Renewable Energy Systems Project 2022

Renewable Energy
Systems

Contents
1. Introduction..............................................................................................................................2
2. Design Criteria.........................................................................................................................2
2.1 Energy Model.......................................................................................................................3
2.2 Cost Analyses.......................................................................................................................4
2.3 Emission Analyses................................................................................................................5
2.4 Financial Analyses................................................................................................................5
3. Results and Discussion...........................................................................................................11
4. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................14
5. Reference................................................................................................................................15

1. Introduction
Solar energy is one of the most viable energy solutions for human mankind. It doesn't emit any
kind of hazardous gases. It absorbs the solar rays and converts the photons into the electricity. In
this project, the RETScreen software is used to conduct different type of analysis. RETScreen is
one of the most commonly used solar energy analysis software. The software brings different
features for making the analysis process simpler.
This project is aimed to conduct an energy analysis and financial analysis of the 5MW solar
power plant situated in Queensland. As a part of the project, the maximum annual energy
production and optimum array tilt will be identified. Then the required number of panels will be
calculated. Also, the research extended to know about the other parameters like greenhouse gas
and financial factors etc (Prajapati, Kamat and Patel, 2019).
2. Design Criteria
RETScreen (Renewable Energy Technology Screen)
RETScreen is a software program (Smruti Ranjan Pradhan et al., 2016), used to recognize and
analyze energy management methods all over the world. The Canadian government, with the
cooperation of remarkable international allies, designed and created the software and was
released on 30th April 1998 and an updated version was released on 19th September 2016
(Smruti Ranjan Pradhan et al., 2015). The software is available to use in both free and paid
versions. It has more than 525000 users across the world with more than 900 academic
institutions, who use it for research and training. The software combines data from 6700
databases including data from the NASA database (Simulation of STATCOM based control
scheme for grid connected wind power system., 2018).
It facilitated the user with weather conditions from across the world as well as a comparison
between energy implementation from different branches of stations and the yearly energy
implementation of a particular station. The software faces some restrictions like saving
incapability, data sharing, printing and exporting data files (for free version), etc.

2.1 Energy Model
Solar energy production involves the conversion of solar radiation into electricity (ChemViews,
2012). The energy model of the solar power plant consists of some major elements. And they are
solar photo collector module. It converts solar radiation into electricity. Then battery bank is
used to store the collected energy. Then the produced power is supplied through the power grid
(ANALYSIS OF GRID CONNECTED PV SYSTEM FOR ACTIVE & REACTIVE POWER
SUPPLY TO DISTRIBUTION GRID, 2015).
The above-given figure shows information about the solar power plant. The project site is
selected as Southern Queen's land. Here the project type is selected as Power. And the
technology is considered as Photovoltaic. And the grid type is central-grid and internal load.

Climatic data collected from the RETScreen software database for the selected site is shown in the
above figure. The table contains information like air temperature, elevations, horizontal and vertical
solar radiation, Atmospheric pressure, wind speed and earth temperature etc.
2.2 Cost Analyses
Cost analysis of the project involves the calculation and finding of different costs involved in solar
power production and distribution. The analysis consists of the calculation of solar energy
production costs. So the required number of modules and subparts to produce the required 5MW
power has been calculated. Then the cost for each and every component will be calculated. Then the
maintenance cost also considered. Based on the production cost and maintenance cost the cost of
energy will be calculated (Zhou et al., 2016).

2.3 Emission Analyses
Emission analysis involves the calculation and findings of emission of different gases and by-
products involved in the solar power plant operation. Here the emission of different greenhouse
gases will be identified. Also the magnitude of the different gases is founded from the simulation
results. The project mainly focuses on the calculation of the amount of CO2 emitted by the entire
process.
2.4 Financial Analyses
Financial analysis (Andrikopoulos, 2015) has a close relationship with the cost analysis in the
cost analysis we only focused on the energy production costs and selling costs. Where we
ignored the different financial factors like depletion, profit, the return of investment and equity
calculation etc. In this section, the appropriate calculations are carried out to know about these
financial factors (Bhuyan, Hota and Panda, 2018).