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Integration of wind machines and battery storage with the diesel plants is pursued widely to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of battery storage on the economics of hybrid wind-diesel power systems in commercial applications by analyzing wind-speed data of Dhahran, East-Coast, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (K. S. A. ). The annual load of a typical commercial building is 620, 000 kWh. The monthly average wind speeds range from 3. 3 to 5. 6 m/s. The hybrid systems simulated consist of different combinations of 100-kW commercial wind machines (CWMs) supplemented with battery storage and diesel generators. National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) (HOMER Energy's) Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER) software has been employed to perform the economic analysis. The simulation results indicate that for a hybrid system comprising of 100-kW wind capacity together with 175-kW diesel system and a battery storage of 4 h of autonomy (i. e. 4 h of average load), the wind penetration (at 37-m hub height, with 0% annual capacity shortage) is 25%. The cost of generating energy (COE, /kWh) from this hybrid wind–battery–diesel system has been found to be 0. 139 /kWh (assuming diesel fuel price of 0. 1/L). The investigation examines the effect of wind/battery penetration on: COE, operational hours of diesel gensets. Emphasis has also been placed on un-met load, excess electricity, fuel savings and reduction in carbon emissions (for wind–diesel without battery storage, wind–diesel with storage, as compared to diesel-only situation), cost of wind–battery–diesel systems, COE of different hybrid systems, etc. The study addresses benefits of incorporation of short-term battery storage (in wind–diesel systems) in terms of fuel savings, diesel operation time, carbon emissions, and excess energy. The percentage fuel savings by using above hybrid system is 27% as compared to diesel-only situation Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
S.M. Shaahid (Tue,) studied this question.