MINI GRID DESIGN FOR POWERING A RURAL COMMUNITY WATER SUPPLY AND TREATMENT UNIT CASE STUDY : MURQAB BIN HAFAF, D JELFA, ALGERIA

Abstract

A large portion of the African population, more particularly in the rural areas, remains without sustainable access to safe water. Even worse, there is increasing inequality between urban and rural communities' access to safe water. Rural areas, usually characterized by their remoteness, suffer from the lack of basic public services, such as sewage, access to electricity and access to sustainable safe water supplies and infrastructures. There is then the need for these areas to improve access to safer and sustainable water supplies. This helps to meet the Millennium Development Goal on drinking water and eliminate the exposition to waterborne diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid. Moreover, with running water, less time is spent and less risk is taken on fetching water of unreliable quality from a water source. This challenging in enhancement of the quality of life. The lack of access to safe water requires a suitable and efficient water supply and treatment systems. Moreover, electricity is required to power these water systems. The link between water and energy, i.e., water-energy nexus, is well established. Energy is used in many aspects of water supply and infrastructures such as water and wastewater treatment, water supply, water transfer, etc. Usually, rural areas suffer unfortunately from access not only to safe water but also to adequate energy supply. The remoteness of the rural areas raises the challenge of extending the public services to these areas. The study presents a mini-grid design for powering rural community water treatment and supply. The selected case study for this is Murqab Bin Hafaf Village, Djelfa, Algeria. After identifying of the basic problems from the village and collecting of water demand, the mini-grid power system was designed and optimally sized using water data and energy resources data. Three scenarios were analyzed i.e., on-grid, off-grid with generator and hydrogen-based off-grid. The on-grid system with the Levelized COE value of 0.02671 $/kWh is most cost-effective mini-grid design because excess electricity generated by the system is sold to the grid (resulting in more revenue from electricity). Off-grid with generator backup power has the higher COE value as compared to grid-connected with least value of 0.2863 $/kWh, and it comes with an emission penalty. Although the hydrogen-based off-grid solution is more expensive than others with COE of 0.3897 $/kWh, it produces no CO2. As a result, it is more environmentally friendly, and with the cost of hydrogen technology falling rapidly, it is undoubtedly the greatest future solution.