**4. Discussion**

In this paper, we have analysed the behaviour of PV+W hybrid facilities placed in urban areas from the point of view of the adaptability of their generation patterns to the aggregate demand profiles. With this aim, we have designed a novel methodology that includes the definition and calculation of the matching factor (ε) to evaluate and quantify the adaptation level. The novelty of our work is based on three main grounds: (i) the evaluation of supply–demand balance adaptation of PV+W hybrid

plants, (ii) the integration of the hybrid plants into an urban environment and (iii) the applicability of the results on a global scale.

The analysis of the generation patterns shows that, in a PV+W hybrid plant where the PV and wind facilities have similar installed power capacity, the PV is always the main contributor in the total energy production in all climate conditions, presenting a global value of 84%, varying from 71% in polar areas to 91% in tropical zones. The main reason for this performance is that the facilities are not placed following a criterion of high-wind-resource location which is common in urban areas.

The results show that PV facilities match demand profiles better than wind energy. The global matching factor obtained for PV ε*PV* is 0.46 while for wind ε*<sup>W</sup>* is 0.6, which means 30% worse adaptation level. The di fference, once again, is homogeneous in all climate conditions.

Likewise, hybrid plants adapt better to the demand than when the facilities are independently evaluated. The hybrid plants present ε*PV*+*<sup>W</sup>* in the 0.4 to 0.43 range, depending on the normalisation method used, which means an improvement between 7.7% and 15% in comparison with the adaptation of PV facilities and between 29% and 35% in comparison with wind plants. Once again, the results are homogeneous for all the climate zones.

The proposed methodology has been found robust because the results obtained do not vary substantially with respect to the variation of the solar irradiation or the mean wind speed at the location under study. The methodology also gives comparable results for facilities with di fferent power capacity.
