Energy and Exergy Analysis of a Hybrid Renewable Energy Source

The study aims at quantifying the advantage of increased exergy and energy efficiency of a hybrid renewable energy system as compared to stand-alone wind turbine and solar photovoltaic cell. The study primarily aims at comparing stand-alone systems with their hybrid counterparts using the energy and exergy analysis. The produced power pattern, efficiencies, and parameter optimization calculations have been carried out using MATLAB. The study reports that the stand-alone energy as well as exergy efficiency of different photovoltaic cells are in the range of 15–22% and 8–12%, while for wind turbine it is reported to be 34.78% and 23.58%, respectively. A hybrid system comprising of both the stand-alone systems has a reported energy and energy and exergy efficiency in the range of 20–25 and 40–45%, respectively.