Techno-economic Feasibility Study of a Standalone Hybrid Renewable Energy System for Rural Electrification: A Case of an Isolated Village in Malawi

Abstract

In recent times, hybrid renewable energy systems are progressively being utilized to provide electricity in rural areas where the grid extension is considered too expensive. The current trend in rural electrification is to utilise renewable energy resources. The majority of Malawians in rural do not have access to electricity, the changing life styles and adaptations of new technologies in the rural household and agriculture are stimulating the energy needs in the rural populace. An easy solution is the provision of renewable energy at local scale with the available renewable energy resources. The fact that renewable energy sources are also distributed sources offers an opportunity to save on the capital investment for the transmission and distribution of electricity. The aim of this study was to develop the small hybrid power system solution with best techno economic analysis and optimum configuration of RET for supply electricity in order to power local communities. First, through field research, an analysis was made of the actual electrical demand in the Mtambanyama rural community. Secondly the research used empirical and modelled data of solar irradiance and stream flow rate to ascertain the renewable energy potential. . Thirdly the costs for the photovoltaic and hydro turbine systems costs, dieselgenerator operation costs were collected from different manufactures. The analysis was carried out by means of the software HOMER and was based on Mtambanyama village in Malawi. The feasibility of the use of hybrid PV-Micro hydro systems was analysed by comparing the Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) and Net Present Cost (NPC) of solar PV-micro hydro with other system configurations. Thus, this research focused on the optimum design of a hybrid energy system for an isolated community of Mtambanyama as case study. For the design of off-grid electrification of the study community, various combinations have been obtained for the hybrid systems with PV, micro-hydro turbines, batteries, convertors and generators from the HOMER optimization simulation. Findings were that From the optimal simulation result table the most cost effective system, i.e. the system with the lowest net present cost, is the PV micro hydro battery converter configuration and the cost of energy (COE) is 0.0833$/kWh and renewable resources fraction is approximately 100%. From this we can easily observe that almost the total portion of energy production is from renewable energy sources. The study proved that the use hybrid system in Mtambanyama village is financially acceptable and viable