Edinburgh Napier University

  Solar PV and wind energy conversion are now so economical that they compete head-on with all forms of fossil fuel and nuclear energy conversion. In view of climate change and the rising price of electricity due to wars, all governments are also facing popular policy pressures to rapidly switch to renewable energy. In this article, broad research questions are raised, and an attempt is made to provide answers in a logical manner. The questions may be categorized as being those related to the validation of fundamental data needed for the design of renewable energy (RE) systems, the long-term measured performance of those systems and the cost of RE electricity. Interest rates are rising rapidly in the current economic situation, and therefore, the present analysis is based on concurrent rates that are payable by borrowers. Measured data from a medium-sized solar PV and wind turbine facility that has been in operation for over a decade in Central Scotland has been used for this work. The main objectives of this article are: (a) to evaluate the manufacturer’s acclaimed performance, (b) to evaluate capacity factors for PV and wind conversion, and complementarily of solar and PV resources, and (c) to obtain the cost of electricity generation of PV and wind. The primary source for undertaking the above exercise was a decade long, measured dataset from an agricultural farm located in Central Scotland. Commercial PV design software was also used to cross check the presently undertaken analysis. The main conclusion was that a community-based wind/solar plant is much more economical than grid- purchased electricity. The novelty of the present work is that all conclusions that were drawn are based on long datasets of measured wind/solar plants.