Impact Assessment of Wheeling Renewable Distributed Generation to Residential Load

Abstract

With a national peak demand forecast of 28,850 megawatt, against the grid generation installed capacity of 13,014.14 megawatt, the Nigeria electricity consumers suffer from an inadequate and unstable supply. The residential sector, which accounts for about 60 % of electricity consumption, is the worst hit. An alternate electricity supply system capable of addressing this problem is energy wheeling, which entails delivering electricity generated by an independent power producer to residential consumers via the grid distribution network under a power purchase agreement. The aim of this paper is to determine the technical impact of transporting distributed generation from solar and wind energy resources, to residential load of Gwarinpa housing estate (GHE), Abuja, Nigeria. Two software packages; Hybrid optimization for multiple energy resources (HOMER) and digital simulation of electrical networks (DIgSILENT), were used to determine the renewable energy potential for the estate and the impact of wheeling on voltage profile, fault level, power losses and thermal loading of the distribution network respectively. Unlike wind energy that showed no potential, with an average wind speed of 3.01 m/s at a hub height of 50m, solar resource showed good potential with an annual average of the daily solar radiation of 5.55 kWh/m2/day. The result also produced a net present cost of 72.4 million USD and the lowest cost of energy of 0.0188 USD/kWh.