TECHNO-ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT OF SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC HYBRID POWER SYSTEM IN IN SIERRA LEONE, WEST AFRICA “A case study of Masunthu village”

Abstract

Access to clean and affordable electricity is a fundamental pillar of the United Nations sustainable development goal 7 (United Nations, 2018). In Sierra Leone, less than ten percent of rural communities have access to electricity. This study carried out a techno-economic assessment for hybrid power generation for a remote village in Northern Sierra Leone, Masunthu (latitude 9.10W & longitude -12.60N). Hybrid Optimization for Multiple Electric Renewables (HOMER) software, a specialized software application for the optimization of hybrid mini and micro-grids was used to carry out simulation, optimization, and sensitivity analyses on selected configurations of electrical systems for the location. With an expected daily electricity demand of 178kWh/day, the result obtained from the simulation showed that a hybrid system comprising of a solar photovoltaic system (45.5kW), diesel generator (31kW), and battery storage (68 batteries /411Ah each), was the most ecomnomical system to provide reliable electricity supply for the village. With the price of diesel fuel at $1/L, and for inflation and nominal discount rates of 10% and 24% respectively, the optimization yielded a Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of $0.336. A further sensitivity analysis showed that a reduction in the discount rate can significantly reduce the LCOE. Furthermore, with a 90% renewable energy fraction, the system was observed to significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions compared to a system that uses a diesel generator as the only source of power generation.