IKARUS, INFORSE, Invert, LEAP,

MARKAL/TIMES, MESAP PlaNet, MESSAGE, MiniCAM, NEMS, ORCED,

PERSEUS, PRIMES, ProdRisk, RAMSES, RETScreen, SimREN, SIVAEL, STREAM,

TRNSYS16, UniSyD3.0, WASP, WILMAR Planning Tool, BESOM, CEEM, CEPEL,

CHP capacity optimizer, CHPSizer, CO2BD, DER-CAM, DIMES, DREAM , E3database,

EFOM, Elfin, Endur, GmbH, GREET, H2A analysis, HUD CHP Screening Tool,
 7

HyDIVE, HYPRO, HyTrans, MENSA, MOREHyS, NESSIE, PSAT, PSR, Ready

Reckoner, Samplan, SEDS, SGM, TESOM, UREM. However, only the first 37 of them,

(up to WILMAR Planning Tool) were studied and analyzed in detail. The paper provided

background information, number of users using the software, tool properties, applications,

case studies, as well as each software’s strong points in performing simulations in various

fields and applications of renewable energy systems. For example, BCHP Screening Tool,

HOMER, HYDROGEMS, and TRANSYS16 tools prioritize in focusing on stand-alone

renewable energy systems: single-buildings, rural areas, single-project applications, while

other softwares such as energyPro, WASP, ProdRisk, and EMPS primarily focus on

electricity related applications such as power plant, combined heat and power (CHP)

facility. The rest includes the heat, transport sector in addition to their electricity sector

applications. For instance, district heating simulations can be performed using

BALMOREL, RAMSES, SIVAEL. Due to each software having different simulation

capabilities such as scenario time frame, optimization methods, each of them is also

specialized in performing simulations for different sources of energy: solar thermal, PV,

wind, wave, solar thermal, and geothermal. According to the research, only a few of them

are appropriate to be used as a modeling tool for solar-wind hybrid system applications.

According to the author, there are currently a large number of softwares for all types

of renewable energy system modeling. Hence, we are interested in finding the softwares

that are specialized in modeling grid-connected PV, wind, and solar-wind hybrid systems

for our study in Thailand.

 8

2.3 Modeling Tools Suitable for PV System

ahendra Lalwani et al. [12] studied 12 PV simulation software for photovoltaic

applications: RETScreen, TRANSYS, HOMER, INSEL, PV F-Chart, NREL Solar Advisor

Model (SAM), PVsyst, SolarDesignTool, ESP-r 11.5, SolarPro, PV DesignPro-G, and

PV*SOL Expert. The evaluation of each software in this research was based on the

following five criteria: 1. commercial availability and cost, 2. working platform, 3.

working capacities, 4. scopes and outputs, and 5. updatability of each software. The study

reported that each software can provide reliable results depending on the purpose of their

use. For instance, PV*SOL Expert can model a 3D visualization of photovoltaic modules

with 3D shading objects. SAM and RETScreen have a financial model to estimated total

direct and indirect capital cost. However, for the license cost of each software, only

RETScreen, HOMER, SAM, and ESP-r 11.5 can be use publicly free of charge. As of

2018, PVsyst is now available worldwide for users but HOMER is no longer giving free

access to the software. As of February 2020, PVsyst and HOMER only gives 30-day free

trial for public users.

According to Najibhamisu U. et al. [13] study, the performance of 10 simulation

software was investigated namely SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, PV*SOL, RETScreen, Solarius

PV, Helioscope, Solar Pro, SOLARGIS and PV- F-chart. The author created a 1 MW grid-

connected PV solar power plant model via 10 softwares and compared with actual energy

production of a 1 MW power plant on Sharda University, Uttar Pradesh, India. The

performance ratio (PR)–––a ratio of real energy outputs to maximum energy outputs
 9

theoretically, was used to as the parameter to compared the accuracy of each software. The

PR measured of the power plant and found to be 0.7737. Then the author used the energy

production of the real system and results from HOMER, Solarius PV, SOLARGIS, SAM,

PV F-Chart, PVsyst, and RETScreen as theoretical values to find PR of each system for

comparison purposes. The performance ratios were from each software were found to be

0.7897, 0.7798, 0.7602, 0.7576, 0.7854, 0.7990, and 0.8236, respectively. Najibhamisu

concluded that HOMER, Solarius PV, SOLARGIS, SAM and PV F-Chart were the best

modeling tools for power plant simulations on Sharda University, India. Moreover,

HOMER, SAM and PVsyst were found to be the most time efficient software to perform

multiple analyses and were most widely used tools out of 10 softwares.

2.4 Modeling Tools Suitable for Wind & Hybrid System

In 2014, Sunanda S. [14] performed a research on several aspects of 19 hybrid

renewable energy system simulation softwares such as analysis type (economical,

technical, and emission), availability, latest version, working platform, and capabilities of

simulating PV, wind, hydro, thermal systems. The 19 studied softwares were HOMER,

HYBRID 2, RETScreen, iHOGA, INSEL, TRNSYS, iGRHYSO, HYBRIDS, RAPSIM,

SOMES, SOLSTOR, HySim, HybSim, IPSYS, HySys, Dymola/Modelica, ARES,

SOLSIM, and HYBRID DESIGNER. According to the paper, the availability of many

softwares were unknown and not available at the time of writing, and only HOMER,

RETScreen, HYBRID 2, iHOGA were still available and free to use for public users.
 10

However, HYBRID 2 is not compatible with Microsoft Window platforms later than XP

and cannot perform economical analysis. iHOGA free educational version has some

limitations and does not include sensitivity analysis feature, which leaves HOMER and

RETScreen the most suitable software for hybrid renewable software simulations with free

access.

Taking all information from the reviews into consideration, several of the softwares

listed above are out of date and most of them do not give free access for all users or have

very expensive license for study purposes. Software with free access are: HYBRID 2, and

RETScreen; non-free softwares are: HOMER, iHOGA, INSEL, TRNSYS, andiGRYSO;

Status unknown/ not available software are: HYBRIDS, RAPSIM, SOMES, SOLSTOR,

Hysim, Hybsim, IPSYS, HYSYS, Dymola/modelica, ARES, SOLSIM, and Hybrid

Designer.

However, HOMER’s annual license cost for student edition is 6 $/month [15],

while the others are considerably more expensive. For example, TRNSYS starting kit costs

$2530 for 10 user licenses in educational edition, which cannot be purchased individually

[16].

Therefore, there are only four software left that meet this research interests and are

chosen as the main tools for this project for simulation of PV and solar wind hybrid

systems. The four softwares are SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, and RETScreen due to their

capabilities with special focuses on PV and wind systems in both performance and financial

analysis, and affordable license cost.

 11

2.5 Simulation Results from Softwares Compared to Real Systems

T. Gurupira and A.J. Rix [17] assessed three PV simulation software namely

PVsyst, SAM and PVLib. The softwares were used to model 75MWplant at Kalkbult in

Northern Cape Province of South Africa. The results were compared to the actual power

produced by the plant in 2014 and PVsyst provided the highest accuracy of power

production compared to the actual yield with 3.37% difference, while SAM and PVLib has

3.86% and 5.07% difference respectively. However, the author concluded that SAM is

more user-friendly and has more modelling flexibility as well as a wide range of reporting

and analysis options.

Gerd B. et al. [18] used PVsyst and PVsol to estimate the energy yield of 3 small

PV systems of 1.1kWp PV with different tilt angle of 30 °, 45°, 60° on New Trade Fair

Centre in Munich. Both softwares convey relatively accurate results with 7.1, 6.5, and 7.0%

deviation when comparing to the actual energy yield from the site with 3 systems

respectively. The author added that the sources of errors may come from the overly

assumed degradation rate for 10%.

Comparing the result from Gerd and Najibhamisu [13], it can be seen that there is

only 1.5% deviation from PVsyst from Gerd, where the result from Gerb has errors from

6.5 to 7.1% [18]. The cause of the error or the relations between the two results are

unknown as each author provided different input parameters, and use different comparing

parameters, performance ratio and annual energy production respectively.

 12

To be honest, I am sorry to say that I have no idea since they did not provide other

info except inputs, methods, and then just gave the result and no other clue, sir. They are

all simulation results, which are subjected to certain amount of error.

Malvoni M. [19] investigated the performance a real PV system on southern Italy

over 43 months using SAM and PVsyst. The performance ratio and capacity factor of the

plant were 84.4% and 15.6% respectively. The results showed that yearly average energy

injected into the grid contained - 3%, -3.3% NMBE (Normalized Mean Bias Error), an

indicator showing if the model over or under estimates results, when performed by SAM,

and PVsyst respectively. Malvoni concludes that both softwares have similar performance

in overall. However, PVsyst outperformed SAM due to having more parameters and

settings regarding to engineering perspectives.

B. Shiva Kumar and K. Sudhakar [20] performed a detailed analysis of 10 MW

photovoltaic grid connected power plant at Ramagundam, India using PVsyst and PV-GIS

as the simulation softwares. The monitored result of annual energy production in 2014 was

found to be 15,605 MWh. The simulated result from PVsyst and Solar GIS were 16,047

and 16,403 respectively.

Apeksha Gupta et al. [21] employed PV*SOL, RETScreen, and HOMER as a

validation software as a prototype to model and achieve zero-carbon buildings in UK by

2019. All software including the prototype used a 2.45kWp system as a reference case

study from June 2011 to May 2012 using NASA SSE database. The results showed that

comparing to the actual energy production, simulation tools RETScreen, HOMER, and
 13

PV*SOL overestimated the annual energy yield by 9.1%, 8.4% and 4.3% respectively

compared to the actual yield. The authors stated that the over estimation may come from

values from NASA SSE database since the solar radiation data was not monitored on site.

Govindasamy Tamizh-Mani et al. [22] evaluated six software models: PV Watts,

PVsyst, MAUI, Clean Power Estimator, SAM and RETScreen by comparing predicted

kWhAC/kWDC in monthly, seasonal, and annual scale to field data from 23 PV systems in

Phoenix metropolitan, Arizona. The results indicated that PVsyst consistently overpredicts

the annual yield with maximum error of 22% when compared to results from the meter

data, while the rest contained at maximum of 15% deviation of annual energy production,

while the maximum deviation for seasonal yield is found to be 31%.

Akash Kumar Shukla et al. [23] studied a 110 kWp PV system of a hostel building

in MANIT, Bhopal, M.P, India and performed simulation using Sunny Design, SAM, and

BlueSol to predict the system’s energy output. The report showed that the annual energy

production from SAM, Sunny Design, and BlueSol, were 177.52, 186.58, and 190.1 MWh,

respectively. Akash concluded that it is important for any PV designer to select appropriate

software to avoid significant differences in the predicted energy output.

According to this section, most of the energy yield predicted by modeling softwares

and real energy production contain deviation from 3% to 15% for annual energy

production. Some known inputs causing this error are from estimated inputs which are not

easy or practical to measure such as degradation rate, and meteorological data from

downloadable weather databases, which has deviation by default when compared to

 14

monitored or recorded database on site. The weather data from online databases was

calculated by using the extraterrestrial irradiance and multiplied by averaged clearness

index (clearness of atmosphere), which the clearness index number changes daily

depending on weather conditions such as raining, cloudy, or clear sky. Therefore, the

annual energy estimations from softwares will contain error to a certain degree.

However, according to Govindasamy T. [22], the predicted yield from a system in

Phoenix, Arizona via PVsyst containing error of 22% is relatively high and raises concerns

to our study because this research also uses PVsyst as one the major tools for this project’s

simulation in Thailand. Therefore, the model validation is of essence before using the

model for real applications. Table 1. below shows the summary of parameters reviewed

from each paper and software used.

 15

Table 1. Software summary from literature review

Parameters Reviewed
Literature Estimated
Software Used Type of Model Analysis of
License Annual GHG Cost
Review Availability Software PR η Loss
Cost Energy Emission Analysis
Performance
Production
HOMER,
[11] RETScreen, and PVS, PVWHS - Yes Yes - - - - - -
35 more
SAM,
RETScreen,
HOMER, PV F-
[12] Chart, Pvsyst, PVS Yes Yes Yes - - - - - -
INSEL, ESP-r
11.5, PV*SOL
Expert
SAM, PVLib,
[17] PVS - - - Yes - - - - -
Pvsyst
HOMER,
Hybrid2,
[14] RETScreen, PVWHS - Yes Yes Yes - Yes - - -
ARES and 15
more
SAM, PVGIS,
PV Watts,
[24] PVS Yes - Yes - - Yes - - -
Pvsyst,
PV*SOL Expert
Pvsyst,
[18] PVS - - - Yes - - - - -
PV*SOL Expert
SAM,
RETScreen,
[13] PVWHS - Yes Yes - Yes - - - -
HOMER, PV F-
Chart, Pvsyst
[19] SAM, Pvsyst PVS - - - Yes Yes - Yes Yes -
 16

Parameters Reviewed
Literature Type of
Software Used License Performance & Energy GHG Cost
Review Model Availability PR η Loss
Cost Scope Production Emission Analysis
PVS with
[25] Pvsyst Tracking - - - Yes - - - - -
System

[20] PVGIS, Pvsyst PVS - - Yes Yes Yes - Yes Yes -

RETScreen,
HOMER,
[21] PVS - - - Yes - - - - -
PV*SOL
Expert
RETScreen,
PV Watts,
[22] PVS - - - Yes - - - - -
Clean Power,
Pvsyst
SAM, Sunny
[23] Design, PVS - - - Yes - - - - Yes
BlueSol
HOMER,
[26] PVWHS - - - Yes - - - - Yes
RETScreen
HOMER,
[27] HYBRIDS, PVWHS - - Yes - - - - - -
HOGA

[28] HOMER PVWHS - - - Yes - Yes - - Yes

[29] HOMER PVWHS - - - Yes - - - - Yes

[30] HOMER PVWHS - - - Yes - - - - Yes

[31] HOMER PVS - - - Yes - Yes - - Yes

 17

2.6 System Modeling with Financial Analysis

Geetha Udayakanthi [28] designed a PVWHS system using HOMER optimizer in

Hambantota district, Southern Sri Lanka, and found that the most economical system,

obtained utilizing sensitivity analysis feature in HOMER, for this location was composed

of 1 MW PV panels and 8 wind turbines with power of 850 kW. The system was designed

to satisfied the average load demand of 3 MW to the grid, which 5 GWh (25% total energy

production) is from solar panels, and 15.27 GWh (75%) from wind turbines. The CoE and

NPC were found to be $0.129/kWh and $35.04 million, respectively.

Navita Khatri et al. [29] studied solar, wind, and hybrid solar-wind system using

HOMER for an off-grid system to find the most economical system for Indore region,

India. The NPCs of solar, wind, and hybrid systems were $82,082, $83,432, and $80,365,

and CoE of 0.884, 2.036, and 0.821 $/kWh, respectively. The author concluded that hybrid

of solar and wind system is the most economical system for Indore region in India

according to its solar irradiation and average wind speed.

Getachew Bekele and Bjorn Palm [30] studied modeling of an off-grid solar-wind-

diesel hybrid system using HOMER in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Two optimized systems

were simulated to obtain renewable fractions, the fraction of the energy delivered to the

grid to total load drawn from the grid, of 51% and 81%. The former system with 5 kW

solar and 20 kW wind turbine were estimated to have NPC and CoE $239,756 and 0.383

$/kWh, respectively. The latter system consists of 20 kW solar and 20 kW wind turbine,

which its NPC and CoE were $289,942 and 0.464 $/kWh, respectively. Both systems have

a 44-kW generator in addition to the solar and wind parts.

 18

According to all the literature reviews, although SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, and

RETScreen are powerful modeling tools, the results will always have some errors when

compared to the real system. Therefore, the very first objective of this thesis is to validate

the accuracy of each model by comparing the simulated results with real systems before

utilizing results.

Once the models are verified, they will be used to simulate PVS, WTS, and

PVWHS on 7 locations for each region of Thailand (North, middle Northeast, lower

Northeast, East, South, West and Central) to determine the most suitable system with

energy production, cost of energy, net present cost, and payback period for each location

specifically.
 19

Chapter 3

Methodology

3.1 Meteorological Database

Many meteorological databases containing many input parameters for photovoltaic

system and wind turbine modeling are readily available online for instance, CMSAF [32],

EnMetSol [33]. HelopClim-3 [34], [35], meteonorm [36], NASA Surface meteorology and

Solar Energy (NASA SSE) [37], National Solar Radiation Data Base (NSRDB) [38],

PVGIS CM-SAF [39], SolarGIS etc. [40].

For this project, the main meteorological databases used for our simulations are

NASA SSE and NSRDB as both databases were tested and compared with meteorological

data from ground stations [41, p. 3]. NASA and NSRDB provide data globally for solar

radiation parameters including the region of Thailand, where some of databases only

provide data regionally for Europe, Africa, America, or Asia. For wind resource data,

NASA provides data globally, while NSRDB has data for U.S. and only some regions e.g.

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Central Asia, India, Kenya Mexico. However, NASA database

is more focused on solar and wind resources and has numerous parameters for weather

conditions, for example, daylight cloud amount, precipitation, humidity at 2 meters, while

NSRDB provides data resource data for several renewables such as Biomass, Geothermal,

Hydrogen, and most of the data are available for U.S. only.
 20

From software standpoint, SAM, PVsyst, HOMER and RETScreen can directly

download weather data set from either or both of the databases online. The main parameters

used for simulations for example are global, beam, and diffuse irradiation and wind speed.

SAM uses weather data from NSRDB; HOMER and RETScreen use weather data from

NASA for simulation, where PVsyst can use weather database from NASA and NSRDB

as PVsyst has both of them in its weather data set. Although the data from NASA and

NSRDB are averaged data, they also offer data in hourly, daily, and monthly scales

downloaded and displayed in SAM as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 GHI data from NSRDB in hourly scale from SAM

3.2 Load Characteristics

The load types used in this project are both commercial and residential, which are

obtained from electric bills. The commercial electricity bills from the Aerospace Museum

of California will be used for model validation as reference energy output from February

3rd 2018 to February 4th 2019. For renewable energy systems simulation in Thailand, we

are interesting interested in modeling renewable energy systems for medium electricity
 21

usage residential properties ranged between 700-1000 kWh per month as it takes longer

period of time to return the investment for a relatively smaller system installed in low

energy consumption properties, 100-500 kWh. The electricity bills of a sample house in

Thailand are used as the reference load for residential houses, which can be seen in

Appendix A. Table 2. below shows a summary of electrical load of a residential house in

Thailand from January 8th 2018 to March 8th 2019.

Table 2: Monthly load of a residential house in Thailand

Date (D/M/Y) Load (kWh) Date (D/M/Y) Load (kWh)

8/1/2018 710 8/9/2018 874

8/2/2018 729 8/10/2018 780
8/3/2018 710 8/11/2018 838
8/4/2018 929 8/12/2018 857
8/5/2018 915 8/1/2019 889
8/6/2018 877 8/2/2019 971
8/7/2018 794 8/3/2019 931
8/8/2018 926 Average Load 848.67

Figure 2 Monthly residential load from January, 2018 to March 2019

 22

Figure 3 Average daily load profile in hourly scale

3.3 Building Characteristics and Appliances

The purposed building type to install the renewable system is a grid-tied property

for 3-4 family members such as 2-story houses with 4 bedrooms, and 5 bathrooms, which

are also suitable to install PV modules roof mounting system to avoid shading. Solar panels

can be installed either on the ground or mounted on the roof. The devices and appliances

with number of hours used per day for a typical 2-story house are shown in Table 3.

Table 3 Devices and daily energy usage

Watt Hours /
Devices Quantity Wattage Hours per Day
day
PC Monitor 1 30 6 180
Computer tower 1 200 6 1200
Television 1 133 3 399
DC Lights 8 13 8 832
Outdoor Lights 4 17 10 680
Dining Chandelier 1 200 1 200
DC Fans 2 15.6 1.5 46.8
Ceiling fan 1 95 2 190
 23

Home AC 2 900 8 14400

Coffee Maker 1 900 0.2 180
Microwave 1 850 0.1 85
Hair dryer 1 1800 0.2 360
Refrigerator 1 300 24 7200
Internet Router 1 15 24 360
Iron 1 1800 0.5 900
Water Heater 2 3500 0.3 2100
Water Pump 1 220 2 440
Total 29,752.8

3.4 Utility Grid

In March 18, 2019, Energy Regulatory Commission of Thailand announced the

new electricity purchase and selling rate for residential renewable applications, which is

1.68 ฿/kWh (0.054 $/kWh) respectively [42]. The maximum amount of electricity that can

be sold back to the grid is 100 MWh in 10 years, and the system size must not exceed 10

kWp in order to register and obtain this selling rate. Therefore, this study will use the selling

rate of ฿ 1.68 as input for modeling, and the system size will not be greater than 10 kWp.

On the other hand, the price of electricity purchasing from utility in Thailand is

4.24 ฿/kWh (0.13 $/kWh). Therefore, the modeling goal is to use SAM, PVsyst, HOMER,

and RETScreen to simulate a system that can minimize the overall cost or maximize the

profit by reducing the amount of electricity purchased from the grid, and not over

generating as the electricity selling rate is much lower than the purchase rate.
 24

3.5 Performance and Financial Parameters

In this section, the definitions of each parameter and the equation that the softwares

use to obtain desirable parameters for both energy and financial analysis are presented. For

energy analysis, array yield, final yield, reference yield, capacity utilization factor (CUF),

system efficiency, performance ratio (PR), degradation rate will be covered. For financial

analysis, operating cost, net present cost, levelized cost of energy, and life cycle cost will

be covered.

3.5.1 Energy generated by PV system.

The total energy generated can be classified in daily, monthly, and yearly scales.

The alternating current (AC) generated over a given period of time can be defined as
24

𝐸(𝐴𝐶,𝑑) = ∑ 𝐸(𝐴𝐶,ℎ) ,
ℎ=1

𝐸(𝐴𝐶,𝑚) = ∑ 𝐸(𝐴𝐶,𝑑) ,
𝑑=1

12

𝐸(𝐴𝐶,𝑦) = ∑ 𝐸(𝐴𝐶,𝑚) ,
𝑚=1

where 𝐸(𝐴𝐶,ℎ) , 𝐸(𝐴𝐶,𝑑) , 𝐸(𝐴𝐶,𝑚), 𝐸(𝐴𝐶,𝑦) is the total AC energy output generated by the

system in one hour, one day, one month, and one year in kWh, respectively.
 25

3.5.2 Array Yield (YA)

The definition of the array yield is the ratio of direct current (DC) energy output

from an array over a particular period (daily, monthly, or yearly) to its rated PV array

power, also called nameplate capacity. In other words, the array yield is the time which a

PV array operated and generated AC energy at its nominal power, and is defined as

𝐸𝐷𝐶
𝑌𝐴 =
𝑃𝑃𝑉,𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑

where 𝐸𝐷𝐶 is the total DC output from an array in kWh

𝑃𝑃𝑉,𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 is the rated output power of the PV array or system (kWp)

3.5.3 Final Yield (YF)

The final yield is defined the ratio of alternating current (AC) energy output from

an array over a particular period to its rated PV array power. The final yield has the similar

equation and principle as Array Yield. The only difference is that Final Yield focuses on

AC energy output from the inverter, whereas Array Yield focuses DC energy output

directly from a PV system the equation, and is given by

𝐸𝐴𝐶
𝑌𝐹 =
𝑃𝑃𝑉,𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑

where 𝐸𝐴𝐶 is the total AC output from an array in kWh

𝑃𝑃𝑉,𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 is the rated output power of the PV array or system (kWp)

 26

3.5.4 Reference Yield (YR)

The reference yield is the ratio of total in-plane solar irradiation to the reference

irradiation at standard test conditions (STC) [43]. Reference yield indicates a number of

hours that the PV system operated at the reference irradiance and is given by

𝑆𝑅
𝑌𝑅 =
𝐻𝑅

where 𝑆𝑅 is the total in-plane solar irradiance on an array plane (kWh/m2)

𝐻𝑅 is the array reference irradiance at STC (1 kW/m2)

3.5.5 Performance Ratio (PR)

The performance ratio (PR) is the ratio of the final yield (YF) of the PV array to the

reference yield (YR). the performance ratio represents the percentage of actual energy

output generated by PV array compared to the theoretical energy output of the system.

𝑌𝐹
𝑃𝑅 =
𝑌𝑅

3.5.6 Degradation Rate (RD)

the degradation rate is the natural deterioration over time of the PV arrays and other

components in the system which impedes the system’s performance to operate within the

standard conditions compared to when the system was first installed and used degradation

rate is given by

𝐼𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑅 − 𝐶𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑃𝑅
𝑅𝐷 =
𝐼𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑃𝑅
 27

3.5.7 Capacity Utilization Factor (CUF)

The capacity utilization factor (CUF) is the ratio of actual AC energy generated

over a year by the PV array to the ideal energy that the PV array would have generated if

the system had operated at full power for 24 hours throughout the year, and is given by

𝐸𝐴𝐶
𝐶𝑈𝐹 = × 100%
𝑃𝑃𝑉,𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 × (365 × 24)

3.5.8 PV Module Efficiency

The PV module efficiency is the ratio of DC energy generated by the PV array to

the in-plane solar irradiation on the total PV module area multiplied with the total PV

module area, and can be determined by

𝐸𝐷𝐶
η𝑃𝑉 = × 100%
𝑆𝑅 𝐴𝑃𝑉

where 𝐴𝑃𝑉 is the total area of PV module (m2)

3.5.9 PV System Efficiency

Similarly, the PV system efficiency shares the same definition as PV module

efficiency. The difference is that PV system efficiency uses AC energy output in its

equation, and is calculated by

𝐸𝐴𝐶
η𝑃𝑉 = × 100%
𝑆𝑅 𝐴𝑃𝑉
 28

3.5.10 Net Present Cost

The net present cost is defined as the ratio of the total annualized cost to the capital

recovery factor (CRF) [44]. It represents the total present value of the capital cost and

operating cost of the system including electricity purchased from the utility for a grid-tied

system over its life cycle, and it is given by

𝐶𝑎𝑛𝑛,𝑡𝑜𝑡
𝐶𝑁𝑃𝐶 =
𝐶𝑅𝐹(𝑖, 𝑁)

𝑖(1 + 𝑖)𝑁
𝐶𝑅𝐹(𝑖, 𝑁) =
(1 − 𝑖)𝑁 − 1

where 𝐶𝑎𝑛𝑛,𝑡𝑜𝑡 is the total annualized cost ($/year)

𝐶𝑅𝐹(𝑖, 𝑁) is the ratio used to calculate the present value of a series of equal

annual cash flows, 𝑖 is the real interest rate (%), 𝑁 is the project

lifetime (in year)

3.5.11 Operating Cost

The operating cost is defined as the annualized value of all costs and revenues other

than initial capital costs. Operating cost in this project includes electricity of inverter,

scheduled maintenance but does not include cleaning and insurance as the costs are

subjected to the location of the system. The operating cost can be calculated using the

following equation

𝐶𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 = 𝐶𝑎𝑛𝑛,𝑡𝑜𝑡 − 𝐶𝑎𝑛𝑛,𝑐𝑎𝑝

 29

where 𝐶𝑎𝑛𝑛,𝑡𝑜𝑡 is the total annualized cost ($/year)

𝐶𝑎𝑛𝑛,𝑐𝑎𝑝 is the total annualized capital cost ($/year), which is equal

to total initial capital cost multiplied by 𝐶𝑅𝐹(𝑖, 𝑁).

3.5.12 Levelized Cost of Energy (CoE)

The levelized cost of energy is defined as the average cost per kilowatt hour

($/kWh) of useful electrical energy produced by the system [45] and is given by

𝐶𝑎𝑛𝑛,𝑡𝑜𝑡
𝐶𝑜𝐸 =
𝐸𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑚,𝐴𝐶 + 𝐸𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑚,𝐷𝐶

where 𝐸𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑚,𝐴𝐶 is the AC primary load served (kWh/year)

𝐸𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑚,𝐷𝐶 is the DC primary load served (kWh/year)

3.5.13 Life Cycle Cost (LCC)

Lift cycle cost includes all relevant present and future costs of investment

associated with a PV system in present or annual value during the life of the system for

example: capital cost, installation cost, operating cost, maintenance, repair and upgrade

costs and remaining value of the system life. In other words,

Life cycle cost = Present worth of initial user investment of the PV system

+ Present worth of the operation and maintenance cost

 30

3.6 Software Review

3.6.1 SAM

System Advisor Model software (SAM) is a reliable modeling tool for designing

photovoltaic systems, which can perform both technical and financial analysis. SAM is

best for all types of users: researchers, project engineers, and technology developers. SAM

can simulate a renewable energy system with energy and cost prediction of the desired

system to provide information before investing or installing it. SAM is developed by the

National renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in collaboration with Sandia National

Laboratories, USA. Its first release version was in August 2007.

SAM software provides a detailed analysis of PV systems with many input

parameters to simulate an energy system as accurate as possible such as large PV module

database, inverter specifications, system configuration, shading and layouts, losses, system

lifetime, battery storage, and financial parameters. SAM uses weather database from

NSRDB, which the data can be download directly in Location & Resource tab. Although

NSRDB does not provide all weather data globally, SAM has an option for user to

manually import weather data from other sources in excel, TMY2, or TMY3 format for

solar modeling. SAM is also fully available for public users free of charge. However, for

wind simulation outside of U.S., users need to find suitable weather data, and create their

own .srw file, a text file format that SAM uses for wind resource data. Users need to use a

spreadsheet program or text editor for a location and import it to the software.
 31

3.6.2 PVsyst

PVsyst is a software primarily focused in modeling, sizing, and analyzing

photovoltaic systems for various applications such as grid-tied, stand-alone, or water

pumping PV systems. The software is developed by Andre Mermoud, a Swiss physicist,

and Michel Villoz, a Swiss electrical engineer. PVsyst contains extensive meteorological

databases for users to choose in both hourly and monthly scales. Some of the databases are

ASHRAE IWEC2, Canada EPW, NASA SSE, NREL, Solargis, and Vaisala, as well as

considerable numbers of PV modules and inverters in its catalog. PVsyst offers 2 features

for simulation: preliminary design and project design. The former is a simple and easy tool

for quickly predicting monthly production and performances and economic evaluation of

a system. The latter provides detailed analysis with extensive choices of weather databases

and system components, which is the feature that is used in this project. However, PVsyst

used to free of charge and user friendly, which is very helpful for educational learning. As

of February 2020, by the time this project was done, PVsyst is no longer free for users and

its license cost starts at $1029.

3.6.3 HOMER

Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER) is a widely used

software in renewable energy industry as the software has been downloaded by over

200,000 users in over 190 countries. HOMER software has capability of adding various

combinations of renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic systems, wind turbines,

fuel-powered generators, geothermal, etc. in one system and performing optimization,

 32

sensitivity, and financial analysis at the same time. The software is developed by National

Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in 1993 as its first release. HOMER uses visual

C++ as programming language, and uses system’s location, energy resources, loads,

components cost, and economic parameters as inputs to perform simulations. HOMER uses

weather data (solar, temperature, and wind) from NASA surface meteorology and solar

energy, which is monthly averaged values over 22-year period (July 1983 – June 2005 for

global horizontal radiation). HOMER also provides results as charts and tables which can

be exported for reports and presentations. The software provides 21-day free trial version

for users to fully experience the software. The license cost of HOMER is varied depending

on types of users: Standard, Academic, Student. For student users, the monthly fee starts

at $10/month for 1 user, and is $72 for annual license.

3.6.4 RETScreen

Renewable Energy Technologies Screen (RETScreen) is a feasibility clean energy

management software tool developed by Ministry of Natural Resources, Canada.

RETScreen is similar to HOMER as the software is able to perform simulation with several

renewable energy sources in a system to evaluate the energy production, savings, costs,

emissions, and financial viability in any location across the globe. RETScreen uses visual

basic and C language as working platform. RETScreen can access to NASA climate

database, which has more than 6000 ground stations to access global climate data from.

RETScreen was first released on April 30, 1998. The license cost of RETScreen is currently

priced at $869 per subscription for 12 months. However, RETScreen is freely available to
 33

public users in viewer mode, which users can fully use the software but has no mean to

save or export the data or project.

 34

Chapter 4
Model Validation

As stated earlier in Chapter 2, it is of importance to validate models developed

using SAM, PVsyst, HOMER and RETScreen for their accuracy because it was found that

different range of errors exists when performed using different system, components,

weather database, and locations according to all the reviewed papers. Therefore, the models

will be validated for their accuracy to ensure if the output will be reliable by determining

the value of error whether it is acceptable or not.

The validation process is done by simulating a system with same input parameters:

power output, components, and specifications and compare its output to known data of a

real system. For PV system validation, the system used as reference is a 177.8 kW PV

system on the Aerospace Museum of California building, which its electric bills from

Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) will be used for comparison. For wind

system validation, the wind farm project in Tahmafai, Chaiyaphum, Thailand modeled by

the Department of Energy of Thailand will be used as a reference system.

4.1 Model Validation for Photovoltaic System

4.1.1 Site Information

The real system that we used as reference for energy output is the Aerospace

Museum of California located on 3200 Freedom Park Dr., McClellan, CA 95652

(Latitude 38° 41’ 8” N, Longitude 121° 22’ 6” W, Elevation 83 Feet.) The system has
 35

177.8 kW, consisting of 756 roof-mounted 235-Watt modules, with an annual production

of 265,430 kWh [46]. The location of the system is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4 177.8 kW PV system on the roof of Aerospace Museum of California

4.1.2 System Description

The 177.8 kW Aerospace Museum of California’s PV system consists of 756 PV

solar modules of Motech MTPVP-235-MSC. The module has Maximum Power Point

Voltage (VMPP) of 29.4 V, and Max Power Current (IMPP) of 8.0 A. The model of the

inverter of the system is Solectria SGI-225-480 225KW, which has MPPT Input Voltage

range between 300-500 Vdc. Other parameters and specification sheets of the module and

inverter can be seen in Appendix B.

According to the system’s infrastructure, the whole system has 6 string combiners.

Each combiner has 9 strings, and each string consists of 14 MOTECH MTPV-p235-MSC

PV Modules, which has a total of 756 modules. The tiled angle of the panels is 16°. The

simple diagram of the system is illustrated in Figure 5. Blue dots represent the panels
 36

connected in series. Red dots represent the strings connected in parallel. A total maximum

power of 177.8 kWh is derived as follows.

String Combiners I … String Combiners II String Combiners

VI

1 … 1 1 … 1 1 … 1
4 4 4
… … …
9 strings 9 strings 9 strings
… … …

Figure 5 PV system configuration of Aerospace Museum of California

In each string, all 14 PV Modules are connected in series:

The total Vmp of each string = 14 × 29.4 𝑉 = 411.6 𝑉

In each combiner, 9 strings are connected in parallel:

Total Imp = 9 × 8 𝐴 = 72 𝐴.

As a result, the maximum power of each string combiner:

PST = 411.6 𝑉 × 72 𝐴 = 29.635 𝑘𝑊

The system has 6 combiners connected in parallel:

Psystem = 6 × 29.635 𝑘𝑊 = 177.8 𝑘𝑊

4.1.3 Energy Production Data from Electricity Bills

Once the location of the system is determined, SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, RETScreen

are used to predict the energy production of Aerospace Museum of California PV system
 37

during February 3rd 2018 – February 4th, 2019 as the actual energy production data of the

real system was received via SMUD electricity bills during this period. However, the

electric bills cannot be shown in this paper due to privacy concerns. A summary of electric

bills data is shown in Table 4. The total energy generation by the system is 250,488 during

February 3rd 2018 – February 4th, 2019.

Table 4: Information of electric bills data of Aerospace Museum of California

Total Energy Energy sent to Price Total Sales

Date (M/D/Y)
Gen. (kWh) Grid (kWh) ($/ kWh) ($)
02/03/18 - 03/06/18 22,701 13,722 0.130 1787.97
03/07/18 - 04/04/18 21,550 13,066 0.130 1702.49
05/04/18 - 06/04/18 33,467 19,916 0.131 2607.00
06/05/18 - 07/03/18 32,202 15,497 0.143 2214.52
07/04/18 - 08/02/18 28,727 9,139 0.139 1268.49
08/03/18 - 08/31/18 26,075 8,423 0.140 1180.06
09/01/18 - 10/02/18 25,571 10,018 0.128 1278.30
10/03/18 - 10/31/18 21,405 11,394 0.130 1484.64
11/01/18 - 12/03/18 14,419 7,837 0.130 1021.16
12/04/18 - 01/03/19 12,967 7,201 0.130 939.73
01/04/19 - 02/04/19 11,354 5,726 0.132 753.54
Total 250,438 121,939 0.133 16,237.93
 38

4.1.4 Simulation via SAM

All the components used in SAM and system configurations are the same as the

Aerospace Space Museum of California’s expect for that the inverter used in the simulation

is Perfect Galaxy 225 kW instead of Solectria 225 kW due to SAM does not have

specification data for Solectria 225kW in its database. However, Perfect Galaxy 225kW

has very similar specifications compared to Solectria 225 kW. The electric selling and

purchasing rates are obtained directly from SMUD bills. Table 5 below shows the major

input parameters for simulation. Monthly loads of the Aerospace Space Museum of

California from electric bills used for financial analysis are shown in Table 6. Note that

only data of 11 months is shown as the electric bill for April 2018 was missing.

Table 5: Input parameters for PVS simulations

Parameter Input
Weather Data (NSRDB) Latitude: 38.69, Longitude: -121.38
Module MOTECH MTPV-p235-MSC
Perfect Galaxy AE-225-60-PV-A
Inverter
225kW
Modules/ string 14
Strings in parallel 54
Tilt angle 16
$/ Module $353
$/ Inverter $63,341
Sell rate per kWh $0.1330
Winter Off Peak rate $0.1303
Summer Off Peak rate $0.1099
Summer On Peak rate $0.3008
Miscellaneous Loss (Soiling,
5%
DC, AC Losses)

Once all inputs are determined, monthly energy production are calculated by SAM

and shown in Table 6 on the last column. The summary result of the system can be seen in
 39

Figure 6. The annual energy production predicted by SAM is 287,25 kWh, CoE is 11.55

¢/kWh. The net capital cost of the system is $592,356 with payback period of 11.6 years.

Table 6 Monthly load of aerospace museum and energy generation from SAM

Energy Generation
Month Monthly Load (kWh)
(kWh)
January 19,103 12,704
February 18,640 15,825
March 16,253 24,233
April - 27,781
May 20,391 31,527
June 22,614 32,579
July 26,778 33,330
August 24,137 31,448
September 23,829 26,740
October 18,293 22,785
November 18,750 15,307
December 17,473 12,994
Annual 243,458 287,253

Figure 6 Simulation outputs from SAM

 40

4.1.5 Simulation via PVsyst

All information and input parameters in Table 5 and 6 are used in PVsyst

simulation. However, a small adjustment was also made in the system configuration

because PVsyst does not have Motech 235W PV panel in its catalog. Therefore, the Motech

230W PV panels were used instead of Motech 235W. To achieve the same maximum

output of 177.8 kW, 1 more string of 14 panels was added in parallel to make up for the

loss of power due to smaller PV panels. The system size and configuration is shown in

Figure 7. The result from PVsyst showing as a printable .PDF file of system configuration

and simulation results is shown in Figure 8, and 9. The total energy production estimated

by PVsyst is 296,750 kWh per year.

Figure 7 System configuration inputs for PVsyst

 41

Figure 8 Simulation outputs from PVsyst

Figure 9 Monthly energy production estimated via PVsyst

 42

4.1.6 Simulation via HOMER

HOMER software has its own PV module database with specification for selection.

However, it does not contain the MOTECH MTPV-p235-MSC PV module. Alternatively,

HOMER provide an option to import PV system configurations modeled from other

softwares such as PVsyst or Helioscope to obtain the PV modules, and then use HOMER

for performance and financial analysis. In this study, Helioscope is used to model PV

system with MOTECH MTPV-p235-MSC modules. input parameters in Table 5 and 6,

and imported the configuration to HOMER for analysis. The output from Helioscope and

HOMER are shown in Figure 10, 11. The energy production predicted by HOMER is

295,225 kWh per year.

Figure 10 Monthly energy production estimated via HelioScope

 43

Figure 11 System designed in Helioscope and hourly energy production via HOMER

4.1.7 Simulation via RETScreen

Aside from input parameters in Table 5 and 6, the inverter used in the simulation

by RETScreen is a Generic 225kW Inverter instead of Solectria 225 kW as RETScreen

does not have the inverter in its catalog. The result from RETScreen is shown in Figure 12

and 13. The annual energy production calculated from RETScreen is 266,375.2 kWh.
 44

Figure 12 Input page of PV system in RETScreen

Figure 13 Monthly energy production via RETScreen

 45

4.1.8 Result & Discussion

According to all the data from the 4 softwares and the actual energy production

received from electric bills, Table 7 shows the comparison of total energy yield from the

system and SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, and RETScreen and the reference system.

Table 7: Comparison of energy production from a real system and 4 softwares

Energy Production (kWh)

Month
Ref. System SAM PVsyst HOMER RETScreen
Jan 11,354.0 12,704.2 14,660.0 10,363.6 10,039.9
Feb 22,701.0 15,824.8 17,310.0 14,917.6 13,325.1
Mar 21,550.0 24,233.2 25,500.0 25,737.8 21,801.1
May 33,467.0 31,527.4 32,330.0 34,822.1 29,727.7
Jun 32,202.0 32,578.8 32,700.0 34,422.1 31,972.8
Jul 28,727.0 33,329.8 33,000.0 34,511.3 32,731.7
Aug 26,075.0 31,447.5 31,540.0 32,858.8 30,503.1
Sep 25,571.0 26,740.3 27,250.0 27,371.1 26,056.1
Oct 21,405.0 22,785.3 23,130.0 23,087.4 20,754.9
Nov 14,419.0 15,306.5 16,500.0 15,058.9 13,612.5
Dec 12,967.0 12,993.9 13,800.0 11,113.8 10,115.6
Total 250,438.0 259,471.7 267,720.0 264,264.5 240,640.5

Since the data for April was missing, therefore, the total energy yield results in

Table 7 were subtracted by energy produced during April from simulations in each

software. The results explain that annual energy yields estimated by all 4 software are very

close to actual energy production from the real system. The closest estimations in order are

SAM, RETScreen, HOMER, and PVsyst with error of 3.61, -3.91, 5.52 and 6.90 %

respectively. The monthly deviation from each software when compared to the reference

system is shown in Table 8 as follows.

 46

Table 8 Monthly energy deviation compared to the reference system

Monthly Energy Deviation (%)
Month SAM PVsyst HOMER RETScreen
Jan 11.89 29.12 -8.72 -11.57
Feb -30.29 -23.75 -34.29 -41.30
Mar 12.45 18.33 19.43 1.17
May -5.80 -3.40 4.05 -11.17
Jun 1.17 1.55 6.89 -0.71
Jul 16.02 14.87 20.14 13.94
Aug 20.60 20.96 26.02 16.98
Sep 4.57 6.57 7.04 1.90
Oct 6.45 8.06 7.86 -3.04
Nov 6.16 14.43 4.44 -5.59
Dec 0.21 6.42 -14.29 -21.99
Annual 3.61 6.90 5.52 -3.91

According to Table 8, the energy production in monthly or seasonal scale contain

relatively high error especially in February, which is over 20% for all softwares and up to

41.3% for RETScreen. During summer months such as July and August, all softwares also

overpredict the energy produced by 13.94-26.02%. The result is to be expected and is

similar to results from Govindasamy Tamizh-Mani [22] in aspect of that monthly energy

yield estimation most likely to contain larger discrepancy compared to seasonal yield, and

seasonal yield tends to contain higher error compared to annual yield.

Considering average historical weather condition in Sacramento on February, it

shows that February is one of cloudiest months of the year with 54% mostly cloudy of the

time, as well as having the highest precipitation chance on 20 February as shown in Figure

14 and 15 [47].
 47

Figure 14 Full year average cloud coverage of Sacramento

Figure 15 Precipitation chance of Sacramento with February being the highest

 48

Therefore, a significant error in energy estimated from softwares can occur in

February because of its cloudy condition blocking the solar irradiation from hitting the PV

panels of the system, which is the potential reason why SAM, PVsyst, HOMER,

RETScreen predicted the energy production lower than the actual yield by -30.29, -23.75,

-34.2, -41.30% respectively. Likewise, July and August are the months with the clearest

sky conditions with 0% precipitation chance, resulting in over energy estimation by all 4

softwares.

Nonetheless, the annual energy productions are significantly more accurate, which

the result from SAM has only 3.61% error compared to the actual yield. The chart in Figure

16 illustrates the errors in comparison. The gap extended from actual energy yield from the

Aerospace Museum of California indicates 20% deviation.

Figure 16 Monthly deviations in chart format of SAM, PVsyst, HOMER and RETScreen
 49

According to the result in this chapter, SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, RETScreen, can

provide accurate annual energy production from PV side with slight errors, which is

acceptable for long-term planing for non-profit, residential applications. Nonetheless, for

monthly or seasonal estimation, more accurate weather data such as monitored data on site

will be needed. Therefore, 4 softwares will be used to perform simulations of PVS, WTS,

and PVWHS for applications in Thailand in the next chapter as all of them are verified,

and reliable to use.

 50

4.2 Model Validation for Wind system

4.2.1 Site information

For wind simulation, only HOMER and RETScreen will be used to simulate a wind

turbine system because PVsyst can only model PV system and SAM needs a specific

weather data file format (.SRW) for wind parameters to model wind system readily outside

of U.S. The reference system for wind energy model validation is located on Tahmafai sub-

district, Kangkor district, Chaiyaphum at Latitude 16.1739, Longitude, 102.1056 with 347

m elevation. The system information such as energy yield, and investment of the system

were obtained and estimated by the Department of Energy of Thailand [48].

The project area is a wide Cassava farm with area of 6400 square meters, which has

relatively high wind flowing without loss from any large trees or buildings blocking the

wind flow. The area has average wind speed of 5.1-5.9 m/s with respect to turbine’s height

of 30-90 m. The location of the system and its wind map is shown in Figure 17.

Figure 17 Location of the wind farm and average wind speed at 65 meters [48]
 51

4.2.2 System Description

The estimated energy production and cost of the reference system were performed

by Department of Energy of Thailand on a 1.25 MW wind turbine with capacity factor of

16.5%. The turbine used for simulation is a 1.25 MW wind turbine mounted with a 75-

meter-tall pole, which operates at 5.8 m/s mean wind speed at the turbine height. The

system was estimated to produce 1,810,400 kWh per year with turbine cost of ฿ 44,312,950

(1,362,218 USD) and installation cost of 13,239,885 ฿ (407,005 USD), where the term

installation cost in this project comprises the tower, labor, wiring and balance of system

cost.

For our simulation from HOMER and RETScreen, a generic turbine of 1.25 MW

was used and the power curve of generic turbine was adjusted to match the turbine in the

real system because the specific brand or model of the turbine was unknown, which only

power curve of the turbine was provided. The power curve of the turbine is shown in Figure

18 [48]. The simulation outputs from HOMER and RETScreen compared with the

reference system is shown in Table 9.

Table 9 Results from HOMER and RETScreen in comparison to reference system

Size Turbine Installation O&M Yield Deviation

Software
(MW) Cost ($) Cost ($) ($/yr) (kWh)/yr (%)

Ref. System 1.25 1,363,056 13,293,885 27,261 1,810,400 -

HOMER 1.25 1,231,744 408,917 - 2,094,229 15.68

RETScreen 1.25 1,231,744 408,917 - 2,190,000 18.13

 52

Figure 18 Power curve of wind turbine of the reference system [48]

4.2.3 Result & Discussion

According to results in Table 9, HOMER and RETScreen predicted the annual

energy production of the system to be 2,094,229 and 2,190,000 kWh/yr respectively. The

output from HOMER and RETScreen contain 15.68% and 18.13% deviation compared to

the reference system. Although a generic wind turbine was used instead of a known specific

turbine, HOMER and RETScreen calculate power output by using the power curve with

respect to wind speed and multiply by a given period of time. Therefore, since the power

curves of generic turbine in the model and reference system are identical in both system,

the error from turbine performance from simulation should not be the case. Hence, the

possible source of error may come from the difference in average wind speed value from

NASA and NSRDB compared to the value used in reference system since the weather data

used in the reference system is not known.

 53

For system cost estimation, regarding the fact that the many information of the

system was not completely obtained and actual model of the turbine was unknown, the

price of turbine and installation cost outputs were estimated by using the cost per kWh of

typical commercial wind turbine in Thailand, which are 1026.5 $/kWh and 338.7

$/kWh,respectively.

4.3 Model Validation for PVWHS

For solar-wind hybrid system validation, a real hybrid system with system

information and output parameters in terms of energy and cost cannot be found, which

makes the model validation for PVWHS unattainable without a reference system.

Nonetheless, since HOMER and RETScreen compute PV and wind part separately, the

error in energy productions from PV panels and wind turbines are independent to each

other. Therefore, the errors found in PV and wind validation in this chapter can be applied

to PVWHS for solar and wind part respectively.

 54

Chapter 5

Simulations of Photovoltaic, Wind Turbine, Hybrid System

in Chaiyaphum and Sa Kaeo

The objective of this chapter is to simulate PVS, WTS, and PVWHS using SAM,

PVsyst, HOMER and RETScreen to obtain simulation results to determine the optimized

system using payback period as ranking parameter for performance optimization for

residential applications in Chaiyaphum and Sa Kaeo provinces in Thailand. The two

locations were chosen to observe how well PVS, WTS and PVWHS can perform under

contrasting climate conditions because the former has high solar irradiation and low-

average wind speed, while the latter has average solar irradiation and high wind speed.

5.1 Photovoltaic System Simulations in Chaiyaphum

5.1.1 Designing PVS

The optimized system depends on several parameters for a grid-tied system such as

demand load, geographic location, cost of PV module, inverter, system, labor cost, and

purchasing and selling rate of electricity. However, the first step is to determine the rated

power of the system needed according to the load demand of building supplied by the

system.

For residential applications in Thailand, an average demand load for typical houses

is about 850-1000 kWh per month as shown in Table 2 in chapter 3. However, in this

chapter, electric bills from a utility in Thailand will be used to have accurate results.
 55

5.1.2 Location & Meteorological Data

An urban area in Chaiyaphum, a city located in North Eastern of Thailand is

selected for modeling PVS. The latitude and longitude coordinates of the area are 15.8068°,

and 102.0315° respectively. Chaiyaphum was chosen before its daily solar irradiation is

relatively high compared to other cities and regions in Thailand. According to the solar

irradiation from NASA database, Chaiyaphum’s global horizontal irradiation is 5.169 peak

sun hours/ day, where 1 peak sun hour equals 1000 Wh/m2. The daily radiation data from

NASA SSE downloadable in HOMER for Chaiyaphum is shown in Figure 19 below.

Figure 19 Average annual GHI from NASA database in Chaiyaphum

 56

5.1.3 PV Module & System Configurations

The criteria used to select a PV brand in this study is determined by Tier level of

solar manufacturer company and cost of module per kWh ($/kWh). In this study, the

JKM275PP-60 PV module from Jinko Solar Co. Ltd. will be used as Jinko solar is one of

the tier 1 solar companies with highest production capacity. The cost of JKM275PP-60

0.35 USD per Watt, or $96.25 USD per module [49] and the specification sheet can be seen

in Appendix B. The system orientation is fixed at south facing (180° azimuth), and the tilt

angle of the modules is 13° for maximum output determined by using HOMER sensitivity

analysis feature.

5.1.4 Sizing & Primary Design Criteria

PV Sizing

In order to size PV system efficiently, monthly electrical bills or load profile are

used to ensure that the system size is not too large or too small. The design principle to

achieve the optimized system is that the system size needs to be precise to generate enough

electricity to match the load demand to prevent drawing energy from the grid as to reduce

the expense of purchasing electricity. Also, the system cannot be too large as

overproducing energy and selling energy back to the grid is not preferable because the

selling rate, 0.052 $/kWh, is cheaper than the purchasing rate, 0.130 $/kWh. For a rough

estimation as a preliminary design guideline, the power output needed of the PV system is

the ratio of daily energy use to peak sun hours as shown in Equation (1).
 57

Daily Energy Used (Wh/day)

Power Output = (1)
Peak Sun hours (hours/day)

The peak sun hour can be determined by summing the total annual solar irradiation

and dividing the amount by irradiation of peak sun (1000 W/m2/hour). However, the peak

sun hours for Chaiyaphum is 5.169 hours according to NASA database as shown in Figure

19. The daily energy used or load demand from electric bills is shown in Table 2 in Chapter

3. The bills period is from January 8, 2018 to March 3, 2019. The electric bills are scanned

and listed in Appendix A. According to load demand from electric bills, the monthly

average load is roughly 850 kWh for ease of calculation. Therefore, daily load demand is

calculated by

kWh Monthly Energy Used 850 kW

Daily Energy Used ( )= = = 28.33 kWh/day (2)
day Number of Days 30

From equation (1), The power output of the system is

Daily Energy Used (Wh/day) 28.33 kW

Power Output = = = 5.481 kW/hour
Peak Sun hours (hours/day) 5.169

The preliminary rated power of the PV system was found to be 5.481 kW. However,

the system does not always operate at 100% efficiency at full capacity in practice.

Therefore, a safety factor or derating factor of 0.15 is applied to take into account the losses

in wring, invertor, etc. Therefore, the system size is

Power Output 5.481 kW

PV System Size = = = 6.374 kW
Derate Factor 0.85

A rough estimation suggests that the PV size is 6.374 kWh, which is approximately

equal to 23 panels. However, since the calculation above is only an estimation since losses,

derating factor, and peak sun hour are from approximation can be varied in practice.
 58

Therefore, the rated power of PV system in the simulations when modeling will be

ranged from 5.5 to 6.6 kW to cover all the possible results using sensitivity analysis feature

in HOMER to determine the optimized system size and configurations.

Inverter Sizing

Inverter’s size is relatively the same as the PV panels size generally, or also known

as DC to AC ratio equals 1. However, the size of the inverter can be slightly smaller than

the PV system because that the PV panel does not operate at maximum efficiency at all

time, and the degradation of the PV panel which reduces the efficiency of the module over

years. Figure 20 below from SAM shows the impact of 0.5% degradation rate on inverter

output, system power generated, over 25 years. The diagram shows that the system power

generated (orange area) reduces gradually. During the first year, the system can generate

up to 4.28 kW. On the contrary, the power output from the system is reduced to 3.8 kW.

Therefore, for 5.5-6.6 kW system, the inverter sizes used in this study are 4 and 5 kW for

optimization, saving extra cost from installing larger inverter.

Figure 20 Effect of degradation rate of 0.5% on inverter over years from SAM
 59

Battery Sizing

The size of battery of a grid-tied system is not required and generally small and

depends on the types of battery, daily load profile. The primary purpose to add a battery to

a grid-tied the system is to back up energy during an outage, and store extra energy during

when demand load is not very high, and then discharge the energy to reduce peak load and

save extra cost from purchasing electricity during peak hours. Therefore, an arbitrary

number of 1-5 of 1 kWh Li-Ion batteries will be included in the system when modeling

using sensitivity analysis feature to reduce the peak load during 6-9 PM according to daily

load profile in Figure 3 from Chapter 3.

5.1.5 Sensitivity Analysis via HOMER

After all the parameters are determined, HOMER sensitivity feature was used to

determine the most optimized system by varying

1.PV rated power: 5.5, 5.825, 6.05, 6.325, 6.6 kW (20-24 panels)

2. Battery size: 1 – 5kW Li-Ion Batteries

3. Inverter size: 4 or 5 kW

4. Tilt angle from 10-30°.

The results are shown in Table 10. The screenshot of results from HOMER is

shown in Appendix C.
 60

Table 10 Optimization results for PVS from HOMER

System size (kW) Cost ($)
System Regeneration
Type Operating Initical Fraction (%)
Solar Battery Inverter CoE
Cost Capital
PVS 6.6 - 5 0.0419 187.54 6086 63.6
PVS
with 6.6 1 5 0.0461 212.19 6636 63.6
Battery
Grid
- - - 0.131 - - -
only

According to Table 10, cost of energy of the system is used to rank the most

optimized system and the lowest CoE of all systems is 0.0419 $/kWh. For optimization

results on the second part, the best system configuration consists of 6.6 kW PV panels, no

battery (or optional 1 kWh Li-Ion battery for back up), 5 kW inverter, and tilt angle of 13°

providing the lowest CoE of $0.0418 when ranked in HOMER as shown in Table 11.

Table 11 List of optimized tilt angles for lowest CoE

System size (kW) Cost ($)
Tilt Angle Operating Initical
Solar Inverter CoE
Cost Capital
13 6.6 5 0.0418 186.34 6,086
15 6.6 5 0.0419 187.54 6,086
10 6.6 5 0.0419 186.26 6,086
20 6.6 5 0.0423 193.82 6,086
25 6.6 5 0.0430 204.40 6,086
30 6.6 4 0.0455 248.74 6,086
 61

5.1.6 Simulation Using SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, RETScreen

To ensure the result from HOMER is correct, SAM, PVsyst, and RETScreen are

used to simulate the same system of 6.6 kW PV system, 5 kW inverter, and 1 kWh Li-Ion

battery. Some components may slightly differ in each software as they do not have the

same component in their databases. However, same size components from different

companies with similar performance will be used for simulations. All input parameters can

be seen in Table 12 below.

Table 12 Input parameters for PVS simulations in Chaiyaphum

Software
Input Parameter
SAM Pvsyst HOMER RETScreen

System Design 6.6 kW system of 24 PV modules

Module Jinko Solar JKM275PP-60

Sunny Boy
4, 5 kW Generic 5 kW
Inverter HD-SUN-INV5200 SB 5000U-
Inverter Generic
240
Battery Generic 1-5kWh Li-Ion Battery
Module Area (m2) 37
Tilt Angle 30 30 30 30
Weather Latitude: 15.8068° N, Longitude: 102.0315° E
Database ClimateOneBuilding NASA NASA NASA
GHI (kWh/m2/d) 5.74 5.62 5.169 5.169
Financial Only SAM has detailed installed cost analysis
Module ($/Unit) 96.25 96.25 96.25 96.25
Inverter ($/Unit) 1500 1325 1500 1500
Battery ($/kWh) 550 550 550 550
Software
Input Parameter
SAM Pvsyst HOMER RETScreen
BoS ($/m2) 21.61 - - -
Labor Cost ($/hr) 5.4 - - -
 62

Installer Overhead
22.4 - - -
& Margin ($/m2)
Installed Cost ($) 5755.86 - - -
Selling rate
0.054 0.054 0.054 0.054
($/kWh)
Purchasing rate
0.13 0.13 0.13 0.13
($/kWh)
Project Life (year) 25 25 25 25

Table 13: Performance and financial simulation results from 4 softwares

Financial Cost Energy (kWh/year)

Software COE Operating Initial Payback Energy Energy Energy
($/kWh) Cost ($/yr) Capital ($) Period (yr) Yield Purchased Sold
SAM 0.04 197.8 5,961 4.1 10,724 5,148 5,933
PVsyst - - - - 10,444 - -
HOMER 0.04 218.7 6,086 5.5 10,461 5,756 5,525
RETScreen - 152.0 5,993 5.6 10,068 - -

Figure 21 Hourly power output via HOMER

 63

5.1.7 Result & Discussion

For simulation results, all four softwares provide relatively close results in terms

of energy yield, CoE, and initial capital cost. However, the payback period from SAM

differs from HOMER and RETScreen, which is only 4.1 years compared to 5.5 and 5.6

years respectively.

To determine results from which software is more precise, an advertised system

from AEC Solar Cell, a leading solar company for agriculture uses in Thailand, is used to

compared the result [50]. The AEC solar stated that the 5 kW PV system with complete

installation cost $ 9221.12, which can save $ 92.62 annually with a payback period of 8.3

years. A comparison table is shown in Table 14.

Table 14 A comparison of financial parameters to AEC solar system

Simple Total Saving

Operating Initial Capital Payback
PV System Annual corresponding to
Cost ($/year) ($) Period (year)
Saving ($) payback period ($)
AEC Solar - 9,221 1120.8 8.3 9302.9
SAM 197.84 5,961.06 985.8 4.1 4041.8
HOMER 218.71 6,086 1044.2 5.5 5743.1
RETScreen 152 5,993 - 5.6 -

A simple annual saving calculated by using the amount of energy saved and sold to

the grid during the first year multiplied by the rates can be used to compare the outputs.

Multiplying each system’s payback period with simple annual saving, the total saving of

each system up to its payback period can be found as shown in the last column in Table 14.

The simple total saving corresponding to payback period indicates the money saved when

a system operates until it returns the investment, which should be close to the initial capital
 64

cost. Table 14 shows that HOMER and AEC solar total savings are relatively close to their

initial capital cost, which means their payback period is more accurate and reasonable when

compared to SAM. Therefore, the payback period estimated by HOMER provides more

accurate result to a real system, as well as RETScreen’s.

For software performance standpoint, SAM and HOMER provide most completed

output parameters in both performance and financial analysis, while RETScreen does not

compute CoE and energy purchased and sold to the grid, and PVsyst can only estimate

annual energy yield. According to Table 12, SAM provides more detailed financial

parameters as input such as balance of system, labor cost, installer overhead & margin.

Nonetheless, SAM, PVsyst, HOMER and RETScreen are potential tools to model PV

system as all of them provide similar results for performance analysis. For financial

analysis, HOMER and RETScreen can provide more accurate results when compared to a

real system.

5.2 Wind Turbine System Simulations in Chaiyaphum

5.2.1 Designing WTS in Chaiyaphum

Similar to PVS, the size of WTS system for residential applications depends on its

electricity consumption. However, for residential applications, wind turbine generally does

not provide enough power to cover all the load throughout the day due to many reasons:

geographic location, limited area of installing wind turbine, limited wind speed at height

lower than 50 meters, and operating range after wind cut-in speed, given that demand load

each day in this project is 28.33 kWh.

 65

The average wind speed at 10 meters on Chaiyaphum located at latitude and

longitude coordinates of 15.8068°, and 102.0315° is 2.56 m/s. The softwares which will be

used for WTS simulations are HOMER and RETScreen. The monthly average wind speed

NASA SSE downloaded in HOMER in Chaiyaphum is shown in Figure 22.

Figure 22 Monthly average wind speed in Chaiyaphum, Thailand

5.2.2 Wind Turbine and System Cost

The cost of turbines, balance of systems, and labor in Thailand are significantly less

expensive compared to installing wind turbine systems in the U.S. The wind turbine

selected for simulation is 1000W F-1000M5 Max Power, which cost $980.21 including

transportation cost [51]. The power curve of the turbine is shown in Figure 23, and its

specification sheet is listed in Appendix B. The turbine size is 1 kW with rated speed, cut

in speed, survival speed and blade length of 12, 2.5, 45 m/s and 1050 mm respectively.

According to Department of Energy of Thailand, the turbine cost for every 1 kWh is

approximately $1,000, and the installation is 30% of the turbine [48]. Therefore, the initial
 66

capital cost of 1 kWh WTS in this study is $ 1,300/kWh. The inverter cost is 500 $/kWh,

and the rest of input parameters used are same as Table 12 in PVS simulation.

Figure 23 Power curve of 1000W F-1000M5 Max Power turbine [51]

5.2.3 Simulation Using HOMER and RETScreen

Following the same procedure used in designing PVS, HOMER sensitivity analysis

is used to find the most economical WTS. 1-3 units of 1 kW tower mounted wind turbine

system is varied for optimization. Rooftop wind turbines that are less than 1 kW are

excluded in this study as they are installed at lower heights compared to wind turbine

mounted on a tower, and need to install several units to generate the same amount of energy

as a tower wind turbine. The simulation results from HOMER and RETScreen is shown in

Table 15 and Figure 24.

 67

Table 15 WTS optimization results from HOMER

System size (kW) Cost ($)
System Production
Type Wind Initial (kWh/year)
Battery Inverter CoE NPC
Turbine Capital
Grid - - - 0.130 17,378 - -
WTS 1 - 1 0.141 19,776 1,800 66.7
WTS
with 1 1 1 0.155 20,747 2,350 66.7
Battery

Figure 24 An error shown when input insufficient wind speed in RETScreen

5.2.4 Result & Discussion

According to Table 15, HOMER ranks the system by the NPC from lowest to

highest where the lowest NPC being in the first row. The result shows that installing a 1

kW wind turbine system will cost more than purchasing electricity directly from the grid

as the system barely produce energy, which is 66.7 kWh per year and the regeneration

fraction is 0.645 %. On the other hand, in Figure 24, the simulation result from RETScreen
 68

shows an error next to “Wind speed – annual” input box as the wind speed is too low to

provide reasonable simulations. Hence, RETScreen does not provide any result.

The reason which the turbine works poorly is because the turbine cut in speed is at

2.5 m and the average with speed at 10 meter is 2.56 m/s, meaning most of the time the

turbine hardly rotates or produces electricity. The only time that the turbine generates

electricity is when the wind speed is higher than average and is over 2.5 m/s for the system

to start produce electricity. Moreover, according to the power curve of the turbine, at 3-4

m/s, it only operates at 10% of its maximum power curve as shown in Figure 23 earlier.

Therefore, for this location, it is better not to invest on WTS at all as installing WTS

will cost more than using 100% electricity from the gird according to the results.

5.3 Photovoltaic wind hybrid system simulations in Chaiyaphum

From for PVWHS simulations in Chaiyaphum, the optimized simulation results

from PVS and WTS in previous sections will be used and combined to model a PVWHS

in Chaiyaphum using HOMER and RETScreen. Therefore, Tables 16 below shows the 3

systems in comparison: 6.6 kW PVS, 1 kW WTS, and 7.6 kW PVWHS.

Table 16 Simulation results from HOMER for PVS, WTS, PVWHS

Financial Analysis Performance (kWh/year)
HOMER Operating Payback
CoE Initial Energy Energy Energy
Cost Period
($/kWh) Capital ($) Yield Purchased Sold
($/year) (year)
PVS 0.0441 218.71 6,066 5.5 10461 5756 5525
WTS 0.141 45 1300 - 66.7 0 0
PVWHS 0.0782 244.71 7436 11 11429 5811 6167
 69

5.3.1 Result & Discussion

The result from Table 13 shows that the PVS is the most efficient system, providing

the most saving as the cost of Energy, $0.0441, is the lowest of all three and is cheaper

than the utility rate of $0.153. The simple payback period is 5.5 years. For WTS and

PVWHS, it is obvious from the previous section that the wind turbine barely produces any

electricity and does not worth the investment. Therefore, adding the turbine will only

increase the cost with almost none in return, which increases CoE to 0.0782 $/kwh, and

payback period to 11 years. Also, no battery is needed in any system described above as

adding one will only increase the CoE rather than decrease due to its high cost per kWh.

From software performance point of view, RETScreen also shows error when

simulating PVHSS when wind speed is too low alike in WTS simulations. As a result,

HOMER is the most reliable software to use for hybrid renewable energy system and can

be used to for all region globally. Therefore, HOMER will be used to model PVS, WTS,

and PVWHS to find the most enocomical system in the following section in Sa Kaeo and

chapter 6 for 7 locations in different regions across Thailand.

5.4 Photovoltaic, Wind, Hybrid Systems Simulations in Sa Kaeo

5.4.1 Designing & System Configurations

Since the objective of this section is to compare the performance of each system

PVS, WTS, PVWHS in an area with high wind speed in oppose to Chaiyaphum’s wind
 70

resource, the system design, components, configurations, monthly load, and financial

parameters will be the same as previous systems in chapter 5.1-5.3. Therefore, JKM275PP-

60 PV panel, 1000W F-1000M5 Max Power wind turbine, costs, and input parameters in

Table 12 will be used as inputs for simulations in Sa Kaeo as well.

5.4.2 Location & Meteorological Data

The area is located on Kho Khlan, Ta Phraya District, Sa Kaeo Thailand. The

latitude and longitude of the location is 13.937750, 102.605740 respectively with 299 m

elevation. According to NASA database downloaded through HOMER, the average GHI

in Sa Kaeo is 4.958 peak sun hours/day with average wind speed of 6.46 m/s at 10-meter

height. The monthly GHI and average wind speed of Sa Kaeo is shown in Figure 25 and

26 below.

Figure 25 Average monthly GHI data from NASA of Sa Kaeo

 71

Figure 26 Average monthly wind speed from NASA of Sa Kaeo

5.4.3 Sizing with Sensitivity Analysis via HOMER

The size of solar and wind of the system depends on the meteorological data of the

location. For solar part, equation (1) and (2) were used to estimate the appropriate rated

power of PV system and found to be 6.722 kW, which is approximately 24 panels. For

wind turbine part, sensitivity analysis will be used to determined how many wind turbines

should be installed according to wind speed of 7.50 m/s, as well as the size of inverter.

Also, no battery will be included in the system as results from section 5.1-5.3 shows that

adding a battery will only increase system’s capital cost and CoE for grid-tied system.

Therefore, the varying input parameters for sensitivity analysis for Sa Kaeo are

1.PV rated power: 6.05, 6.325, 6.6, 6.875, 7.15 kW (22-26 panels)

3. Inverter size: 4, 5, 6 kW

4. Tilt angle from 10-30°. The results are shown in Table 17 below.
 72

Table 17 Outputs of several system configurations from HOMER sensitivity feature

Energy Production
System Configuration Cost Estimation
(kWh/year)
System
Type Tilt Payback
Solar Wind Inverter Capital CoE
Angle Solar Wind Total Period
(kW) (kW) (kW) cost ($) ($/kWh)
(°) (year)
PVS 13 7.15 - 5 11,807 - 11,807 5,927 0.0419 5.4

WTS - - 5 5 - 11,686 11,686 8,000 0.00487 6.8

PVWHS#1 15 6.05 1 5 9,937 2,337 12,364 6,546 0.0417 4.9

PVWHS#2 16 6.05 2 5 9,994 4,674 14,668 7,846 0.0396 6.1

PVWHS#3 17 6.05 3 6 9,996 7,011 17,007 9,446 0.0369 7.0

5.4.4 Result and Discussion

According to Table 17, it can be seen that PVWHS#1 with 6.05 kW PV and 1 kW
wind turbine provides the shortest payback period followed by PVS, PVWHS#2, WTS,
and PVWHS#3 respectively. However, PVWHS#3 has lowest CoE, which is 0.0369 $
/kWh but also has the longest payback period. Two main reason behind this are

1. PVWHS#3 has the highest capital cost, $9446, which makes the system takes
longer to return the investment.
2. Electricity generation of PVWHS#3 significantly exceeds demand load of the
property, resulting in that the income from selling electricity back to utility does
not compensate the investment of 3 kW wind turbine because of the low selling
rate of 0.054 $/kWh.

To see the impact of the low selling rate, the demand load of the system is adjusted
from 28.33 to 50 kWh/day. Table 18 shows the simulation results when the demand load
is 50 kWh/day for PVWHS#3.
 73

Table 18 Payback period of PVWHS#3 according to demand load

Demand Energy Energy Energy Saving Payback

System Energy Sold
load Purchased Purchased Sold Difference Period
Type (kWh/year)
(kWh/day) (kWh/year) (%) (%) ($/year) (year)

PVWHS#3 28.33 3,798 9,324 36.73 54.82 - 7

PVWHS#3 50 8,418 6,256 46.13 36.78 233.17 5.4

Therefore, it can be seen that 54.82%, more than half of electricity generation of

PVWHS#3 when the demand load is at 28.33 kWh/day, whereas PVWHS#3 at 50 kWh/day

over generate 36.78% annually. The cost difference between the selling and purchasing

rate is 0.076 $/kWh, and the difference between energy sold of both systems is 3,068

kWh/year. Therefore, saving of $233.17 could be saved if PVWHS#3 does not over

generate by 3,068 kWh, which shortens the payback period of the system to 5.4 years

despite having the same system.

According to the results, the most suitable system for this location in Sa Kaeo

province with 28.33 daily demand load is PVWHS#1 consisting of 6.05 kW solar panels

and 1 kW wind turbine with a payback period of 4.9 years.

 74

Chapter 6

Simulations for 7 Locations Across Thailand

6.1 Determining the Optimized System for Each Location.

According to results from chapter 5.3, modeling a PVS, WTS, PVWHS in

Chaiyaphum, which has 5.17 kWh/m2/day and 2.56 m/s wind speed, shows that PVS more

efficient and preferable compared to WTS. However, for other region with different solar

irradiation and wind speed, the most efficient system can be different depending on its

weather data. As a result, 7 locations with different climates throughout Thailand will be

explored to determine the most suitable renewable system to install according to each

location. The locations selected to model a renewable energy using HOMER are

Chanthaburi in the East, Nakhon Si Thammarat in the South, Kanchanaburi in the West,

Ubon Ratchathani in the lower North East, Samutprakan in the central, Chiang Rai in the

North, and Maha Sarakham in the middle North East of Thailand. The location of each

province is shown in Figure 27. Each city has different irradiation, and wind speed and

some of them has high wind speed but low sun hours and vice versa. The geographic and

weather information for each area listed in the Table 19 below.

 75

Figure 27 Locations of each province in Thailand

 76

Table 19 Geographic information of all 7 locations in different regions

Wind
Area Elevation Peak Hours
City Region Latitude Longitude Speed
Description (m) (kWh/m2/d)
(m/s)
Chanthaburi East 12.832 102.183 Plateau 778 4.79 7.7
Nakhon Si
South 8.4388 99.8003 Highland 223 4.75 4.23
Thammarat
Kanchanaburi West 14.2706 98.6443 National Park 580 4.77 3.89
Ubon Lower,
13.1149 107.6243 Open field 174 5.14 3.52
Ratchathani NE
Samutprakan Central 13.5991 100.5998 Community 4 5.14 3.04
Chiang Rai North 19.9105 99.8406 Community 395 4.84 3.01
Maha Middle
15.6361 103.177 Plains 150 5.23 2.18
Sarakham , NE

Once all the information is gathered, HOMER sensitivity and optimizer features

are used to simulate all 3 systems at the same time with the same components, costs, and

all parameters in Table 12 when modeling PVS, WTS, PVWHS in Chaiyaphum. The

optimization results for each area can be seen in Table 20-26 and a summary of the most

optimized systems for each location in Table 27. Screenshots of results from HOMER can

be seen in Appendix C.

Table 20 Optimization results via HOMER for Chanthaburi

System size (kW) Cost ($)
System Regeneration
Type Initical Fraction (%)
Solar Wind Inverter NPC CoE
Capital

PVWHS 4.13 - 5 12,902 0.0614 7,650 75.6

WTS - 1 5 14,230 0.0671 7,847 70.4
PVS 4.13 - - 14,595 0.0932 3,329 46.0
Grid only - - - 17,585 0.1320 0 -
 77

Table 21 Optimization results via HOMER for Nakhon Si Thammarat

System size (kW) Cost ($)
System Regeneration
Type Initical Fraction (%)
Solar Wind Inverter NPC CoE
Capital
PVS 3.85 - 2.53 15,236 0.098 3,141 45
PVS with
3.85 - 2.54 16,105 0.104 3,694 45.1
Battery
PVWHS 3.85 1 2.43 16,411 0.107 4,242 45.5
PVWHS
with 3.85 1 2.44 17,280 0.112 4,796 45.6
Battery
Grid
- - - 17,585 0.132 - -
Only

Table 22 Optimization results via HOMER for Kanchanaburi

System size (kW) Cost ($)
System Regeneration
Type Initical Fraction (%)
Solar Wind Inverter NPC CoE
Capital
PVS 3.85 - 2.66 15,178 0.0953 3,180 45.9
PVS with
3.85 - 2.65 16,047 0.101 3,727 45.9
Battery
PVWHS 3.85 1 2.69 16,458 0.103 4,491 47.8
PVWHS
with 3.85 1 2.67 17,327 0.108 5,036 47.7
Battery
Grid
- - - 17,585 0.132 - -
Only
 78

Table 23 Optimization results via HOMER for Ubon Ratchathani

System size (kW) Cost ($)
System Regeneration
Type Initical Fraction (%)
Solar Wind Inverter NPC CoE
Capital
PVS 4.43 - 3.08 14,596 0.0855 3,667 52.9
PVS with
4.42 - 3.06 15,465 0.0908 4,204 52.8
Battery
PVWHS 4.41 1 3.1 16,041 0.0936 4,960 53.7
PVWHS
with 4.37 1 3.06 16,910 0.0992 5,471 53.4
Battery
Grid
- - - 17,585 0.132 - -
Only

Table 24 Optimization results via HOMER for Samutprakan

System size (kW) Cost ($)
System Regeneration
Type Initical Fraction (%)
Solar Wind Inverter NPC CoE
Capital
PVS 4.32 - 2.98 14,663 0.0873 3,565 51.8
PVWHS 4.05 1 2.82 16,190 0.0987 4,654 50.5
Grid only - - - 17,585 0.132 -

Table 25 Optimization results via HOMER for Chaing Rai

System size (kW) Cost ($)
System Regeneration
Type Initical Fraction (%)
Solar Wind Inverter NPC CoE
Capital
PVS 4.18 - 2.89 14,896 0.0902 3,457 49.7
PVWHS 4.05 1 2.82 16,439 0.1 4,654 49.3
Grid only - - - 17,585 0.132 - -
 79

Table 26 Optimization results via HOMER for Maha Sarakham

System size (kW) Cost ($) Regeneratio
System
Initical n Fraction
Type Solar Wind Inverter NPC CoE
Capital (%)
PVS 4.51 - 3.16 14,549 0.0835 3,744 54.1
PVS with
4.5 - 3.14 15,117 0.,874 4,029 54.0
Battery
PVWHS 4.59 1 3.23 16,078 0.092 5,111 54.7
PVWHS
with 4.5 1 3.17 16,737 0.0966 5,336 54.2
Battery
Grid
- - - 17,585 0.132 - -
Only

Table 27 A summary table showing the optimized system for each location
Energy Production
System Size (kW) Cost Estimation
(kWh/year)
System
Location Payback
Type NPC CoE
Solar Wind Inverter Solar Wind Total Period
($) ($)
(year)
Chanthaburi PVWHS 4.125 3 3.99 6,105 7361 13,466 12,902 0.0614 8
Nakhon Si
PVS 3.85 - 2.53 5,949 - 5,949 15,236 0.098 7.4
Thammarat
Kanchanaburi PVS 3.85 - 2.66 6,190 - 6,190 15,178 0.0953 7.4

Ubon
PVS 4.43 - 3.08 7,613 - 7,613 14,596 0.0855 7.1
Ratchathani

Samutprakan PVS 4.32 - 2.98 7,339 - 7,339 14,663 0.0873 7.1

Chiang Rai PVS 4.18 - 2.89 6,959 - 6,959 14,896 0.0902 7.3
Maha
PVS 4.51 - 3.16 7,896 - 7,896 14,459 0.0835 7
Sarakham
 80

6.1.1 Result & Discussion

According to Table 27, the only location to efficiently utilize PVWHS, 4.125/3 kW

of solar/wind, has to be installed in Chanthaburi, which has 4.79 peak sun hours, and 7.7

m/s average wind speed, while the rest of the selected locations are dominated by PVS with

optimized system size shown to Table 7. The reason is because the energy generation from

wind turbine is still not adequate to overcome energy production from PVS. Although

Nakhon Si Thammarat and Ubon Ratchathani are the two areas with lowest solar irradiation

and relatively high wind speed of 4.23 and 3.89 m/s respectively. The wind turbine still

generates very low energy (395 and 299 kWh/year as shown in Appendix C) compared to

the PV side due to the rated speed of the turbine is 12 m/s according to the specification

sheet, which is also the reason why WTS was not shown to be the most optimized system

in any areas. Therefore, in the following part, a detailed analysis was performed to further

identify at what solar irradiation and wind speed are best solutions for PVS, WTS, or

PVWHS to be the most optimized system.

HOMER decides the most economical system using NPC as ranking parameter. For

Chanthaburi, although it has the lowest NPC of all the systems, its 8 year payback period

is longer than the rest the due to its higher initial capital cost of $7,650.04 from adding 3

kW wind turbine and using larger inverter size, while the capital cost of other systems are

between $3100-$3800 as shown in Table 28. However, the PVWHS in Chanthaburi is the

still most economical system over its life cycle of 25 years as the investing on PVWHS in

Chanthaburi will cost $12,902 in 25 years instead of $17,585 from purchasing electricity

from utility without the system.

 81

Table 28 Initial capital cost of each component in 7 cities

Capital cost of components ($) System cost
City
Inverter Solar Wind ($)
Chanthaburi 1,196.29 2,553.75 3,900.00 7,650.04
Nakhon Si
757.99 2,383.50 - 3,141.49
Thammarat
Kanchanaburi 796.88 2,383.50 - 3,180.38
Ubon Ratchathani 923.69 2,742.98 - 3,666.67
Samutprakan 893.87 2,671.48 - 3,565.35
Chaing Rai 866.81 2,589.72 - 3,456.53
Maha Sarakham 949.40 2,794.13 - 3,743.53

6.2 Identifying the Most Efficient System Type with Optimal Chart

To point out at what solar irradiation per day and wind speed PVS, WTS, PVWHS

will perform best, another sensitivity analysis was conducted by

1. Vary solar isolation from 3.0 – 5.5 kWh/m2/day

2. Vary wind speed from 0.0 – 10.0 m/s

3. Range PV system size from 3.850 - 4.675 kW according to systems in Table 27.

4. Use HOMER Optimizer to determine wind turbine and inverter size according to

each combination of solar isolation, wind speed and PV system size.

5. Use the same components and costs for all system.

Once all the inputs are determined, 49,112 solutions were performed and result is

shown the Figure 28.

 82

Figure 28 Optimal chart for the optimized system type according to solar insulation
and wind speed

Result & Discussion

To interpret the meanings of Figure 28, the yellow, blue, and green regions

represent the ranges of weather parameters at which PVS, WTS, and PVWHS is the most

optimized system financially, respectively. The chart indicates that

1. PVS performs best when average wind speed is less than 6.15 m/s for all solar

irradiation range from 3-5.5 kWh/m2/day in yellow region.

2. PVWHS will outperform PVS system if a location has its solar irradiation and average

wind speed falls into the blue area.

3. WTS is the most optimized system when average wind speed is higher than 7.28 m/s

at 3 peak sun hours, 8.85 m/s at 4.5 peak sun hours, and so on above the green line.

To verify the simulation results in Table 27, it can be seen that all simulation results

agree the graph in Figure 28. For example, the system simulation result in Chanthaburi,

which has 4.79 peak sun hours and 7.7 m/s, stated that PVHSS is the most effective system,
 83

which falls in the blue area in Figure 28. Moreover, the graph also tells that in order for

WTS to outperform PVWHS in Chaiyaphum, the average wind speed needs to be at least

9.61 m/s. Therefore, PVWHS or WTS will be worth inverting on when average wind speed

is over 6 m/s, which is the same value as the Department of Alternative Energy

Development and Efficiency suggested for wind applications in Thailand [52].

Nonetheless, the graph in Figure 28 is exclusively made from a specific system

configuration with components used in PVS, and WTS in chapter 5. If a new system with

different modules, wind turbine, and financial parameters is considered and simulated, a

new graph will be generated and the graph will be different from Figure 28. However, as

long as the system configurations, and system cost are determined, this model can readily

be used for any location to answer that which renewable energy system––PVS, WTS, or

PVWHS, is best to invest on for certain locations.

 84

Chapter 7

Conclusion

SAM, PVsyst, HOMER and RETScreen are reliable to use to estimate the energy

production for PVS with an acceptable range of error for annual production. In this study,

the simulation results from SAM, PVsyst, HOMER, and RETScreen in terms of annual

yield is close it actual yield from a real system with 3.61, -3.91, 5.52, and 6.9%

respectively. More concerns and considerations are needed if the softwares are used to

predict monthly or seasonal yield. To improve the output, using monitored weather data on

a stationary site will provide from accurate outputs.

HOMER and RETScreen shows that both software has potential to model WTS for

applications in Thailand with a error of 15.68% and 18.13% respectively. SAM can also

model WTS but it needs to create a new weather data file (.srw) for regions outside of the

U.S. However, if a reference WTS with complete system information can be found,

software validation results can be more precise in both performance and financial analysis.

A reference system for PVWHS validation were not found but results from PV and Wind

validation can be applied to PVWHS as HOMER and RETScreen compute each system

separately.

PVS, WTS, and PVWHS simulations were performed in Chaiyaphum and found

that the most the most optimized system energy production-wise is 6.6 kW PVS with

averaged annual energy output of 10,424.2 kWh per year. The payback period of the system

was found to be 5.5-5.6 years. WTS and PVWHS are subsidiary for Chaiyaphum as the
 85

average wind speed of this location is too low to generate reliable amount of energy. For

simulations in Sa Kaeo, PVWHS with 6.05 kW PV and 1 kW wind turbine is the most

suitable system with 5.4 payback period.

Seven more locations in Thailand are selected to model PVS, WTS, and PVWHS

to determine the most optimized system financially out of the three. The result shows that

only one location, located on Chanthaburi, with 7.7 m/s average wind speed is worth to

install PVWHS, while rest of the locations are better to install PVS.

A system optimization graph showing at what solar irradiation and average wind

speed PVS, WTS, PVWHS will operate more efficiently was generated by varying solar

irradiation and wind speed. The graph is generated based on system configurations and

costs, and is valid one system only. For future work, the simulation model can be used to

tell if PVS, WTS, PVWHS is best for a certain solar irradiation and wind speed

combination for a different system as long as system components and costs are known.
 86

Appendix A

Electricity Bills of a residential property in Thailand

Electricity bills: January 8th - July 8th 2018

Electricity bills: July 8th - December 8th 2018

 87

Electricity bills: September 8th, 2018 - March 8th, 2019

 88

Appendix B

Specification Sheets of Components

1. Specification sheet of MTPVP-235-MSC PV Module

 89

2. Specification sheet of Solectria Inverter 225 kW

 90

3. Specification sheet of Jinko JKM275PP-60

 91

4. Specification sheet of F-1000M5 Max Power wind turbine

 92

Appendix C

Screenshots of Results from HOMER

Chapter 5.1.5: Optimization results for PVS from HOMER

Chapter 6.1: Optimization results via HOMER for Chanthaburi

 93

Chapter 6.1: Optimization results via HOMER for Nakhon Si Thammarat

Chapter 6.1: Optimization results via HOMER for Kanchanaburi

Chapter 6.1: Optimization results via HOMER for Ubon Ratchathani

 94

Chapter 6.1: Optimization results via HOMER for Samutprakan

Chapter 6.1: Optimization results via HOMER for Chaing Rai

Chapter 6.1: Optimization results via HOMER for Maha Sarakham

 95

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