• Energy Research

Abstract To operate centrifugal pump against higher discharge pressure and to achieve specific speed for delivering the water, the level of irradiance required is quite high. Therefore, by knowing the operating pressure this problem may be minimized by using energy storage devices like battery or supercapacitor operated in parallel with the SPV module. Here is the need to select a proper configuration of solar PV water pumping system (SPVWPS) using energy storage devices for the economic application. Therefore, a new approach is made towards studying different configurations of 7SPVWPS with battery and supercapacitors under varying discharge pressure and evaluate the performance parameters. Four different configurations of SPVWPS using centrifugal pump are considered, namely, directly coupled, with battery, with the supercapacitors and with a battery-supercapacitor hybrid, to determine the optimum configuration for higher system performance. The experiment have been carried out on a small scale SPVWPS with 2 m and 3 m dynamic head of the pump on sunny days at Haldia, India. The comparison of the performance for the different configurations have been reported. The study reveals that the supercapacitor based configuration give highest instantaneous efficiency. The centrifugal pump powered by SPVWPS using battery delivers a maximum of 2964 L per day for 2 m dynamic head whereas for 3 m dynamic head SPVWPS using supercapacitor delivers a maximum of 1826 L per day. An economic comparison is also done for the different topologies.

India is a tropical country that gets a significant amount of solar irradiation that is suitable for photovoltaic (PV) applications. The country is also endowed with wind energy in its large coastal areas. India is an agro-economic country that has a growing need for irrigation. Utilization of hybrid renewable energy for the agricultural needs of the country would be a step toward a sustainable future. For the environmental conditions of Haldia, India, a stand-alone PV–wind–lead-acid battery hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) was developed to cater to the needs of agricultural activities. An investigation was conducted on the impact of PV penetration on the system wind energy capacity, battery capacity, capacity shortage, net present cost, cost of energy (COE), PV and wind energy percentage and surplus energy produced. The optimization was based on the assumption that the HRES had no unmet load and the lowest COE. This research provided a range of wind energy capacities for the location with no unmet loads. The research discovered the ideal HRES of the site with a COE of US$0.312/kWh. This study may help farmers by boosting their reliance on power from renewable energy sources and decreasing their dependency on grid power for agricultural activities.