Techno-Economic Evaluation of Standalone Hybrid Renewable Power System for a Remote Location in Nigeria.

Abstract

The application of an off-grid hybrid renewable energy-based power systems for rural electrification has become an attractive solution for areas where grid electricity is either not feasible or the cost of the grid extension is relatively high. A hybrid system uses one or several renewable energy technologies as primary energy sources and a conventional fossil fuel-based or biofuel-based generator as a backup source. Therefore, this hybrid system reduces the dependence on one energy source, resulting in reliable and affordable electricity for the rural consumers. As hybrid systems use several energy technologies, the selection of proper technologies and optimum sizing of the selected components is important in reducing the overall cost and increasing the reliability and availability of the service. The aim of this work is to evaluate the optimum configuration of a hybrid system which can supply electricity to a rural community in Abuja, Nigeria. A rural community, Dafara in Abuja containing approximately 102 households with a daily electricity demand of 165.24 kWh and a night-time peak of 23 kW has been chosen as target. Several electricity generating technologies, including solar, wind and diesel generators has been studied, and simulations was performed for a number of system configurations using the Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Electric Renewables (HOMER) software. The total net present cost (NPC) of each system configurations were evaluated for 20 years of systemic lifetime in order to examine the lowest energy cost option