An expert system tool for designing hybrid energy systems

This paper describes a tool to design and optimize the component mix of a photovoltaic/fuel generator hybrid system. The tool assists a designer in choosing the best design configuration for a particular application. It has two main components: an expert system and a mixed integer programming (MIP) model. The expert system helps the user to make decisions and serves as the preprocessor, executor and post-processor to the MIP model through a spreadsheet interface. The MIP model simulates the performance of the energy system through energy and load management techniques. Some numeric demonstrative examples using data from Kumasi in Ghana, Africa, are provided.