Modeling and Simulation of a Hybrid Power Generation System of

Wind turbine, Micro-turbine and Solar Heater Cells

Mostafa Abdel-Geliel*, Iham F. Zidane **, Mohammed Anany, Sohair F. Rezeka ***

Abstract this paper is devoted to study the conversion of

renewable energy resources into electrical energy in a standalone hybrid power generation system. The hybrid system
consists of a 230 kW wind turbine, a 30 kW micro-turbine and
solar heaters of double-parallel flow. Solar heaters are being
used to partially preheat the air entering the combustion
chamber of the micro-turbine in order to decrease the amount
of fuel consumption. The dynamic behavior and simulation
results are being discussed to extract the maximum energy
obtained from a variable speed wind power generation system.
The hybrid model has been simulated under several wind speed
conditions. A supervisory controller is designed that was able to
manage between the maximum energy captured from the wind
turbine and the generated energy by the microturbine to meet
the load demands and wind power fluctuation due to wind
speed variation. Solar heaters saved amount of fuel on average
15.4 U.S. Dollars/hr monthly according to the data provided in
the year 2013.

I. INTRODUCTION
Renewable energy resources are the primary contributors to
achieve sustainable energy production. Energy crisis,
climate changes such as atmosphere temperature rise due to
the increase of greenhouse gases emission and the Kyoto
Protocol restrictions in generation of these gases, coupled
with high oil prices, limitation and depletion of fossil fuels
reserves make renewable energies more noticeable [1].
Among the renewable energy resources, wind power has
had the fastest growth in the world over the last 20 years [2].
Wind turbine is being integrated with other renewable
resources to meet more load demands. Also, because some
systems depend on renewable resources specially the wind
speed, their reliability in satisfying the load demands
decreases under all conditions. Hence, some studies propose
the combination of a diesel generator as a back up and
wind/solar power generation systems [3, 4]. These hybrid
systems also will reduce the operating costs and
environmental impacts caused by diesel generators.
There has been an increasing interest in using solar air
collectors because of their simple designs, cheap
construction and maintenance costs, their operational
Mostafa Abdel-Geliel is now an associate professor in the Electrical and
Control Engineering Department, Arab Academy for Science technology
and
maritime
transport
,
Alexandria,
Egypt
(
e-mail:
maelgeliel@yahoo.com).
Iham Zidane is now a teaching assistant in the mechanical Engineering
Department, Arab Academy for Science technology and maritime transport,
Alexandria, Egypt ( e-mail: iham_zidane@hotmail.com).
Sohair Rezeka is now a visiting professor in the mechanical Engineering
Department, Arab Academy for Science technology and maritime transport,
Alexandria, Egypt ( e-mail: srezeka@yahoo.com).

simplicity and their availability for local production.

Moreover, they are ecologically friendly. On the other hand,
solar air heaters are limited in their thermal performance due
to the low density, the small volumetric heat capacity and
the small heat conductivity of air [5, 6].
Microturbines are small electricity generators that burn
gaseous and liquid fuels to create high-speed rotation that
turns an electrical generator. The size range for
microturbines available and in development is from 20 to
500 kilowatts [7]. The microturbine can be either one of two
types, namely single- and split-shaft. In the single-shaft
arrangement, the turbine and generator are mounted on the
same shaft. Output frequency of the microturbine is from
about 400 Hz up to several kilo Hertz. It must be converted
to 50 Hz using electronic power converters. In the spilt-shaft
microturbine, the shaft is connected to the generator by a
gearbox and the converters are not needed [8- 10].
This paper presents the dynamic behavior of a stand-alone
hybrid power generation system of wind turbine and microturbine associated with solar heater cell. Micro-turbine, solar
heater and wind turbine models are addressed based on
references [11-13], respectively. Solar heater cells are being
used to preheat the air entering the combustion chamber,
thus decreasing the amount of fuel mass flow rate. A
Supervisory controller is designed to manage between the
maximum energy captured from the wind turbine and the
generated energy by the microturbine to meet the load
demands and wind power fluctuation due to wind speed
variation.
II. PROPOSED SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
The proposed hybrid system is described in
Fig. 1. It
consists of a 230 kW wind turbine, a 30 kW microturbine
which drives a high-speed permanent magnet synchronous
machine, solar heaters implemented in order to partially
preheat the air entering the microturbine to decrease the
amount of fuel consumption, and a supervisory controller to
manage the power generated between the wind and hybrid
solar micro-turbine.

Figure 1. The Proposed System Schematic

A. Wind Turbine Model

This model is a 230 kW wind turbine. The wind turbine
is driving a 480 V, 275 kVA induction generator. The wind
turbine used has no pitch control. The wind turbine uses a 2D Lookup Table to compute the turbine power output as a
function of wind speed. This is shown in the following
equation
Pwmech = 0.5 Ab v3 CPwt
(1)
where, Pwmech is wind turbine power, is air density, Ab is
Area Swept by Turbine Blades, v is Wind Speed and Cpwt
is Power Coefficient [13].
The induction generator converts the mechanical power
generated from the wind turbine and converts it into
electrical power. This induction generator is an isolated type
(self exited) in which excitation takes place by a terminal
capacitor and a diesel generator of 480 V and 300 kVA to
adjust the operation and the frequency fluctuation [13].
B. Micro-turbine Model
The microturbines are a smaller version of heavy-duty
gas turbines which are compact in size and components. A
block diagram of the simplified single shaft microturbine
along with its control is shown in Fig. 2. This consists of
fuel, speed and temperature control along with the
combustor and turbine dynamics. The turbine torque (T) is
expressed as
T= 1.3 (Wf - 0.23) + 0.5 (1 - N)

(2)

The exhaust gas temperature (Tex ) is expressed as

Tex=TR - 700 (1 - Wf) + 550 (1 - N)

(3)

where, TR is reference temperature of the micro-turbine, Wf

is per unit fuel demand signal and N is per unit speed.

independent of variation in ambient temperature or

fuel characteristics.
Fuel Control: The output of low value selector
represents the least amount of fuel required for that
particular operating point. For the current case, the
output of the selector is limited and multiplied by
0.77 and offset by no load fuel flow value as
illustrated in Fig. 4 to ensure the continuous
combustion process. The fuel flow controls are
represented by a series of blocks including the
valve position and flow dynamics.
Combustor and Exhaust Delay: combustor delay is
the time lag associated with the compressor
discharge volume and the exhaust delay is due to
the transport of gas from the combustion system
through the turbine.

C. Solar Heater Model

This model represents the solar air heaters of double
parallel flow configuration. Fig. 3 shows the structure of this
configuration. Based on the local energy balances, algebraic
expressions for the efficiency factor (F) and the overall heat
loss coefficient (UL), as well as air temperature distributions
along the collectors were obtained. In addition, the
expressions of the mean temperatures of the two air streams
and of the absorber plate were determined. The heat transfer
coefficients involved in the energy balances were estimated.
The useful energy gain (Qu) is expressed in terms of the air
inlet temperature to the collector (Ti) which is generally a
known parameter in the applications [12]. It is expressed as
Qu = Ac Fr [S - UL (Ti Ta)]

(4)

The output air temperature (To) from the collector is

expressed as
To = Ta + [S/ UL] + [Ti Ta (S/UL)] exp [(Ac F UL) / (m
Cp)]
(5)
The instantaneous efficiency for double flow solar heaters
() is expressed by as

Figure 2. Micro-Turbine Control Block Diagram

The simplified single shaft gas turbine including all its
control systems is implemented in MATLAB /SIMULINK.
This turbine model was proposed by W I Rowen [11].

Speed Control: It operates on the speed error

formed between a reference speed and the rotor
speed of the Micro-Turbine Generator (MTG)
system. It is the primary means of control for the
microturbine under different load conditions. It is a
lead-lag transfer function [14]. Also, a PID control
is being used. The PID gains were adjusted using
continuous cycling Ziegler-Nichols.
Temperature Control: It limits the gas turbine
output at a predetermined firing temperature,

= 0.54 [4.56 (Ti Ta ) / S]

(6)

where, S is solar irradiance absorbed by the collector, Fr is

collector heat removal, , m is mass flow rate of air, Ta is
environment temperature, Ac is collector dimensions and Cp
is specific heat of air.

Figure 3. Solar Heaters Structure

D. Hybrid Solar Micro-turbine Model
The solar heaters model is being integrated with the
micro-turbine model to simulate a hybrid solar micro-turbine

model as shown in Fig. 4. The fuel used in the micro-turbine

is Methane.
The average inlet temperature to the collector during the
twelve months is being calculated according to the following
equation:
Ti = Ta (P2 / P1 ) 0.4/1.4
(7)
The amount of mass flow rate after using the solar
heater (mf2) is expressed as
mf2 = mf1 [ Cpair m (To - Ta) ] / HVMethane

where, Lq and Ld are q and d axis inductances, iq and id are q

and d axis currents, R is Resistance of the stator windings, vq
& vd are q and d axis voltages, r is Angular velocity of the
rotor, is Flux induced by the permanent magnets in the
stator windings, P is Number of pole pairs, Te is
Electromagnetic torque, J is combined inertia of rotor and
load, F is Combined viscous friction of rotor and load, is
Rotor angular position and Tm is Shaft mechanical torque.

(8)

where, P1 is atmospheric pressure, P2 is air compression

pressure, mf1 is fuel mass flow rate before using solar heater,
and HVMethane is lower heating value of methane.

Figure 4. Hybrid Micro-turbine Solar Heaters Simulink

E.

Permanent Magnet synchronous Machine (PMSM)

The Hybrid Solar Micro-turbine system drives a high
speed PMSM for conversation of mechanical energy to
electrical energy. The PMSM model used is a 2 pole with a
non-salient rotor. The machine output power is 30 kW and
its terminal line-to-line voltage is 480 V at 100 000 rpm.
The dynamic equations of PMSM expressed in the rotor
reference frame (dq frame) [15] a follow:
Electrical Equations:

F.

Power Conditioning Circuit

The high frequency AC power generated by the PMSM
is rectified to DC and then inverted back to 50 Hz AC, after
elimination of harmonics using LC filter. The IGBT inverter
operated through Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) at a 2
kHz carrier frequency and sample time of 10s [16]. The
load current is regulated by a PI current regulator (designed
based on Zeigler-Nichols) after transforming it from abc to
dq and from dq to abc. The output of the current regulator is
a vector containing the three modulating signals used by the
PMW generator to generate the gate pulses. The harmonics
generated by the inverter around multiples of 2 kHz are
filtered by the LC filter [16]. Inductors are designed
according to the current ripple and the filter should be
damped to avoid resonance, since the current harmonics
generated by the rectifier or inverter can cause saturation of
the inductors or filter resonance [17]. The values for LC
filter configuration with inductance 2mH and capacitive load
value 3kVar [16].
G.

Supervisory Control
The supervisory control is designed to adjust the
operation of micro turbine in active or passive mode. in
addition to determine the amount of its required power by
controlling the wind turbine frequency based on the
operation state shown in Fig. 5, where f is the wind turbine
frequency, fo is the nominal frequency (50Hz), fmax is the
maximum allowable tolerance in frequency (0.2 Hz) and Pmt
is the micro turbine power (secondary power).

& f <fo

Passive
(Pmt=0)

(11)
Mechanical Equations:

Active
(Pmt>0)

& f >fo

Figure 5. Micro-turbine Operation State

The designed controller uses a standard three-phase Phase
Locked Loop (PLL) system to measure the system
frequency. The measured frequency is compared to the

reference frequency (50 Hz) to obtain the frequency error.

The Frequency error is then manipulated by a ProportionalIntegral controller to produce an output signal representing
the required hybrid micro-turbine power solar heater cells.
The PI gains were adjusted using continuous cycling
Ziegler-Nichols. This supervisory control is represented in
Fig. 6. Fig. 7 represents the simulated model for the whole
system with its supervisory control.
Figure 8. Micro-turbine Torque

Figure 6. Supervisory Control

Figure 9. Micro-turbine PU Speed

III. SIMULATION AND RESULTS

MATLAB Simulink 7.12.0 is used to evaluate the
performance of the proposed hybrid model. This
mathematical model is presented in the previous sections.
The wind speed input has been changed during the
simulation to study the response of the hybrid power
generation model. Firstly, the micro-turbine model has been
tested to insure that it is capable to produce the amount of
power required which is 30 kW. Secondly, the solar heater
cells were added to the micro-turbine. This hybrid model has
been evaluated. A comparison between the amount of fuel
consumed before and after modification has been studied.
Finally the hybrid solar micro-turbine model was integrated
with the wind turbine model.
A. Micro-turbine Model
A study for the micro-turbine was held to monitor the
amount of torque and per unit speed produced. The speed
controller, shown in Fig. 2 and simulated in Fig.4, is PID
controller that is tuned to obtain a good performance of
micro-turbine speed and torque. Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 show the
amount of torque and per unit speed respectively. The
figures show a good performance from the micro-turbine
producing the rated mechanical power required.

140
Absorbed Solar Irradiance W/m

Figure 7. Hybrid Power Generation system simulink

B. Enhanced Fuel Consumption Using Solar Heater Cells

Approach
The average solar irradiance on the tilted plane of the
collector and average environment temperature were
collected during the twelve months in Alexandria, Egypt
[18, 19]. The average collector efficiency and average inlet
temperature during the twelve months were calculated
according to Eq (6) and Eq (7) respectively. Fig. 10
represents the average solar irradiance absorbed by the
heater collector according to the instantaneous efficiency.
This model has shown a good impact on saving the
amount of fuel consumption monthly. Fig. 11 shows the
amount of fuel and money saved monthly. As shown in Fig.
11 the average amount of fuel saved monthly in Liter/hrs is
21.7. According to ONTARIO [20], the natural gas average
price for the year 2013 is 70.9 cents/ liter. This means the
average amount saved is 15.4 U.S. Dollars/hr monthly.
130
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Figure10. Absorbed Solar Irradiance

Dec

28
26
24
22
20
18
16
14
12

Figure13. Average Amount of Hybrid solar Micro-turbine

10

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Fuel Saved litre/hr

Money Saved Dollars/hr

Figure 11. Average Amount of Fuel Saved

C. Hybrid Power Generation System
This section shows the results of the simulated hybrid
wind turbine, micro-turbine and solar heater cells power
generation system. The wind speed has been changed to
study how the system would response to supply the amount
of power required which is 230 kW. The minimum amount
of power generated from the wind turbine must be 200 kW;
otherwise the amount of load demanded will be reduced to
maintain a frequency of 50 Hz. Therefore, the minimum
wind speed must be 9.8 km/hr according to the wind turbine
characteristics. The maximum amount of power produced is
230 kW produced by a wind speed of 10.5 km/hr. This wind
speed range (9.8 10.5 km/hr) is found in the winter season
in Alexandria, Egypt [21], so the model is simulated in
winter. A sample of study was taken at wind speed 10.4
km/hr to show the system response. Fig. 12 shows the
amount of power produced by the wind turbine in the steady
state, which is 220 kW on average.

Figure 14. PMSM Per Unit Speed

Fig. 16 shows the amount of load demanded which is
230 kW on average. This figure proves that the system could
afford the required power consumption.

Figure15. DC Voltage of The Capacitor

Figure16. Main Load Demand

Figure12. Average Amount of Wind Power
Fig. 13 shows the average amount of power supplied by
the hybrid solar micro-turbine system (10 kW) to
compensate the power shortage of wind turbine to the whole
power generation system. The figure shows a good
performance from the hybrid solar micro-turbine system. It
produced this amount of power at a constant per unit speed
of PMSM which is shown in Fig. 14. Fig. 15 shows the
capacitor DC voltage of the inveter at wind speed 10.4
km/hr.

To study the robustness of the controller of hybird

system, the behavior of each component are observed as the
wind speed varies including the two extreme values within
1.5 seconds, as shown in Fig. 17. Fig. 18 shows the
supervisory control response when changing the values of
wind speed to maintain the same load power demand.
Morover, the frequency response is almost constant (50 Hz)
as in Fig. 19. The per unit PMSM speed and the capaciitor
DC voltage, they had the same values as shown in Fig. 14
and Fig. 15.

Collector Dimensions = 2.0 x 0.9 m2.

PMSM Parameters:
Number of Poles = 2, Maximum Speed = 100 krpm,
Moment of Inertia = 1e-5 kgm2, Stator Resistance = 0.08,
d&q Inductance= 286 H, Rated Power = 30 kW.
REFERENCES

Figure 17. Wind Speed Values

[1]

Figure 18. Load, Wind Turbine and Microturbine Powers

Figure 19. System Frequency

IV. CONCLUSION
The integration of a hybrid solar micro-turbine and a
wind turbine, which work together to provide the sufficient
load demand required, was proposed. A detailed simulation
model is implemented in MATLAB Simulink 7.12.0 using
SIMPOWER systems library. The thermal behavior of the
solar heater and its effect on the amount of the fuel
consumed are analyzed and discussed. Different controller
are designed specially speed controller for micro-turbine and
a supervisory controller to manage the power flow. The
hybrid model has been simulated under several wind speed
conditions. Results showed the good performance and the
amount of annual fuel savings of the hybrid solar microturbine model. According to the data provided in the year
2013, the amount saved on average is 15.4 U.S. Dollars/hr
monthly. In addition, results showed that the hybrid power
generation system could maintain the same load demand
with accepted frequency response during the wind speed
fluctuation.
APPENDIX
Micro-Turbine Specifications:
Rated Power = 30 kW, Air Fuel Ratio = 30:1, Rated Air
Mass Flow Rate = 0.018 kg/s, Rated Fuel Mass Flow Rate =
0.0006 kg/s, Air Compression Ratio = 5 bar.
Micro-turbine Model Parameters:
Combustor Delay = 0.01 s, Exhaust Delay = 0.04 s.
Solar Model Parameters:
F= 0.82, Fr = 0.74, UL = 5.93W/m2K, Air Density = 1kg/s,

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