Abstract
Microgrids are a rapidly evolving and increasingly common form of local power generation used to serve the needs of both rural and urban communities. In this paper, we present a methodology to evaluate the evolution of the sustainability of stand-alone microgrids projects. The proposed methodology considers a composite sustainability index (CSI) that includes both positive and negative impacts of the operation of the microgrid in a given community. The CSI is constructed along environmental, social, economic and technical dimensions of the microgrid. The sub-indexes of each dimension are aggregated into the CSI via a set of adaptive weighting factors, which indicate the relative importance of the corresponding dimension in the sustainability goals. The proposed methodology aims to be a support instrument for policy makers especially when defining sound corrective measures to guarantee the sustainability of small, isolated microgrid projects. To validate the performance of the proposed methodology, a microgrid installed in the northern part of Chile (Huatacondo) has been used as a benchmarking project.
Highlights
Energy systems play a vital role in the social and economic development of communities and nations, and directly in the quality of life of individuals [1]
Roughly 1.2 billion people around the world still have no regular access to electricity [3]. Most of these people live in remote rural areas where electrification projects are difficult to implement due to high investment costs, low rates of return, and technical issues
Given the definition of sustainable development in an energy framework, in this paper a sustainable isolated microgrid is defined as an isolated microgrid that is able to maintain the balance between energy production and consumption with minimal environmental effects, and whose operation does not compromise the economic and social activities of the community where the project hSausstbaieneabniliitmy 2p0l1e6m, 8,e1n1t6e3d
Summary
Energy systems play a vital role in the social and economic development of communities and nations, and directly in the quality of life of individuals [1]. In the case of rural electrification, the positive effects include technological and economic development as well as the increase of the living standard of the community. Rural electrification of remote communities must be done considering sustainability criteria This means that the design of microgrid projects must consider each relevant dimension in our system, i.e., the environmental, social, economic and technical. It is important to have support tools that allow the assessment of different alternatives when implementing a microgrid project Based on such assessments, non-sustainable and sustainable configurations are identified so that the best alternative for a particular community is selected. The proposed methodology considers a composite sustainability index (CSI), which includes positive and negative impacts of a microgrid’s operation in a given community.
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