Determination of the optimal power generation and co-generation of power and energy in solar and wind units

Micro grids are used to supply the demands for energy in households, industry and agriculture, and their cost is estimated based on pricing policies in the electricity market. Remote areas are often faced with problems due to lack of access to the main power grids. Considering the environmental and economic issues in remote areas, Micro-grids could serve as a good source of energy generation in these areas. In the present study, attempts are made to determine optimal size of a grid- independent hybrid system. The hybrid system to be investigated in this study consists of wind turbines, solar arrays, fuel cells with hydrogen storage and diesel generators. The objective of this paper is to minimize the system cost and reduce environmental pollutions in the study period. System costs include annual capital costs (ACC), annual replacement costs (ARCs), annual fuel costs of diesel generator (AFC), and annual operating costs (AOCs) [3]. GAMS software, that is one of the most powerful commercial optimization software, has been used for optimization purposes in the present study