An Optimized Stand-alone Green Hybrid Grid System for an Offshore Island, Saint Martin, Bangladesh

Abstract

Saint Martin's island is the largest offshore island of Bangladesh which is one of the most beautiful tourist spots in the world. But as the island is far away from the mainland, it is not connected to the main grid of the country. This paper proposes an optimized stand-alone green hybrid system to supply electricity for the inhabitants & tourists of the island. Considering 1000 households for all of its inhabitants and 200 hotel rooms for tourists, the average daily load is 1135.82 kWh/day with an annual peak load of 227.76 kW. The aim of this paper is to design the most cost efficient optimized standalone green hybrid system which provides zero emission and 100% renewable fraction. HOMER(Hybrid Optimization Model for Multiple Energy Resources) is used to design this system. The simulation results show that a hybrid system with 659 kW PV array, 3073 strings of batteries, 245 kW converter forms the most optimized stand-alone system with COE(Cost of Energy) of $0.266 and NPC(Net Present Cost) of $1379832. Significantly, energy cost of the proposed system is viable in context with socioeconomic condition of the country which will eventually provide the power solution maintaining the scenic beauty of the island.