Review and design of a standalone PV system performance

Global interest in solar power has reached new highest with continues efforts by governments and organizations to establish a stance against fossil fuel dependence and the high percentage of carbon dioxide emitted by the industrialized world. Employing renewable energy technologies like solar power seems to be a good viable option, especially for third world countries which happens to receive huge amounts of solar radiation around the year. This paper presents study and design a common PV system configuration and how to optimize the results in order to build the best cost efficient technology. The numerical analysis through two main software HOMER and REPS.OM is carried out. HOMER optimal configuration showed an energy cost of 0.315 USD/kWh while, REPS.OM's cost of energy was around 0.151 USD/kWh. A clear difference between these two tools might indicates that specialized MATLAB-coded software is more accurate than global tools which are designed to provide close results. Either tools show great promise for the 'photovoltaic' technology and its implementation in the Sultanate of Oman.