Optimal design of a solar water pumping system with hybrid storage for a site in Iran

Abstract

The proportionally high energy consumption and high Global horizontal irradiation (GHI) in Iran, are two primary motivations for this research to put into action on solar water pumping system for a garden in Iran. Storage systems are not used commonly since they add a high cost to solar water pumping systems. This academic work with emphasize on storage systems, aims to design an optimum solar water pumping system to not only decrease the cost of the system but also boost the availability of the system in order to convince farmers and gardeners to immigrate from conventional systems to a solar water pumping system. In this research, three solar water pumps with different storage system configurations are optimum sized using Homer pro for a site in Iran, and they are compared economically and technically. In addition, a new hybrid storage system consisting of both battery and water tank is proposed and it is optimized using imperialist competitive algorithms (ICA). It is shown that this hybrid storage system not only reduces the project cost, but also can take advantage of both battery and water thank benefits. Furthermore, a dynamic study is carried out with the help of simulations in MATLAB/Simulink. This simulation consists of Photovoltaic (PV) modules, Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) unit and control center, inverter, storage system and water pump. The results of this study show that this new configuration for a solar water pump with a hybrid storage system is a better choice and economical than typical solar water pumps for irrigation.