Integrating a Solar PV System with Pumped Hydroelectric Storage at the Mutah University of Jordan

Abstract

This paper focuses on designing and assessing Pumped Hydroelectric Energy Storage Systems (PHESs) connected to the grid and a PV system for self-consumption constructed at Mutah University in an area of high solar potential. By focusing on the PHES and PV literature, data in the field were acquired based on the grid code needed in Jordan. Next, a search to find a suitable location for installation was conducted. Afterwards, a load profile was added to calculate the energy demand of the university. Then the productivity of the solar power plant of Mutah University was included. Finally, MATLAB software was used to realize the amount of energy to be stored; these data were used to implement the system that was chosen and dimensioned. A PHES layout was created to find the most accurate values for parameters to optimize system performance and to investigate loss analysis. The main finding is that the system attains 9230.89 MWh/year. An annual load yields 4430 MWh/year, which covers the Mutah University demand with an estimated saving of USD 287,607,993.

Keywords

• photovoltaic systems
• pumped hydroelectric
• energy storage systems
• annual energy production–energy demand