Development and assessment of an integrated wind-solar based energy system for sustainable communities

•A hybrid solar-wind system is developed to provide clean energy to small community.•The system is analyzed thermodynamically to determine energy-exergy efficiencies.•An optimization study is performed to find the optimum system’s efficiency.•System life cycle assessment is conducted to evaluate system’s environmental performance. In order to address the growing demands for clean energy, coupled with the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this study concerns a newly developed hybrid renewable energy system, which integrates solar and wind energy options, augmented with compressed air energy storage and battery storage solutions. The novelty of this paper stems around the diversification of energy storage solutions, which allows for meeting a highly variable demands in a more efficient and carbon-free manner. The present system is designed to provide a sustainable solution for the communities and is, in this regard, applied to supply the essential energy needs for a small city of about 5000 homes. The electricity is generated through a wind farm as well as power production from the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and stored depending on the demands. The district heating and cooling loads are supplied from parabolic trough dishes, concentrated on a solar tower and processed through heating and refrigeration subsystems. Following the system development, the comprehensive thermodynamic analysis, optimization study and life cycle assessments are comparatively conducted. The proposed energy system achieves the energy and exergy efficiencies of 50.3 % and 44.1 % respectively. The ORC subsystem accounts for the highest exergy destruction in the system. The solar farm achieves an energy efficiency of 85 % and an exergy efficiency of 65 %, respectively. The ORC subsystem accounts for 59.7 % of the environmental impact throughout all impact categories due to the system irreversibilities and heat losses.