Sizing of a standalone photovoltaic/battery system at minimum cost for remote housing electrification in Sohar, Oman

This paper presents a method for optimal sizing of a standalone PV system for remote areas in Sohar, Oman. PV array tilt angle as well as the size of the system's energy sources are designed optimally for better performance and lower energy cost. Numerical methods for optimization of the PV module tilt angle, PV array size and storage battery capacity are implemented using MATLAB and hourly meteorological data and load demand. The results show that for Sohar zone the tilt angle of a PV array must be adjusted twice a year. The PV array must be slanted at 49° in the period of 21/09–21/03 (n = 255–81), while it must be horizontal (tilt angle is zero) in the period of 21/03–21/09 (n = 81–255). This adjustment practice gains the energy collected by a PV array by 20.6%. As for the PV system size, the results show that the sizing ration of the PV array for Oman is 1.33 while the sizing ratio for battery is 1.6. However the cost of the energy generated by the proposed system is 0.196 USD/kWh.

► We propose a numerical method for optimization of PV array tilt angle for Oman.
► We proposed a numerical algorithm for sizing of standalone PV systems for Oman.
► We present a comparison with a known method in terms of system availability & cost.