Integration and control of an off-grid hybrid wind/PV generation system for rural applications

This study focuses on a stand-alone hybrid system combining photovoltaic/wind with super-capacitor/battery storage for rural residential applications. Various DC/DC converters are used to control the power flow to the load and Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT) is used for maximum power extraction from the photovoltaic/wind systems. In the proposed architecture, the Photovoltaic (PV) has the priority to meet the required load. A wind turbine system is integrated in the system to support PV during demand. Both super-capacitor and battery are used as an energy storage system during surplus power and/or backup device during demand. The proposed system operates in such a way to maintain the State of Charge (SoC) of battery above 80%, which consequently improves the battery life and its performance. The proposed system uses real time solar, wind data and a load of five rural households available at the University of Nottingham, Malaysia campus. MATLAB simulation results conclude that the proposed system can compensate power fluctuation and meet the required load without any grid connections.