Techno-economic optimization of a hybrid wind-PV-diesel microgrid for Kasabonika Lake First Nation with Li-ion battery thermal safety assessment

Remote communities often do not have on-grid electricity and usually depend on fossil fuels to meet their demand. Canada has been developing on-grid power access for its remote population to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. Besides grid electricity, hybrid renewable power generation could be effective for remote areas, providing options of support and backup in case the grid is unavailable during harsh weather. Hybrid renewable power systems can simultaneously meet energy needs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Solar-wind-diesel-battery hybrid power systems are widespread in remote communities in Canada; however, properly selected components are crucial for their effectiveness. In this study, a hybrid power system for the remote community of Kasabonika Lake First Nation, Ontario has been designed. Different configurations of renewable energy components are considered to check their feasibility with the location. HOMER Pro software is utilized to simulate and analyze the techno-economic aspect of each configuration and identify a reference techno-economic configuration for the site under the assumed resource, cost, and component inputs. HOMER Pro shows Case 5-5 as the reference configuration for the site, with diesel generation retained to maintain reliability and a renewable fraction of around 49%. The wind assessment is limited to preliminary resource and energy-yield screening and does not represent a complete IEC-level wind engineering design. A Li-ion case study was also presented for comparison, and the intent to support the battery-pack thermal analysis in COMSOL Multiphysics. However, further results will show that the energy storage system remained as a backup, limiting our possibility to model it in COMSOL Multiphysics. Therefore, the novelty of this work is to conduct an independent safety screening based on the thermal analysis of the hypothetic lithium-ion battery bank scenarios, using COMSOL Multiphysics, to rule out fire hazards. The simulation will show that temperature will not surpass 45°C. This approach will provide further learning towards designing safe, cost-effective, and optimized hybrid power systems to ensure a reliable power supply for any location, including our selected remote community.