Sizing Wind/Photovoltaic Hybrids for Households in Inner Mongolia

Approximately 140,000 wind turbines currently provide electricity to about one-third of the non-grid-connected households in Inner Mongolia. However, these households often suffer from a lack of power during the low-wind summer months. This report describes an analysis of hybrid wind/photovoltaic (PV) systems for such households. The sizing of the major components is based on a subjectivetrade-off between the cost of the system and the percent unmet load, as determined by the Hybrid2 software in conjunction with a simplified time-series model. Actual resource data (wind speed and solar radiation) from the region are processed so as to best represent the scenarios of interest. Small wind turbines of both Chinese and U.S. manufacture are considered in the designs. The resultsindicate that combinations of wind and PV are more cost-effective than either one alone, and that the relative amount of PV in the design increases as the acceptable unmet load decreases and as the average wind speed decreases.