*(c) Implementation Project*

Once the configuration and equipment are settled, all of the components of the system are calculated and chosen through the "Sizing study" stage and it is time to prepare the necessary technical documentation for the deployment of the installation: schemes, plans, etc. This is purely an engineering stage; there is no dedicated software for this step, but programs of general use in engineering are commonly applied. However, some technology specific software may be necessary: for example, in order to design the PV generator (if it is present in the design), it is necessary to design the detailed configuration of the generator, which is not provided by HOMER Pro.

Even though this stage will not be covered in this paper, here are some hints in the case that some wind generation is present in the final design:


It is worth talking, at this point, about the assessment of the installation. There is not enough experience on PV-Wind REDPS nowadays and it is important to make a provision for the monitoring system and its assessment. In reference [44], a new approach and a case study of a PV-wind hybrid system performance analysis is presented.

## *2.2. Materials: Case Study*

The proposed methodology to account for the small wind turbines barriers during the design process has been applied on a real case appearing in Uruguay. The National utility (UTE) is in charge of an existing PVDPS deployed several years ago in order to reduce fuel consumption on the previously existing DPS. After several years of exploitation of the PVDPS, recently there was an interest from the utility in considering the inclusion of wind generation to increase both renewable energy penetration and load consumption. However, even though the UTE had been able to cope with the promotion and installation of the existing PV-Hybrid system, they faced the difficulties that including wind generation would bring, which demanded CIEMAT's experience in this field: this is how this real case study appeared.

In this section, the case study will be presented, showing the performance of the existing PVDPS through the analysis of data coming from the monitoring system as well. The application of the results derived from the use of the presented methodology will be shown in next Section 3.

2.2.1. Description of the Case Study: An Existing PVDPS in Cerros de Vera, Uruguay

Cerros de Vera is located in the northwest of Uruguay (Municipality of Salto), with approximately 70 electricity home services. Cerros de Vera is a small village that has been developed thanks to the support of MEVIR, an organization that works to eradicate unhealthy housing for rural workers by facilitating the construction and renovation of homes and access to community services. Since the village is not connected to the national grid, initially, the electrification was based on diesel generators. However, in February 2014, the town incorporated solar energy into its electrification system, becoming the first isolated rural village in Uruguay to be autonomously supplied with renewable energy.

The power system has an installed solar PV power capacity of 52.2 kWp (180 Suntech 290 Wp modules), two Kohler J88 diesel generators (64 kW each), and two battery banks (48 V, BAE made) with an overall storage capacity (C10) of circa 300 kWh. The solar PV generator is divided into three groups, each one connected through a SMA Sunny Tripower inverter (17 kW each) to the 0.4 kV three-phase AC microgrid established by the two groups of three SMA Sunny Island 8.0 H power converters (3 × 8 kW each group). The average daily energy demand is around 440 kWh/day and the maximum demand is approximately 45 kW. In Figure 3, the general layout of the system is depicted. In Appendix A, some pictures of the system and its components are shown.

**Figure 3.** General layout of system under study, an existing PVDPS in Cerros de Vera, Uruguay.

2.2.2. Description of the Operation of the Existing System

The system is monitored through a weather station (connected to an SMA Sunny SensorBox) and the measurements are obtained from the power converters. Along with these measurements, the utility measures the energy consumption independently. From all these devices, data from 2018 and 2019 are available. After quality control of these data, a one year period from July 2018 to June 2019 was selected for evaluation. Sampling rate of data is 5 min for the raw data. A description of the system based on these data is shown now.

• Load Characterization.

From the measured data, the load patterns were assessed. In Figure 4, monthly (quite flat) and average hourly (peak in the nighttime) profiles derived from the measurements are shown, encouraging the hybridization of resources.

**Figure 4.** (**a**) Total monthly load consumption variation through a year; (**b**) average hourly load profile.
