Reliability Evaluation of a Hybrid Renewable Energy Complex System with Weibull Failure Laws Using Minimal-cut Set Approach

Most rural locations in Nigeria are still grappling with epileptic power supply while others await connection to national grid due to their remote locations. In order to meet the required energy demands at these locations, penetration of renewable energy sources has become so paramount to the society and the nation at large. Renewable energy sources are very attractive energy sources due to their abundant available nature, highly clean energy source because of their environmental friendly nature and cheap continuous nature. However, because of their intermittent available property, hybrid renewable energy sources are used to counter this drawback. In this study, hybrid renewable complex energy system with five components subsystem is evaluated. The complex system was first converted to a series-parallel system using the Minimal-cut set approach. The variables associated with repair and failure rates of each component is assumed to follow a Weibull probability density function. The derivation of Mean Time to System Failure (MTSF) and reliability of the system was obtained via reliability mathematics techniques. The MTSF and reliability of the complex renewable system was calculated for random values of component parameters such as failure rate , shape parameter and operating time (t) of the system components. The dynamic responses of these reliability indices have been presented both graphically and numerically with arbitrary numerical values of the components parameters.