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 Journal of Advances in Clean Energy, 1.1, 84-95, 2014
© 2014 IAEMM, All rights reserved

FEASIBILITY STUDY OF WIND-DIESEL HYBRID POWER SYSTEM FOR REMOTE

COMMUNITIES IN NORTH OF QUEBEC

H. R. Hooshangi

Master Student of Building Engineering, Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering Department,
Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Hr.hooshangi@gmail.com
(Accepted 15 February 2014)

ABSTRACT
Today, most of the remote communities in Canada are fully powered using diesel generators;
however, the transport of the fuel to these areas is costly and caused electricity costs reach $1.30 per
kilowatt-hour. These communities can be ideal consumers of fuel-free alternative energy systems such as
wind power. Wind energy has a stable cost which is not subject to the fluctuations of fossil fuel prices.
This paper investigates the wind-diesel hybrid system with or without a storage system to reduce fuel
dependency and CO2 emissions of electricity generation systems in north of Quebec. The feasibility study
is based on the system cost, renewable energy penetrations and the availability of wind speed at the
location of interest. Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER) software has been
utilized to simulate several scenarios and perform sensitivity analysis. The results demonstrate that
combining current diesel generators, wind turbines and storage systems such as batteries can reduce the
GHG emission by 50% approximately, and significantly reduce the cost of energy.
KEYWORDS: Sensitivity Analysis, Hybrid power system, Diesel generator, Wind energy, Homer
energy, GHG emissions

1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Remote communities of northern Quebec

Communities with a permanent settlement, at least 10 dwellings, which are not currently connected
to the North-American electrical grid nor to the piped natural gas network, are considered as “off-grid
communities” or “remote communities” (Weis & Maissan, 2007). Canada has many remote communities
and the number of them is always in flux. In the Quebec Region, the 7 First Nations and 14 Inuit
communities constitute the off-grid community (Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada).
The number of remote communities and their population did not change very much. In 2005, Indian and
Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) collect a list of remote areas of Canada. Map of remote communities
based on this study is shown in Figure 1.
I categorized these communities into small and large size consumers. All of the small community’s
electricity is generated by diesel power; the details of small communities are listed in Table 1. Hydro-
Québec is the main electricity supplier in all of Quebec’s remote communities. The 14 sites that are
shown in Table 1, are in northern Quebec with a total population of 12,813 persons. These sites are all
powered by diesel power plants. Their total capacity is 25.845 MW, producing an estimated 65,300
MWh/year (2007) giving an average capacity factor of 28.8%. The unsubsidized electricity rate is
approximately 1.3 $/kWh (Arriaga & Kazerani, 2012) which is three times higher than the price in 2006
(Status of Remote/Off-grid Communities in Canada, 2011).
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 H. R. Hooshangi

The combination of small-hydro and large diesel power plant is used for electricity generation in
large consumers. The Cap-aux-Meules diesel grid (67 MW) and the Lac Robertson isolated hydro grid
(21 MW) are the main electricity suppliers in Quebec’s remote communities. The communities such as
Iles de la Madelaines, Anticosti, Haute-Mauricie, Basse Cote-Nord, Nunavik and Raglan are in the second
category.
A feasibility study and sensitivity analysis of these sites needs more information and technologies and it’s
out of the scope of this paper. It is noteworthy that most of the regions in large consumers such as Iles de
la Madelaines, has an excellent wind potential to hybrid their diesel power plants to wind turbine farms.
Quebec government issued the 500 MW of new wind turbines for First Nations/Municipal wind project in
large consumer areas in 2009 (Valentine, 2010).
Because of high construction and maintenance cost, grid extension to north communities in Quebec
is unprofitable. Regarding cost effectiveness and energy efficiency, the best alternative way is supplying
power by means of wind-diesel hybrid and small hydro systems.
In this study, the feasibility study and sensitivity analysis of wind-diesel hybrid system for
Aupaluk, Kuujjuaq and Salluit is considered by HOMER Explorer software and optimal and
economically feasible scenarios are shown. These sites are chosen to cover the different range of
population and energy demands of current off-grid communities in north of Quebec.

(a) (b)
Figure 1: Remote (aboriginal) communities in Canada (a) (Weis & Maissan, 2007), power generation systems and
grid lines in Northern Quebec (b) (Hydro-Québec Sustainability report 2012)
1.2 Wind-diesel hybrid power system

According to available information about remote communities in Canada, they face serious energy
issues related to their remoteness and their dependence on systems which were installed many years ago.
The fluctuations in fossil fuel price are the main concerns of people in remote areas. For instance, the
average price of bulk delivered diesel fuel to remote areas during 2007 to 2010 increased from 53 ¢/L to
120 ¢/L (Weis & Ilinca, 2010). Furthermore, the environment is adversely affected by greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions of diesel generators and spilling during transport or storage of fuels.
On the other hand, based on the great resources of renewable energies (especially wind energy), it
is possible to reduce the reliance of power generating systems to the fossil fuels and increase their
dependence on local energy resources. This would decrease pollution and could result in sustainable
development of these communities.
The potential of wind energy in remote locations of Quebec Region is enormous. This kind of
renewable energy is cost competitive to diesel plants which consume fossil fuels. Coupling wind turbines
and diesel generators, reduce fuel consumption, GHG emissions and electricity production cost. Despite
all these advantages, the high capital and O&M costs, icing effect on wind turbines and high investment
risks cause off-grid renewable energy (RE) projects have not been implemented in Northern Quebec.

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 Feasibility Study of Wind-Diesel Hybrid Power System for Remote Communities in North of Quebec

However, wind turbines with output of 2 kW up to 60 kW were installed and coupled with diesel-
generators in remote areas such as Calvert Island, B.C., Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, and Fort Severn, Ont.
(Arriaga & Kazerani, 2012). The six 65 kW wind turbines combined with 925 kW diesel-generator in
Atlantic Canada (Katiraei & Abbey, 2007). This hybrid system has been one of the successful projects in
Canada and they are now being tested with higher penetration of wind turbines and hydrogen storages.

2 BACKGROUND INFORMATION

2.1 User load

This paper doesn’t consider the individual remote community, therefore modelling load data
according to details of each site makes the simulation more complex. The author used the remote
community load patterns were modelled by Alaska Village electric Load Calculator (Devine & Baring-
Gould, 2004) for finding the monthly pattern of electricity consumption. Also the annual demand energy
of these communities is provided by the Government of Canada (Status of Remote/Off-grid Communities
in Canada, 2011), as shown in Table 1. The pattern of hourly load consumption is derived from Weis and
Linca (2007). The daily and monthly electrical power for Aupaluk and Salluit are shown in Figure 2,
respectively.

(a) (b)
Figure 2: Estimated daily and monthly load data in (a) Aupaluk, and (b) Salluit.

A random variability factor is defined by HOMER software to consider the estimate the differences
which occur during time to time of a day and day to day of a month. The time-step-to-time-step factor and
day-to-day factors are defined 1.94% and 1.97%, respectively.
Table 1: summary of energy demand, wind potential and CO2 emission of off-grid communities in north of Quebec
(Status of Remote/Off-grid Communities in Canada, 2011) (Mean Wind Speed at 30m, 2008) (Hydro Quebec, 2006)
Capacity of Annual Energy Ave. wind Mean wind
Population Estimated CO2
Site diesel power Demand speed at 30 energy
(at 2011) emissions × 103
plant (kW) (MWh/yr) m (m/s) (w/m2)
Akulivik 615 900 2,300 2.1 6.93 316.5
Aupaluk 195 780 1,200 1.1 7.50 343.41
Inukjuak 1,597 2,990 7,400 6.4 7.15 338.25
Ivujivik 370 1015 1,400 1.3 6.99 344.38
Kangiqsualujjuaq 874 1975 3,800 2.9 7.48 447.88
Kangiqsujuaq 696 1520 3,200 2.7 6.81 357.13
Kangirsuk 549 1360 2,800 2.4 6.86 355.25
Kuujjuaq 2,375 4555 15,100 12.2 6.36 239.63
Kuujjuarapik and
1,380 3405 9,800 8.8 6.48 247.88
Whapmagooshui
Puvirnituq 1,692 2870 7,400 6.4 6.92 308.63
Quaqtaq 376 1085 1,900 1.7 6.83 344.63
Salluit 1,347 2960 5,500 4.3 7.05 375.00
Tasiujaq 303 850 1,600 1.3 6.34 268.50
Umiujaq 444 1050 1,900 1.7 7.35 360.38

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 H. R. Hooshangi

According to all of the assumptions made, the energy consumption of Aupaluk, Kuujjuaq and
Salluit are estimated to be 3.4 MWh/day, 41 MWh/day and 15 MWh/day, respectively. The peak of
electrical load is 210 kW, 2700 kW and 976 kW for Aupaluk, Kuujjuaq and Salluit, respectively.
2.2 Wind resource

On-site 10 min average data at least for a year is essential to estimate the wind profile accurately
and find the optimal on-site location for wind turbine(s). The characteristic of wind speed for each
community are derived from Weis and Ilinc (2010), while for communities which are not listed in this
report, the monthly wind speed provided by Canadian Wind Energy Atlas (Canadian wind energy atlas,
2008) is considered, see Table 1 and 2. Also, a sensitivity analysis was performed to account for the
uncertainty of this wind resource. The wind speed variability is not high: the average wind speed varies
between 6.34 m/s for Tasiujaq to 7.48 m/s for Kangiqsualujjuaq. The investigated sites approximately
represent the minimum, mean and maximum wind speed in Northern Quebec. Furthermore, the frequency
distribution (Figure 3) shows the availability of wind above 5 m/s at 30 m for most of the year in the three
sites.
Table 2: Monthly (Canadian wind energy atlas, 2008) and annual average wind speed at 30 meter (Weis & Ilinca,
2010)
Ave. wind speed at 30 m (m/s) Ave.
Ave wind speed Weibull Mean wind energy
Site Winter Spring Summer
Fall (SON) at 30 m (m/s) shape (w/m2)
(DJF) (MAM) (JJA)
parameter
Aupaluk 8.55 7.14 6.35 8.01 7.57 1.83 343.41
Kuujjuaq 7.30 5.97 5.33 6.84 6.36 2.06 375.00
Salluit 7.19 6.55 6.29 7.50 7.05 1.80 375.00

0.16 0.14 0.14

0.14 0.12 0.12
0.12 0.10 0.1
Frequency
Frequency

Frequency

0.10 0.08 0.08

0.08
0.06 0.06
0.06
0.04
0.04 0.04
0.02 0.02
0.02
0.00 0.00
0
0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 0 3 7 10 14 17 21 24
0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24
Average wind speed (m/s) Average wind speed (m/s) Average wind speed (m/s)
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 3: Frequency distribution of wind speed at 30 m in (a): Kuujjuaq, (b): Aupaluk, (c): Salluit

2.3 Diesel

Common diesels in off-grid communities and their efficiency and cost information were obtained
from Devine M. (2005). However, the capital cost of diesel generator in simulations is assumed zero.
Current average diesel price in remote areas of the north was assumed to be 1.30 $/L (2012-2018). The
operation and maintenance (O&M) costs for communities with less than 4,000 MWh/yr annual electricity
demand increased from 0.05 $/kWh to 0.10 $/kWh (Weis & Maissan, 2007). Moreover, the combination
of wind turbines to diesel needs regulators and controllers to provide reactive power. The table 3 shows
the component of controller system according to RE penetration.

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 Feasibility Study of Wind-Diesel Hybrid Power System for Remote Communities in North of Quebec

Table 3: Estimated controllers costs of hybrid WT-diesel generation (Vaught, 2005)

Low-Penetration Medium-Penetration
Type of controller
(<20%) (20-50%)
Diesel Controls $ 20,000 $ 45,000
Line Extensions $ 40,000 $ 40,000
Insulated Container Shelter $ 25,000 $ 25,000
Dump Load with Controller - $ 20,000
Installation & Shipping - $ 35,000
Total $ 110,000 $ 165,000
Grant by CanWEA
- $ 11,000 - $ 16,500
(-10% of capital cost)
Total capital cost $ 99,000 $ 148,500

2.4 Wind turbine

The lack of infrastructure, location of communities, icing of blades and sensors, shipment
restrictions and small market for middle sized wind turbines in the USA and Canada impose significant
limitations in choosing wind turbines.
There are several wind turbine manufacturers who promote their systems for using in cold climates.
These include Eternity Wind Systems Inc., Atlantic Orient Canada Inc. and Fuhrlander (Maissan, 2006).
In this paper, the products of Atlantic Orient Canada Inc., AOC 15/50, 50 kW and Fuhrlander / Lorax
Energy Systems LLC, FL100 and FL250 are considered. Devine M. (2005) provides the detail cost of
these turbines as shown in Table 4. The Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) pays the
subsidies to communities which invest in wind energy. Consumers of off-grid communities receive 10%
of the capital cost in wind energy projects or 10 cents/kWh of electricity production by wind turbines.
Table 4: Cost of wind turbine (Devine M. , 2005)
Turbine Model AOC 15/50 FL100 FL250
Turbine and Tower $ 90,000 $ 232,000 $ 451,000
Shipping $ 25,000 $ 38,500 $ 71,000
Installation $ 50,000 $ 54,500 $ 111,000
Foundation $ 100,000 $ 90,000 $ 132,000
Total $ 265,000 $ 415,000 $ 765,000
Grant by CanWEA - $ 26,500 - $ 41,500 - $ 76,500
(-10% of capital cost)
Total capital cost $ 238,500 $ 373,500 $ 688,500
Annual O&M cost $ 3,000 $5,000 $7,000
2.5 Storage system

Storage systems such as batteries, hydrogen gas storage, compressed air and flywheels are
necessary for storing extra electricity production from wind turbines. The most cost-effective technology
among storage systems is battery so Surette 6CS25P batteries with 6.94 kWh energy capacity as a storage
system with capital cost of 1200$ and replacement cost of 1000 $ are considered. The operating and
maintenance cost was assumed 10$/year. Batteries input and output is DC so the appropriate number of
inverter and batteries are calculated through the sensitivity analysis. The size and capital cost of each
inverter is assumed 60 kW and 900$/kW, respectively.

3 SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

Figure 4, shows the design of the diesel-wind turbine system as it was modelled using HOMER
Explorer. Homer is a computer model that evaluates design options for grid-connected or off-grid power

88
 H. R. Hooshangi

systems for remote, stand-alone and distributed generation applications. This software is used to simulate,
optimize and perform sensitivity analysis of hybrid-system.

Figure 4: system configuration for Aupaluk (Low RE penetration scenario)

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The simulation was performed by comparing different size of WT and storage systems to find the
optimal combination, and finally perform sensitivity analysis to find feasibility of the hybrid system in
different wind speeds and fuel prices.
Project life time and Annual real interest rate are assumed 25 years and 3%, respectively. The
calculation of annual interest rate is obtained by Eq. (1).

(1)

4.1 1.1 Analysis of energy supply

The objective of the simulation is to find the optimal equipment configuration which meet the low
or medium penetration level of RE; i.e. wind turbine, and the minimum Total Net Present Cost and
Return on Investment (ROI). The results of simulation hybrid wind turbine(s) and diesel (780 kW), with
and without batteries for Aupaluk are shown in Table 5.
Among 1908 different combination of stand-alone and hybrid system configuration the optimum
ones for each site are chosen and shown in Table 5-7. The results demonstrate for communities with “very
good” potential of wind energy; i.e. more than 6.5m/s in height of 30 meter, the best choice is using
medium penetration level of RE.
The HOMER selection for optimum system is based on minimum net present cost (NPC), in other
words, in every scenario it will find the least cost system with the given constraints. As shown in Table 5-
7 and Figure 5, the fuel price i.e. resource, constitutes the main part of NPC. The minimum NPC reaches
when more turbines are considered; thereby fuel consumption of power generation system is reduced.
On the other hand, sophisticated control systems and auxiliary components required to regulate the
voltage and frequency of high-penetration of wind turbines. The capacity of current diesel generators is
chosen high, due to supplying all the electricity demand of community. Combining a high-penetration
level of wind turbines causes diesel to work in low load. In this condition, the O&M cost and fuel
consumption per kWh increase significantly. Currently, smaller simpler projects with low-penetration
may be more cost effective than systems with high-penetration of RE in remote communities (Maissan,
2006). For these reasons, the combinations with high-level of RE penetration are not reported.

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 Feasibility Study of Wind-Diesel Hybrid Power System for Remote Communities in North of Quebec

(a)

(b)

(c)
Figure 5: Total NPC of optimum hybrid wind-diesel-battery for Aupaluk, (a): Low-penetration scenario, (b):
medium- penetration scenario, (c): NPC of medium-penetration scenario categorized by cost type.

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H. R. Hooshangi

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 Journal of Advances in Clean Energy, 1.1, 84-95, 2014
© 2014 IAEMM, All rights reserved

(a) (b)
Figure 6: Effect of considering the Batteries in excess electrical production of hybrid wind-diesel system [hybrid
system (a): without storage system (excess power: 1,596,431 kWh/year), (b): with 1000 kWh battery storage system
(excess power: 84,134 kWh/year)]
As shown in Figure 5c, the second most important component of NPC is related to replacement
cost of batteries. However, the results (Table 5-7) show that considering the storage system, e.g. batteries,
has significant effect on reduction of energy price and ROI, and, all the optimum systems for these three
sites consist of batteries. If we choose the hybrid wind-diesel without the storage system then the simple
return of investment (ROI) for Kuujjuaq and Salluit is increased by five and two years, approximately.
Also, eliminating batteries makes the hybrid wind-turbine unfeasible for Aupaluk in both scenarios; i.e.
low and medium penetration. Figure 6 represents the enormous effect of storage system on excess
electricity production in Aupaluk (95% reduction).
The low simple ROI proves that the economic viability of hybrid wind turbine systems with current
diesel generators in off-grid Northern Quebec communities. High-penetration of RE energy for densely
populated off-grid communities can reduce the ROI significantly, particularly in communities with old
diesel generators which their O&M costs are higher than assumed values of this article.
4.2 Sensitivity analysis

As highlighted previously, if we assumed the bulk delivered fuel price as 1.3 $/L, the hybrid wind-
diesel system with battery has lower NPC than stand-alone diesel generator in investigated sites.
However, the fuel price is varied from 0.3 $/L to 1.8 $/L (Diabo, 2011) according to several factors such
as the latitude (Arriaga & Kazerani, 2012) and road access of communities.
Also, the performance of wind turbines completely depends on the wind potential of sites. For these
reasons, the values of average wind speed and fuel price are considered as inputs into sensitivity analysis.
Figure 7 shows the appropriate power system under various ranges of wind speed and fuel price.
In Figure 7 the brown zone shows the conditions which using diesel generator is more cost-
effective than hybrid wind-turbine-battery. The minimum monthly wind speed in Aupaluk is 5.51 m/s
which indicates for fuel prices higher than 0.25 $/L, the hybrid system with battery is the only optimum
system. Also, it is noticeable that wind-diesel generating system without batteries is infeasible in all
ranges of wind speeds above 4.4 m/s.
The choice of wind-diesel-battery for Kuujjuaq is feasible when the fuel price is more than o.4 $/L
(Figure 8). It can also be noticed that the use of batteries is not always yield the more economical solution
as compared to the one without storage system. For example, for communities with the same annual
electricity demand and diesel generator if the mean wind speed varied from 3.8m/s to 4m/s, and the fuel
price is ranged between 1.3 $/L and 1.5 $/L, the hybrid wind-diesel is more profitable than one with
battery.
According to the Figure 8 and average wind speed in Salluit (Table 1) the hybrid system is cost-
effective in fuel-price more than 0.2 $/L.

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 H. R. Hooshangi

Figure 7: Optimal system type over changing average wind speed and diesel price for Aupaluk

Figure 8: Optimal system type over changing average wind speed and diesel price for Kuujjuaq

Figure 9: Optimal system type over changing average wind speed and diesel price for Salluit
4.3 Harmful gas emissions

In this section, a comparison between air pollution of diesel generator and optimum hybrid system
is done. It should be noted that all of the analysis is done without considering penalty cost for the
pollutant and also we don’t consider negative effects of wind turbines on environment, e.g. noise,
wildlife and visual impacts, as pollution in this study. HOMER Explorer has the capability of adding the
cost of pollution to the total annual cost of the system. As shown in Table 8, the total emissions of GHG
from diesel generator were 69%, 48% and 59% higher than hybrid system in these three sites.
Table 8: Comparison of air pollution emissions from stand-alone Diesel generator and optimum hybrid wind-
diesel-battery system
Site Aupaluk Kuujjuaq Salluit
Emission Diesel Hybrid Diesel Hybrid Diesel Hybrid
CO2 (kg/year) 2,409,714 738,874 16,748,657 8,580,713 9,043,385 3,679,385
CO (kg/year) 5,948 1,824 41,342 21,180 22,322 9,082
SO2 (kg/year) 4,839 1,484 33,634 17,232 18,161 7,389
NOX (kg/year) 53,075 16,274 368,895 188,993 199,184 81,040
Reduction of CO2 Emission 69.3 % 48.7 % 59.3 %

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 Feasibility Study of Wind-Diesel Hybrid Power System for Remote Communities in North of Quebec

5 CONCLUSION

In 2004, the stand-alone diesel generators in remote communities of Quebec had a total installed
capacity of 144 MW and the energy consumption of 0.3 TWh. Hydro-Québec estimates that it loses
around $133 million each year, an amount that reflects the difference between the high cost of using
diesel fuel to produce electricity in these areas and the standard cost of electricity. On the other hand,
most of the off-grid communities in Northern Quebec have been in areas with high potential of wind
resources. However, there are only a few numbers of hybrid wind-diesel generators in these areas. The
main purpose of this article is to assess the feasibility of wind turbines as an alternative source of energy
for combining with diesel generating systems in off-grid communities of north of Quebec. In this study,
three communities with different range of population and annual electricity demand have been considered
for feasibility study and sensitivity analysis. The results of sensitivity analysis can be generalized for
communities with same or nearly same diesel capacity.
From HOMER Explorer software simulation, it has been demonstrated that the electricity
production cost of diesel generators in Aupaluk, Kuujjuaq and Salluit are as expensive as 1.564 $/kWh,
0.682 $/kWh, and 1.042 $/kWh, whereas optimum hybrid wind-diesel-battery system reduces the cost of
energy to 0.848 $/kWh, 0.454 $/kWh, and 0.661 $/kWh, respectively. Based on the current incentive
programs and fuel cost the Simple Return of Investment (ROI) has varied from 2.6 years up to 5.4 years,
approximately. It was also proven that hybrid wind-diesel generators with storage systems could achieve
considerably lower NPC and ROI as compared to ones without battery.
In addition to cutting down the dependency of remote communities on diesel, hybrid system helps
to reduce pollutants, such as carbon emission. Department of Natural Resources of Canada estimates that
the production of greenhouse gas emission of diesel generators in remote communities is about 140,000
tonnes ( sing energy to build the Qu bec of tomorrow Qu bec energy strategy, 2 -2015, 2006). Based
on the results of this article, combination of wind turbines and battery with diesel generators can reduce
this amount of pollution by 50% approximately, which is equal to 70,000 tonnes/year. New incentive
programs by government in granting part of initial costs and technical support for operations and
maintenances of high-penetration hybrid wind turbines would be able to result in greater levels of fuel
saving, and more significantly reduce the GHG emission.

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