Design And Performance Evaluation Of Solar Powered Water Pumping System: A Case Study For Mirab Abaya

Abstract

Water is a basic need for the sustenance of every plant and advancing it through irrigation secure its sustainability. This thesis paper is concerned to design and performance evaluation of solar water pumping system without using battery storages. The following techniques were used; the analytical method for the system design, Numerical method by Homer pro software used to estimate the life cycle cost of the system and finally the experiment has been done for the performance evaluation of M-60W model PV panel in the Mirab Abaya, Birbir town. Technical, economic and environmental parameters were considered in the design procedures. Performance evaluation of solar water pumping system was studied using four expressions: yield factor (YF), Capacity factor, overall system efficiency and system performance index (SPI). A case study for the designing of solar water pumping system that implemented on a hectare farm land for Maize crop cultivation in Mirab Abaya, Ethiopia was studied. As a result shows a pump load is 1.12kW and after considering different effects, its PV panel sizing required 2.03kW electrical power. To convert and for the conditioning of power supply from the source, the latest 98% efficient, 1.6kW inverter was selected. By using the solar renewable power source, 2816.58 𝑚3 /total growing period of maize crop on 10,000 𝑚2 farm land can be irrigated sufficiently with the average daily water volume 36.11 𝑚3 /day. As a result, the performance of the system, its yield factor is 4.22 (kWh/kWp/day), capacity factor 17.3%, overall system efficiency is 55.22% and system performance index is 0.0533 𝑚3 /day/Wp. The investment capital costs 3172$USAD, and the cost of energy is equal to 0.128$USAD /kWh and its simple Payback period is 5.44 years. Since there is zero emission from the system, environmental as well the economic factors are more feasible compared to the latest published paper of solar water pumping design with battery storage connected with cost of energy of 0.309$USAD/kWh and diesel generator pumps with cost of energy 0.790$USAD/kWh. The designed system capital cost and the cost of energy are effective when compared to a diesel generator and battery storages connected pumps. A comparison was made between the proposed solar powered water pumping system without battery storage and with other designs like solar water pumping system with battery storage, diesel generator pumps and hybrid systems in the literatures. The comparison indicated that the system cost of energy has low costing.