A review of techniques in optimal sizing of hybrid renewable energy systems

Abstract

This paper presents a review of techniques usedin recent published works on optimal sizing of hybrid renewable energy sources. Hybridization of renewable energy sources is an emergent promising trend born out of the need to fully utilize and solve problems associated with the reliability of renewable energy resources such as wind and solar. Exploitation of these resources has been instrumental in tackling or mitigating present day energy problems such as price instability for fossil based fuels, global warming and climate change in addition to being seen as way of meeting future demand for power. This paper targets researchers in the renewable energy space and the general public seeking to inform them on trends in methods applied in optimal sizing of hybrid renewable energy sources as well as to provide a scope into what has been done in this field. In reviewing previous works, a two prong approach has been used focusing attention on the sizing methods used in the reviewed works as well as the performance indices used to check quality by these works. In summary there is a clear indication of increased interest in recent years in optimal sizing of hybrid renewable energy resources with metaheuristic approaches such as Genetic Algorithms and Particle Swarm Optimization coming out as very interesting to researchers. It has also been observed that resources being hybridized are those with complementary regimes on specific sites.