Technical feasibility study on a standalone hybrid solar-wind system

with pumped hydro storage for a remote island in Hong Kong

Tao Ma
*
, Hongxing Yang, Lin Lu, Jinqing Peng
Renewable Energy Research Group (RERG), Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 26 September 2013
Accepted 10 March 2014
Available online xxx
Keywords:
Hybrid solar-wind system
Pumped hydro storage
Technical feasibility
System modeling
Simulation
a b s t r a c t
The intermittent characteristic of a solar-alone or a wind-alone power generation system prevents the
standalone renewable energy system from being fully reliable without suitable energy storage capability.
In this study, the most traditional and mature storage technology, pumped hydro storage (PHS), is
introduced to support the standalone microgrid hybrid solar-wind system. This paper explores a new
solution for the challenging task about energy storage. A mathematical model of the hybrid system is
developed and the operating principle is introduced. The proposed system is applied in a case study to
power a remote island in Hong Kong, and its technical feasibility is then examined. The hour-by-hour
simulation results indicate that the intermittent nature of the renewables can be compensated by
introducing the PHS technology. Therefore, a reliable and environmentally friendly power supply can be
provided. The results demonstrate that technically the PHS based renewable energy system is an ideal
solution to achieve 100% energy autonomy in remote communities.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In recent years, concerns about global warming and environ-
mental pollution from burning fossil fuels have created new de-
mands for clean and sustainable energy sources such as wind, solar
photovoltaic (PV), hydro, biomass, geothermal and etc. On the other
hand, over 1.5 billion people worldwide still lack access to grid
electricity, most living in small remote villages or islands which are
isolated from utility [1,2]. Power supply extension to those areas is
not easy due to economic and geography issues. In those areas, the
most practical and cost-effective energy future is most likely to be
renewable energy systems (RESs), with a reputation for being clean,
inexhaustible, and environmentally friendly [3,4]. Meanwhile, the
standalone RESs have become cost competitive with conventional
resources in remote areas, primarily for two key reasons: the rising
cost of diesel and the rapidly declining cost of RESs [5].
Due to the inherent uctuations of solar and wind energy
resource, independent use of a single energy source in off-grid
application usually leads to a considerably oversized generation
and storage system, which in turn requires a higher operating and
lifecycle cost [6e9]. Therefore, the hybrid solar-wind system is
usually adopted, which can leverage the strengths of each
technology to provide a more reliable and less costly power supply
in remote areas [5,10e13]. Substantial researches [14e18] have
reported the study results of hybrid solar and wind systems. The
main benet of the system is the complementary nature exhibited
from wind and solar energy both in daily and seasonal patterns
[19,20].
In addition, RESs are usually intermittent, unpredictable and
weather dependent. Therefore, a continuous and reliable power
supply is hardly possible without energy storage. By employing an
energy storage system(ESS), the surplus energy can be stored when
power generation exceeds demand and then be released to cover
the periods when net load exists, providing a robust back-up to
intermittent renewable energy [21]. The ESS is thus a critical
component and powerful partner to ensure sustainable supply of
renewable energy [22], and the European Commission nds it will
play a key role in enabling the world to develop a low-carbon po-
wer supply system [23].
In this study, pumped hydro storage (PHS) is introduced for
standalone hybrid solar-wind systems, to replace the most used
batteries which are not environmentally friendly due to containing
lead and sulfuric acid. This hybrid technology provides a novel
solution for the challenging task about energy storage through
employing the most traditional and mature storage technology. The
PHS is the most widespread energy storage technology with its rst
application in the 1890s [24] and a roundtrip efciency of 70e85%
[25]. It remains the most widely used and commercially viable
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 852 2766 5863; fax: 852 2765 7198.
E-mail address: tao.ma@connect.polyu.hk (T. Ma).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Renewable Energy
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ renene
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2014.03.028
0960-1481/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Renewable Energy 69 (2014) 7e15
electricity storage technology, especially for large energy storage
systems of utility grids. The total installed capacity is over 127 GW
in the world, accounting for 99% of the global storage capacity
[23,26].
The current literature on the PHS majorly focuses on the
development of the technology itself, especially for large scale
systems. However, to date a few studies have reported the micro-
PHS for standalone RESs, but without detailed studies. In the ref-
erences [27,28], the PHS was proposed to effectively solve the po-
wer supply reliability problems associated with excess PV power.
To mitigate the imbalance between power production and load
demand in a PV plant, a wind-solar with PHS power supply system
was studied [29]. These studies [30,31] have established simple
models of the main components of a hybrid wind-solar-pumped-
storage power system. The economic performance of the pumped
hydro storage and battery storage for a renewable energy powered
island has been examined in Ref. [32]. In addition, substantial
studies have been conducted on the PHS to increase the penetration
level of wind power in isolated power systems [33e37]. Moreover,
the study [38] suggested that the potential of the PHS in decen-
tralized electricity grid is even more important if RES power gen-
eration capacities are below 300 kW.
Available practical applications in which PHS is used as energy
storage and backup power supply for standalone RESs are
extremely rare. The PHS systemwas demonstrated in an 18 kWp PV
plant in Greece to partially replace batteries [39,40]. A relative low
overall efciency of the hybrid energy storage system was pre-
sented, whereas signicant social impacts, such as both electricity
and water supply, were achieved. A pilot research project,
composed of a micro-hydropower station (80 kW), a PV system
(100 kWp) and 8 water pumps (60 kW), was developed by NEDO
Japan in Houay Se (Lao PDR) [41]. This system has operated for
several years, demonstrating its effectiveness and success in
providing a sustainable power supply and improving their living
conditions for the local residents in an isolated countryside. The
wind-solar and pumped storage supply systems were built in
Alishan to solve electricity problem for rural areas in the west re-
gion of China [42]. In addition, a demonstration system with 5 kW
wind turbine, 720 kWp solar panel was established in Siziwangqi of
Inner Mongolia, China [42]. In this system, a big water pump and a
small water pump were designed for different working conditions.
However, these pilot renewable energy systems with PHS are only
for technology demonstration, none of them are focused on system
modeling and simulation, and these demonstrations cannot fully
reect all possible operating conditions and performances of this
hybrid technology of real projects. Therefore, more research on
feasibility study, models development, simulation, experiments
and demonstrations is required.
From the available literature, it appears that the technical
feasibility of the standalone hybrid solar-wind system with pum-
ped water storage for remote areas has not been widely investi-
gated and documented in literature. In the present study, the
technical feasibility of such system is examined with system
modeling and simulation. The physical model, mathematical
model and operation principle of this system are presented. The
proposed model is then applied in research project for power
supply in a remote island in Hong Kong. Dozens of system con-
gurations have been conducted, and nally the results of one
representative case are examined in detail with respect to its
power production, efciency, energy utilization, and CO
2
emission
reduction.
2. Physical model and operation principle
As shown in Fig. 1, the system involved in this study is equipped
with a power generator (PV array and wind turbine (WT)), an en-
ergy storage system (pumped hydro storage), an end-user (load)
and a control station. The whole system is isolated from the utility
grid, hence called standalone system.
The PHS, converting renewable electrical energy into me-
chanical energy and vice versa, is employed as the energy storage
subsystem, which plays an important role in shifting energy sur-
pluses, mitigating the intermittency of RE sources, and balancing
the uctuating supply and uctuating demand as well. The oper-
ating principle of the hybrid RES with PHS can be briey described
as follows. The pump elevates water from the lower reservoir, sea
End-use
Lower reservoir/sea
Turbine
Upper reservoir
Pump/Motor
Double penstock
Pumping
Pumping
Generating
Generator
Electricity in during charging
Electricity out
during discharging
PV array
Wind turbine
Inverter DC/AC
Control
station
Fig. 1. A hybrid solar-wind system with pumped storage system.
T. Ma et al. / Renewable Energy 69 (2014) 7e15 8
or river or an articial pool, to the upper reservoir (UR) using
excess solar and wind output during periods of surplus on the
balance between supply and demand. The stored water is then
allowed to ow back to the lower reservoir, enabling the pro-
duction of electricity through a turbine/generator unit to supple-
ment the imbalance during periods of high electrical demand and
insufcient renewable energy production. In this way, a reliable
and sustainable energy supply would be guaranteed for 24 h a day
if the charging and discharging rates as well as the capacity are
sufcient.
In this pumped storage system, there are two separated
penstocks, one is only used for pumping water and the other
one is only used for generating electricity. Therefore, the two
processes, charging and discharging, can occur simultaneously
[43]. This double-penstock system is popularly used because it
is easier to stabilize the power voltage and frequency. Another
simplied system (called the single-penstock system) employs
reversible pump-turbine set, but it cannot charge and discharge
power at the same time. Another possible benet of the PHS for
renewables is that it can be fully integrated with the local
natural conditions because it can combine the streams and
collect rain water in the upper reservoir. The stored freshwater
can also provide domestic water and agriculture irrigation for
some remote villages [42]. Moreover, the renewable technolo-
gies are used to supply power and drive a reverse osmosis
desalination plant for producing freshwater for remote com-
munities [44,45].
3. Mathematical modeling and simulation
The mathematical model for individual components of the
hybrid system with PHS is proposed in this section. An hour-by-
hour simulation program is then developed to size the PV, WT
and UR.
3.1. PV array
The polycrystalline PV panels (model: STP200-18/Ub-1) from
Suntech Ltd. are employed in this study. All the PV panels are
assumed to be positioned in a xed direction facing south at an
inclined angle of 22.5

, which is optimum angle for the PV panels

installed on this island [4]. The key specications of the studied PV
panel provided by the manufacturer are presented in Table 1.
The relationship between output current I and output voltage V
of an individual PV cell can be obtained from the Shockley diode
equation (ve-parameter model) [46]:
I I
ph
I
0
_
e
VIRs
V
t 1
_

V IR
s
R
p
(1)
where I
ph
is the photo current (A); I
0
is the diode saturation current
(A); R
s
is the series resistance (U); R
p
is the shunt/parallel resistance
(U); V
t
nKT/qis thediode thermal voltage(V); nis thediodeideality
factor; T is the cell temperature (K); K is Boltzmanns constant
(1.381 10
23
J/K); q is the electron charge (1.602 10
19
C);
Based on the modules specication, the ve key parameters
I
ph
, I
0
, V
t
, R
s
and R
p
under standard test conditions (STC) can be
computed using analytical or numerical solution. After that the
parameters under general operating conditions can easily be
obtained by considering the effects of solar radiation and solar
cell temperature. Therefore, the power output from a PV array is
[46]:
P
A
I
A
V
A
N
p
I
ph
V
A
N
p
I
0
V
A
_
e
1
V
t
_
V
A
Ns

I
A
Np
Rs
_
1
_

N
p
R
p
V
A
_
V
A
N
s

I
A
N
p
R
s
_
2
where N
S
is the number of PV cells in series for the studied array
and N
p
is the number of PV module in parallel. This equation can be
expanded to any number of solar cells in series (N
S
), and thus it is
not restricted to one module. If there are N
M
modules connected in
series, and there are N
C
solar cells in series in each module, then
N
S
N
M
N
C
.
The maximumpower point tracking function is usually included
in the inverter. Therefore, based on the above equation, the
completed PeV curve and the maximum power value can be
obtained.
3.2. Wind turbine
The wind turbine Proven 11 fromKingspan Renewables Ltd. was
employed in this study. Table 2 presents the main specications of
the wind turbine.
Different types of WTs may output different power although
they have the same rated power and they are installed at the same
site due to their difference in the power curve characteristics.
Therefore, the model used to describe the performance should be
different. Through a comprehensive literature review, it was found
that the following equation was mostly used to describe the power
output of a WT if its power curve is not available:
P
WT
v
_

_
P
R
v
k
v
k
c
v
k
R
v
k
c
v
c
v v
R

P
R
v
R
v v
F

0 v < v
c
and v > v
R

(3)
where P
R
is the rated electrical power; v
c
is the cut-in wind speed;
v
R
is the rated wind speed; v
F
is the cut-off wind speed; k is the
Weibull shape parameter, which depends on the distribution of
wind speed.
To estimate wind energy yield, some losses should be consid-
ered as well such as downtime losses, array losses, soiling losses
factor and other losses [47]. Therefore, a new factor about wind
turbine power output probability is introduced using the following
equation.
p
WT
1p
downtime

_
1p
array
__
1p
soiling
_
1p
other
(4)
Table 1
Key specications of the Suntech STP200-18/Ub-1 PV panel.
Characteristics Value
Open circuit voltage (V
oc
) 33.4 V
Optimum operating voltage (V
mp
) 26.2 V
Short circuit current (I
sc
) 8.12 A
Optimum operating current (I
mp
) 7.63 A
Maximum power at STC (P
max
) 200 Wp
Table 2
Key specications of the wind turbine.
Rated power 5.2 kW (1 min average at 11 m/s)
Peak power 6.1 kW
Reference annual energy 8949 kWh (5 m/s at 10 m hub height)
Output voltage available 48 V or 300 V DC
Cut in speed 3.5 m/s
Cut off speed 13.5 m/s
T. Ma et al. / Renewable Energy 69 (2014) 7e15 9
3.3. Pumped hydro storage subsystem
The pumped hydro storage is the major energy storage systemin
this study. The PHS subsystem consists of a separated pump/motor
unit and a turbine/generator unit. The water pumping coefcient
(m
3
/kWh) and turbine generating coefcient (kWh/m
3
) are two key
parameters of the PHS subsystem. The model for the PHS has been
examined in Refs. [42,48,49].
3.3.1. Pump/motor unit
The water ow rate sucked from the lower reservoir by the
pumps is expressed in Eq. (6). The power source is directly supplied
by the hybrid renewable energy generator. This ow rate can be
compared to the charging rate of battery.
q
p
t
h
p
,P
h/p
t
rgh
c
p
,P
h/p
t (5)
where P
h/p
t is the charging power from the hybrid generator to
the pump (W); h is the elevating head (m); g is the acceleration due
to gravity (9.8 m/s
2
); r is the density of water (1000 kg/m
3
); h
p
is
the overall pumping efciency; and c
p
is the water pumping coef-
cient of the pump/motor unit (m
3
/kWh);
3.3.2. Turbine/generator unit
In the case of energy decits, water is drawn from the upper
reservoir in order to operate the hydro turbines. The released po-
wer from the turbine/generator unit is:
P
t
t h
t
rgh,q
t
t c
t
,q
t
t (6)
where h
t
is the overall efciency of the turbine/generator unit; q
t
(t)
is the water volumetric ow rate input into the turbine (m
3
/s); c
t
is
the turbine generating coefcient (kWh/m
3
).
3.3.3. Upper reservoir (UR)
The water quantity stored in the UR should be adequate to meet
the islands power demand in case of no power supply for several
consecutive days [50]. The water level in the UR can be considered
as the state of charge (SOC) of the storage tank. The gravitational
potential energy stored in the UR should be:
E
c
n
day
,E
load

h
t
,r,V,g,h
3:6 10
6
(7)
where E
c
is the energy storage capacity of a water reservoir (kWh);
n
day
is the number of days of autonomy; E
load
is the daily load en-
ergy consumed; V is the volume or storage capacity of the water
reservoir (m
3
). Therefore, the required volume of the UR can be
obtained.
The total quantity of water stored in the UR at any time t is
determined by:
Q
UR
t Q
UR
t 11 a q
p
t q
t
t (8)
where a is the evaporation and leakage loss. For simplication, this
study has ignored these losses in the above equations. In addition,
the water quantity of the upper reservoir is subject to the following
constraints:
Q
UR
min
Q
UR
Q
URmax
V (9)
The minimum storage of the UR Q
URmin
is usually set at zero. In
Ref. [51], a lower limit of water quantity was kept to maintain pump
press, to preserve efciency, and to support emergency reserve.
Accordingtopractical engineeringexperience [44], the efciency
of the water pump (6.6 kW) and turbine (5.0 kW) at their best
operating point is 72% and 64%, respectively. Besides, in the litera-
ture [52], the rated efciency of the micro-water pump (10 kW) and
turbine (7.5 kW) was calculated at 68% and 39%, respectively. In the
present study, the hydro turbine and pump used in a real engi-
neering project inLaos [41] were employed. The pumpefciency is a
littlelowat 50%, andtheefciencyof theturbineis 65%. Theavailable
water head was assumed at 60 min this study. Therefore, the overall
energy storage system efciency is 32.6%, and thus the corre-
sponding water pumping coefcient and the turbine generating
coefcient is 3.06 m
3
/kWh and 0.106 kWh/m
3
, respectively. The
pump and turbine are of variable speed, which allows the exploi-
tation of small amounts of excess energy produced by the PV arrays
andwindturbines, andalsoallows coveringsmall net loadbya small
quantity of water, to improve the overall energy system efciency.
Therefore, based on the above models, the required minimum
UR size can be obtained after 8760 simulations, if the capacities of
PV and wind turbine are inputted.
3.4. Energy balance model for power generation system and load
consumption
The energy balance model of the hybrid solar-wind power
generation system at time t is expressed as:
P
PV
t,f
PV
P
WT
t,p
WT
,h
inv
P
h/l
t P
h/p
t P
h/d
t
(10)
where h
inv
is the inverter efciency, which is the ratio of the in-
verters AC output power and DC input power; f
PV
is the PV derating
factor, accounting for the factors as aging, soiling, wiring losses,
shading, and so on; p
WT
is the power output probability of a WT;
P
h/l
t is the hybrid system power output directly delivered to the
load; P
h/p
t is the power transferredtothe pumps for charging UR;
and P
h/d
t is the excess/wasted energy delivered to a dump load.
The load demand is mainly covered by two sources, so the en-
ergy balance mode of load consumption is:
P
l
t P
h/l
t P
t
t (11)
where P
h/l
t is the power directly delivered from the hybrid RE
generator; P
t
(t)is the power produced by the turbineegenerator
unit. When the net load is negative or zero, no supplementary
energy is required and thus P
t
(t) is zero; when the net load is
positive, the pumpeturbine set will be started and P
t
(t) will be
positive.
3.5. Load demand prole
Currently, this island is powered by a diesel generator and a
small PV plant (19.8 kWp). However, the actual load information on
this island is not measured. Besides, the power demand will rise
due to the increasing number of residents in the near future.
Therefore, in this study, the daily base load on this island was
estimated at 200 kWh/day, and was then synthesized in HOMER
software by adding randomness for different days and months, to
create a quite reasonable prole for this island. The daily and yearly
load proles are illustrated in Figs. 2 and 3.
3.6. Solar energy and wind energy resource
The meteorological data on this island was collected by the
Hong Kong Observatory, including solar radiation, wind speed and
ambient temperature. The solar radiation and wind speed
T. Ma et al. / Renewable Energy 69 (2014) 7e15 10
distribution are presented in Figs. 4 and 5, respectively. Their hourly
weather data was synchronized throughout 2009.
4. A case study
The mathematical model proposed above was used for
designing such a hybrid system for a research project on a remote
island in Hong Kong for supplying power to the some 100 local
people. Dozens of cases were simulated with the wind capacity
ranging from 0 to 20.8 kW in steps of 5.2 kW (the rated power of
one WT) and PV size from 70 to 150 kWp in steps of 5 kWp. No
energy decit was allowed for all the cases, and the initial water in
the UR was assumed to be the maximum capacity. Finally, one
representative case, which is technically feasible in terms of power
supply reliability, was selected to examine its operation perfor-
mance with respect to power production, efciency, energy utili-
zation, and CO
2
emission reduction. The main components of the
system in this case are PV arrays (110 kWp), WT (2 units, 10.4 kW),
energy storage system (UR: 5106 m
3
) and a converter. The selected
case may be not the optimal scenario among all these cases froman
economic perspective or from a techno-operational perspective
[54], but certainly it can meet power supply reliability. The system
optimization will be carried out in our future work based multiple
objectives.
4.1. Monthly average energy production from PV arrays and WTs
The daily average WT and PV power generation for each month
of the year are presented in Fig. 6. It can be noted that solar power
0 6 12 18 24
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
L
o
a
d

(
k
W
)
Hour
Fig. 2. Typical daily load demand prole.
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
H
o
u
r
l
y

l
o
a
d

(
k
W
)
Month
Fig. 3. Yearly load prole.
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Month
D
a
i
l
y

s
o
l
a
r

r
a
d
i
a
t
i
o
n

(
k
W
h
/
m
2
d
a
y
)
Fig. 4. The monthly solar radiation distribution [53].
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

(
%
)
Wind speed (m/s)
Actual data
Fit curve: Weibull distribution
Fig. 5. Wind speed frequency distribution at the involved island [53].
T. Ma et al. / Renewable Energy 69 (2014) 7e15 11
production dominates the power supply, contributing almost 83%
of the total production during the simulated year. In addition, the
PV output is extremely high in the summer months. This is a
favorable characteristic since electricity demand is also high in
summer because of high cooling load. Therefore, the PV size has a
somewhat higher share than that of the wind turbines in this
hybrid system. Similar ndings were seen in the previous studies
[8,55], but it may depend on the share of RE. In contrast, the wind
energy contribution was found to be signicant from Jan to March
and from Oct to Dec. Moreover, the solar and wind output distri-
bution in Fig. 6 shows good monthly complementary characteristic
between each other.
4.2. Energy ow and water ow
Fig. 7 summarizes the daily average electricity ow and water
ow of the case study. The red (in web version) lines and blue (in
web version) lines represent the electrical energy ow and water
ow, respectively. It can be found that 83% of the renewable energy
output is contributed by the PV and 17% by the WTs. Among the
total useful electricity (456.6 kWh/day), about 31.4% is directly
consumed by the end-users, and 38% is transferred to the pump/
motor unit for lifting water to UR for storage. However, almost 30%
(139.4 kWh/day) of the total output is an excess to requirements
which has to be transferred to a dump load as spilled energy.
4.3. Hourly energy balance
An example of the hourly simulation result during one typical
week is illustrated in Fig. 8 to analyze the energy balance of the
proposed system. It is obvious that the available PV and WT output
is rst used to cover the local power demand, and accordingly
support the pumping units to increase water storage in the UR
when RE output exceeds the load. When energy decit exists, the
hydro/turbine units are launched, releasing water from the upper
reservoir to produce electricity and thus meet the net load.
4.4. UR charging and discharging power
The duration curve of the UR charging and discharging power is
presented in Fig. 9, which illustrates that the maximum surplus
power from the hybrid renewable energy generator available for
charging is 83.7 kW. Therefore a single variable speed pump or a
combination of several pumps rated at 85 kW, at least, should be
used for the proposed system. On the other hand, the maximum
power decit is 18.4 kW, and hence a single variable speed turbine
or a combination of several turbines rated at 20 kW should be
employed to cover the net load. The combination of several pumps
or turbines can improve their efciencies and utilization ratios.
On the other hand, the integration of the charging power curve
over time (i.e. the area under the duration curve) is the total input
energy to the pump/motor unit, which is calculated as 63,426 kWh
at the simulated year. Similarly, the integration of the discharging
power curve over time is the total output energy from the hydro
turbine/generator unit, which is calculated as 20,654 kWh. There-
fore, the overall efciency of the PHS system, i.e. the ratio of the
area under discharging curve to the area under charging curve, is
calculated as 32.6%. This value is well consistent with the mathe-
matical model presented in Section 3.3.
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
0
5
10
15
20
25
P
o
w
e
r

(
k
W
)
Month
PV
Wind
Load
Fig. 6. Daily mean renewable energy power production and load demand.
AC bus DC bus
Pump
Turbine
UR LR
Inverter
PV array
Dump
Load
Load
Electricity
Water
537.2 kWh 456.6 kWh
1
4
3
.
4
k
W
h
173.8kWh
56.6kWh
139.4kWh
200kWh
532 m
3
533 m
3
110 kWp
5106 m
3
85 kW
20 kW
200 kWh
Wind turbine
10.4 kW
91.7kWh
445.5kWh
Fig. 7. Summary of daily average electricity ow and water ow.
T. Ma et al. / Renewable Energy 69 (2014) 7e15 12
4.5. State of charge of the UR
The results in Fig. 10 illustrate the hourly energy stored in the
UR during the simulated year. This water level of UR can be
considered as the state of charge (SOC) of the energy storage
system, similar to the SOC of a battery bank. It can be seen from
the rainbow prole that the SOC was relatively high. For the yearly
distribution, the values between 90% and 100% (red in web version
color) accounts for 76% of the time, indicating the UR is full or
nearly full charged for a quite long time. Meanwhile, a consider-
able part of energy is wasted because of limited storage capacity.
For the daily distribution, the storage system is usually charged in
the afternoon and discharges power in the late night and earlier
morning.
High depth of discharge occurs in May and July, which results
from the high cooling load in these months. The minimum water
stored in the UR (0.921 m
3
) appeared at 7:00am on 26th May.
Therefore, to ensure a sustainable and continuous power supply,
there must be a sufcient power generator and UR capacity in those
two months.
4.6. Pollutant emission
A purely solar and wind energy supply systemdoes not emit any
pollutants during its lifecycle. However, if this island was to be
powered by diesel generators, substantial emissions will be
26/6 27/6 28/6 29/6 30/6 1/7 2/7
0
20
40
60
80
Load PV WT
Charging Discharging UR level
Date
P
o
w
e
r

(
k
W
)
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
U
R

l
e
v
e
l

(
m
3
)
Fig. 8. Hourly energy balance of the proposed system.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
H
o
u
r
s

p
e
r

y
e
a
r

(
h
)
Power (kW)
Charging power
Discharging power
Fig. 9. Duration curve of UR charging and discharging power.
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
0
6
12
18
24
D
a
y

o
f

Y
e
a
r
Month
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
%
Fig. 10. Rainbow prole of URs state of charge during the simulated year.
T. Ma et al. / Renewable Energy 69 (2014) 7e15 13
released into the environment, which are summarized in Table 3. It
can be seen that the 100% renewable energy system can avoid
about 85 tons emissions per year, including 82 tons CO
2
, which will
improve the health of the local inhabitants and reduce their med-
ical bills. It is clear that investment in RE is imperative to mitigate
both energy shortages and environmental pollution.
4.7. Loss of power supply probability analysis
If a very small energy decit is acceptable, a much smaller UR
can be achieved. As illustrated in Fig. 11, the loss of power supply
probability (LPSP) is 0.4% when the UR size decreases to 4000 m
3
,
leaving only 0.2% (157 kWh) of total load not met during the year. If
the UR size could be further reduced to 2000 m
3
, the annual LPSP
and unmet load are only 2.56% and 1077 kWh, respectively. This
situation only allows some peak power not to be met under the
conditions of extreme bad weather. Therefore, if a secondary en-
ergy storage system is employed, the pumped storage capacity
could be greatly reduced and power supply reliability can be
improved simultaneously. Fromthe point of our view, introducing a
small battery bank (or supercapacitor) is of vital importance in the
micro-pumped storage based renewable power supply system. The
battery is only used to cover the peak load in May and July and
greatly reduces the UR size in the combined energy storage system.
To better balance the energy ow between supply and demand, a
small battery bank, has already been studied in Refs. [39,44,45],
which will be considered for this case study project.
5. Conclusions
This study proposed a pumped hydro storage serving for off-grid
hybrid RE systems. The mathematical model and simulation
program were developed. The complementary characteristics be-
tween solar and wind energy output were presented in this study,
which can reduce the storage capacity. The results reveal that the
PV has a relatively higher share of energy production than that of
the wind turbines since the solar energy resource matches better
with the load pattern. The duration curve of charging and dis-
charging power was discussed, which can be used to calculate the
overall energy efciency of the energy storage subsystem. The case
study shows that if a lower LPSP is acceptable, the UR capacity can
be greatly reduced. The study also indicates that utilizing a small
battery bank to cover the peak load could greatly reduce the UR
capacity and improve power supply reliability. This paper demon-
strates that technically the PHS based renewable energy system is
an ideal solution for 100% energy autonomy in remote commu-
nities. Employing the three technologies in a complementary
manner, the hybrid system could generate and store electricity at
low cost and with minimal complexity.
Acknowledgments
The work described in this paper is nancially supported by
China Light & Power (CLP) Holding Limited (Hong Kong) and The
Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
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Pollutants emissions avoided from the proposed RE system.
Pollutant Emissions (kg/year)
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