Techno-economic role of PV tracking technology in a hybrid PV-hydroelectric standalone power system

The main aim of this study is to evaluate the techno-economic role of the PV tracking technology in a hybrid photovoltaic-pump storage hydroelectric (PV-PSH) standalone power system. In this regard, a multi-objective optimization procedure is developed for the optimal design of a PV-PSH system and the developed procedure is separately implemented for the different types of PV tracking technologies such as horizontal and fixed-tilt panels (without any sun tracker), East-West oriented single-axis tracking, fixed-tilt azimuth tracking and dual-axis tracking systems. A coastal area in the south of Iran is considered as the case study; investment cost and loss of power supply probability (LPSP) are considered as the objective functions. Moreover, number of PV modules, turbine capacity, pipes diameters, and the volume, installation height and depth to diameter ratio of reservoir constitute the set of design variables and NSGAII is employed as the optimization algorithm. The results show that for the present case study, the fixed-tilt azimuth tracking technology leads to the minimum system cost with a suitable certainty under different LPSP values. Moreover, it results in the greatest match between the demanded and supplied power profiles. The results also illustrate that the appropriate selection of sun tracking technology in a hybrid PV-PSH system can lead to a savings of up to 18.2%. Finally, the economic superiority of the PV-PSH system over the common PV-battery system is investigated and proved for the case study.