Energetic and economic performance analyses of photovoltaic, parabolic trough collector and wind energy systems for Multan, Pakistan

Pakistan is going through a severe energy crisis due to an increasing gap between demand and supply. Its current energy needs are heavily dependent upon conventional thermal power plants which mainly use oil and gas. In addition to the economic problems associated with importing oil for Pakistan, the burning of fossil fuels for the production of electricity releases vast amounts of greenhouse gases. As an alternative to the current scenario, in this paper the energetic and economic performance of green energy technologies such as photovoltaic (PV), parabolic trough collector (PTC) with and without storage, and wind energy systems are analyzed and compared with respect to their potential for electricity generation for the city of Multan, Pakistan. Each system is designed taking a nominal 10MWe capacity as a reference. Hourly meteorological data are used to estimate hourly insolation on a fixed PV module and for PTC’s with East–West and North–South tracking. Results show that PV and PTC systems without storage have approximately the same output with capacity factors of approximately 20%. The electrical energy output of the wind turbines was very low with a capacity factor of ~2%. PTC’s with 7.5h storage and a solar multiple of 3.5 showed the best result for electrical energy output with a capacity factor of 46%. A cost analysis is performed assuming a 30 year lifetime for PV and a 35 year lifetime for PTC. The Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) is found to be 0.192 USD/kWh for PV systems, 0.273 USD/kWh for PTC systems without storage, and 0.226 USD/kWhfor PTC systems with 7.5h of storage. The results of the economic study show that based strictly on economic considerations green energy technologies can be utilized if the government supports the investment by giving incentives and subsidies.