A wind-solar PV hybrid power system with battery backup for water pumping in remote localities

After energy, water is the most critical commodity to be made available to people to keep them alive. Saudi Arabia has vast land and people are living in all regions. Most of these are connected to national grid but some are not, especially in remote areas like in the north, south, and west south. Pumping water in remote areas for domestic needs like agriculture and animals beside human needs is essential and require regular power supply. The present idea of wind-PV-Battery hybrid power system based on 100% renewable source is being proposed to utilize and tested in some of the regions on experimental bases. Of the five locations chosen for the purpose, namely Dhahran, Riyadh, Jeddah, Guriat and Nejran, some are good from both wind and solar intensity point of view some have good winds only and some good solar only. Nearly optimal size of PV-Wind water pumping system is determined for each of these sites considering the availability of solar and wind energy distributions throughout the year in these sites. It is shown that the monthly total water pumping capacity when using nearly optimal PV-Wind water pumping system is fairly uniform throughout the year except for the sites of Guriat and Riyadh. In these sites higher water pumping capacity is observed during the spring and summer months. On the other hand the cost of underground water pumping is found to vary between 6 to 12 US¢/m³ for the five sites considered.