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Abstract

Energy and water availability are the most important factors for developing agriculture activities in arid and remote areas. This study aims to investigate the feasibility of using hybrid renewable energy systems to drive a reverse osmosis water desalination unit used for a greenhouse protected hydroponics cultivation in arid remote site located outside El-Tor city, South Sinai Peninsula, Egypt. The present study describes the installed PV water desalination system for driving water for a small green house hydroponics cultivation. For optimization purposes, the study presents a theoretical economic analysis of two hybrid systems; Photovoltaic/wind turbine (PV/WT) with and without backup diesel generator. In both cases the cost of wind turbine is considered actual and international cost (0.7 of PV cost). Both the photovoltaic and wind turbine each of 1 kW rated power with required electrical devices and storage batteries. HOMER software is used to simulate and analyze the system performance over 15 years lifetime based on the Net Present Cost (NPC) and the Cost of Energy (COE). Also, the capacity shortage is used as an evaluation criterion. The results showed that COE of PV/WT system is less than that of PV/WT/Diesel, while there is no capacity shortage in case of PV/WT/Diesel.