This paper presents a trail to establish a farm of 25 feddans using sprinkler and drip irrigation systems. Along with choosing the most efficient and low cost power supplying the system, keeping in mind the tradional ways of power electricity generating sources.
The area of the farm is 25 faddans, as an average, they will be irrigated by water 50 times per year. The volume of each irrigation water as an average of the different seasons is 120 cubic meter/faddaan totaling 3000 cubic meter/irrigation. This amount of water requires 15 horse power pump to draw water from the irrigation canal and/or 20 horse power lift the underground water. So that, the power unit required to operate the pump will be considered as 20 horse power which will cover the maximum load. The proposed pattern for this farm is a stand alone generating system which can be a diesel generating set, photovoltaic generating unit or combination from them.
This paper studies four different generating systems. These systems are: 1- Photovoltaic array consisting of 2-units one for irrigation pump and the other for farm utilities, 2-single diesel generating set, 3-double units of diesel generating set and 4-conbined system of diesel unit to operate the irrigation pump and the utilities and the PV-array to feed the utilities during irrigation.
The results of this study reveals that the cost of a kilowatt hour generated from these four systems are: 0.05763, 0.02673, 0.01683 and 0.01821 LE., respectively. The fourth system, though the total cost is higher by 8.156% than the third one, yet it is more reliable because it is less maintenance, no pollution, no noise, no troubleshooting and more independence and stability.