A Genetic-Algorithm Based-Method for Designing a Solar PV Water Pumping System Serving a 50-Acre Agricultural Farm in Assiut

Abstract

The proposed work is aimed at designing a solar PV water pumping system to serve irrigation requirements of a 50-acre agricultural farm in New Assiut city, and domestic electrical load for nearby buildings to replace the already existing system, which is supplied from the utility grid. Two scenarios are presented for the proposed PV system depending on the type of storage element, whether it is battery bank or combined battery bank and water storage tanks. Modelling and optimal sizing of the components of PV system (PV modules, water tanks, battery bank) is established using Genetic Algorithm (GA) in MATLAB software. The two objective functions for optimization are the cost of energy (COE) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with a constraint on zero loss of power supply probability (LPSP). The optimal design for scenario 1 gives a COE of 0.234 $/kWh, total net present cost (TNPC) of $ 327915, GHG emissions of 7906 kg CO<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf>, and percentage of excess energy of 37.3 %. The optimal design for scenario 2 gives a COE of 0.177 $/kWh, TNPC of $ 247986, GHG emissions of 7277 kg CO<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</inf>, and percentage of excess energy of 34.2 %. Scenario 2 is found to be more suitable for the present case-study.