Evaluation of off-grid PV-battery inverter system for supporting energy sector in Iraq

الملخص EN

Electrical energy is one of the most important forms of energy that directly affects all parts of modern life.

The global demand for electrical energy significantly connected with population growth.

In Iraq, the power plants involved in the production of electric energy operates mainly on fossil fuels, the decreases in their efficiency resulted in a significant decreases in the amount of energy supplied in all the cities of Iraq.

Currently, the production amount available from all operated stations (thermal, gas, hydro or diesel units) to the national grid reach 7.153 GW in 2013, while the total electrical power needs is estimated more than 13 GW with a shortage energy reach up to 50 %.

The renewable energy share only 8% from the total production and comes from the hydro power plants.

The renewable energy sources generate electricity with inconsiderable contribution of carbon dioxide (CO2) or other greenhouse gases (GHG) to the environment.

This paper investigates the impact of a system consisting of a photovoltaic (PV) modules, batteries and inverter on off grid energy production.

The system was analysed using PVsyst software.

Global meteorological database software called Meteonorm7 has been used to generate a climate file for Baghdad city (33.3oN and 44.4oE) as input data into PVsyst.

The suggested hybrid system in the present investigation consists of a combination of PV panels supplemented with battery set and inverter.

The simulation explores a mix of climate conditions and the system components characteristics such as modules power output (kWp) and batteries charging/discharging storage behaviour to match the user need.

With monthly electrical energy demand of 17127 kWh/month, the investigation indicates that Baghdad's location characterized with considerable monthly average daily beam normal solar radiation intensity (4.23 kWh / m2), is a prospective candidate for deployment of PV power components.

The study results show that for a microgeneration system composed of 1.8-kWp PV system together with three batteries storage with overall energy storage 3.6 kWh and an inverter system.

The solar penetration cover 21 % from the total proposed demand.