Renewable Energy System Simulation

Part of my minor in Sustainable Energy, this project modelled two real renewable systems end to end — rooftop solar and utility-scale wind — to see what they actually deliver and what the energy costs.

For solar, I modelled rooftop PV arrays in Energy3D, computing hourly output on representative days and across a full year for flat and tilted configurations, then swept the panel tilt to maximize annual yield. The selected four-panel array produced 5,320 kWh per year.

For wind, I fit a Weibull distribution to a year of measured wind-farm data, calculated per-turbine and 87-turbine annual energy and a 24.1% capacity factor, then built a levelized-cost model — arriving at $0.11/kWh with sensitivity analysis across project life, maintenance, and required rate of return.