Design of off-grid homes with Renewable energy sources

The limited reserves of fossil fuels and global environmental concerns over their use for electric power generation had augmented the attention in the exploitation of renewable energy resources. In particular, rapid advances in wind-turbine generator and photovoltaic technologies have brought opportunities for the utilization of wind and solar resources for electric power generation world-wide. Moreover, the economic aspects of these technologies are now adequately hopeful to also justify their use in small-scale stand-alone applications for residential use. If the development of a computer-based approach for evaluating the general performance of standalone hybrid wind-PV generating systems are analyzed and their results are reached to the common consumer with the economical analysis so that these systems can made more popular. In this paper a simulation approach has been suggested for designing Off-grid homes. Hourly average of wind speed/solar radiation data from the site is taken for the generating unit and the anticipated load data are used to predict the general performance of the generating system. The excess wind/solar-generated power, when available, is used to supply the power to the grid. Simulation studies were carried out using HOMER software. Simulation results will be given for performance evaluation of a standalone hybrid wind-PV generating unit for a residential house assumed to be located in a remote area which is analyzed as connected with grid and without connected to grid. Finally, the results obtained and methods are suggested to enhance the performance of the proposed model.