A techno-economic study of a hybrid PV-Wind-Diesel standalone power system for a rural telecommunication station in northeast Algeria

Telecommunication stations, particularly operating in rural areas are usually powered by diesel generators due to the lack of access to the utility grid. However, the growing cost of energy due to the constantly increasing fuel prices and the related greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming have driven telecom companies to seek for better energy management solutions. In this paper, we study the economic feasibility of an environmentally friendly power supply system for a rural telecommunication station in the city of Skikda, northeast Algeria. The proposed system is a standalone hybrid PV-Wind system with pre-existing diesel generators and a battery storage system. Different configurations are considered in this study in order to select the most reliable and economically viable solution based on the net present cost (NPC) and the cost of energy (COE) of each configuration. The optimization is performed using HOMER PRO software.