Simulating hybrid energy systems based on complementary renewable resources

The complementarity between energy resources can influence the performance of hybrid generation and storage systems, and can also decisively influence their design. Renewable resources may have intermittent characteristics that make the study of the influence of complementarity on the performance of hybrid systems quite difficult. The establishment of a performance limit of hybrid systems based on renewable resources and the study of the effects of complementarity considering this limit can provide interesting results. This performance limit can be established with an idealization of the mathematical functions describing the energy availability of the explored renewable resources. This article presents a method for analyzing the performance of hybrid systems based on complementary resources. The method allows to evaluate the influence of different levels of complementarity between the exploited resources on the cost of energy and capacity shortage. Utilizing idealized energy availability, the result sets a performance limit. • A method to evaluate the impact of complementarity on the performance and reliability of hybrid systems. • The energy availabilities of the renewable sources are idealized and allow the characterization of a limit of performance. • Different levels of complementarity can be related with design parameters of hybrid energy and storage systems.