Design and Modelling of Hybrid PV-Micro Hydro Power Generation Case Study Jimma Zone

Abstract

Renewable energy technologies offer clean abundant energy gathered from self-renewing resources such as the sun, micro hydro, etc. Nowadays, due to the ever increasing demand of electricity, renewable energies are becoming the best option for electrification especially for remote area and to meet relatively small load. The standard empirical formula, the collected sunshine hour data have been changed to solar radiation. The results obtained in the proposed work based on empirical formulas were compared with expand these words NASA and SWERA data. The selected area has 5.13kWh/m2/d amount of annual average solar radiation, which shows the area is rich of solar energy. Primary river flow data had been taken for modeling the existing micro-hydro power at MenkoToli River in Ethiopia. The river has an annual average flow rate of 1.131m2/s. HOMER software had been used for modeling optimized result of the hybrid power generation system. 500 households are considered under studied with a total annual consumption of 31,911 kWh per year. The study included the electrical load of primary school and clinic. From the HOMER software optimization result, 10KW PV, 14KW hydro, 14KW converter and 32 battery string had been selected as an optimized option for electrifying MenkoToli in Ethiopia., with an initial capital cost $55,200, total net present cost of $76,128 and unit cost of $0.045. In the study all combinations of hybrid sources for the HOMER software have been observed for cost effective design.