Hybrid Distributed Power Generation for Apartment Building Complexes in Korea

Korea relies significantly on imported fossil fuels to meet its energy needs. Moreover, about 50% of Korean residential buildings are apartment complexes. In this paper, the use of distributed generation (DG) technologies to serve the energy requirements for a typical Korean apartment complex is explored to reduce Korea’s dependence on fossil fuel and CO₂ emissions. In particular, a series of sensitivity analyses is conducted using detailed simulation tools to determine the cost-effectiveness of DG systems to meet electrical and thermal loads of an apartment building in Daegu, Korea. The DG systems considered in the analysis include Photovoltaic (PV), Wind turbine, Microturbine, and Fuel Cell. The apartment complex is connected to the utility grid that with electricity typically generated using fossil fuels. It is found that a combination of the grid and Fuel Cell is the most cost effective approach to meet the electrical and thermal loads of the complex residential building with a cost of energy reduction of 12% compared to the grid only option.