Design islanded hybrid micro-grid and analyzing its socio-economic technical and environmental aspects for off-grid electrification in developing countries

Abstract

Developing countries are facing many electricity crises such as low production, worst power outages, blackouts, and poor inadequate supplies. Most of their rural areas have no basic power infrastructure as it requires long transmission lines, which causes high installation, operation, maintenance costs and line losses issues. The people of these unconnected rural areas belong to low-income families and use kerosene oil, candles, small solar panels, and batteries to meet their basic electricity needs. As an alternative, renewable-based hybrid energy systems have enormous potential. It is also environmentally friendly and low-cost, sustainable, and promising solution to electrify rural off-grid areas. This research work focuses on the economic and optimal design of a renewable-based hybrid energy system for the rural off-grid area of Pakistan. HOMER (Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources) software is used to perform techno-economic and environmental analysis. The optimization results show that the most economical and optimal configuration is PV/diesel generator with batteries having lower harmful emissions. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis is performed to refine the results which show that the most optimal system will remain sustainable if variations occur in the sensitivity variables in the future. Moreover, the results and findings of this study can help the government to make effective policies and planning to provide reliable and affordable electricity to the off-grid areas, to improve the electrification rate in the country.