Economic Analysis And Modelling Of A Hybrid Solar- Wind Diesel Power Generation System For Rural Electrification

Energy plays a major task in the development of any nation’s economy. This may not be unconnected to its inter-relationship with countries’ national gross domestic product (GDP). In most developing countries, a reasonable percentage of national income initiates from the rural areas engaged in agricultural and related activities. Unfortunately, these communities depend predominantly on conventional sources of fuels which have detrimental environmental effects, as their source of supply of electricity. Consequently, there is little or no improvement in the standard of living in rural communities from their present low level without access to sustainable electricity. The aim of this study is to explore the prospect of meeting electricity demand from a solar wind-diesel hybrid system to a rural community isolated from the main utility grid in a coastal area of Nigeria. Based on the available renewable energy sources present at the site, a feasibility study has been carried out on the optimal hybrid renewable energy system (HRES) model to meet the electricity demand of a community of about 700 people. Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER) is used to define the optimum configuration based on the available metrological resource. The outcome of the analysis is a list of feasible HRES configurations ranked according to their present cost (NPC). For this case study, the optimal configuration at the present interest rate of 12% in Nigeria is a combination of 20kW PV, 10 2.5kW, wind turbine, 50kW diesel generator, 17kW converter and 100 S4KS25P batteries. The NPC for this system configuration is N27,181,044 and LCOE is N71.676/kWh. The emission of CO2 the principal pollutant can be reduced by 97.1% using HRES instead of standalone diesel generator. Furthermore, relationship of economic indices and the interest rate is also evaluated. In all, HRES though has a higher initial cost; it has a lower NPC, Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) and reduced greenhouse gas emission compared to diesel only generator.