Hybrid System Types

Biomass-wind-fuel cell

For example, let us consider a load of 100% power supply and there is no renewable system to fulfill this need, so two or more renewable energy system can be combined. For example, 60% from a biomass system, 20% from a wind energy system and the remainder from fuel cells. Thus combining all these renewable energy systems may provide 100% of the power and energy requirements for the load, such as a home or business.

Photovoltaic-wind

Another example of a hybrid energy system is a photovoltaic array coupled with a wind turbine. This would create more output from the wind turbine during the winter, whereas during the summer, the solar panels would produce their peak output. Hybrid energy systems often yield greater economic and environmental returns than wind, solar, geothermal or trigeneration stand-alone systems by themselves.

Current commercial, utility-scale hybrid energy systems also include

• Geothermal + solar PV
• Biomass + solar CSP
• Solar PV + fuel cells
• Wind + solar PV
• Biodiesel + wind
• Gas + solar CSP
• Coal + solar CSP