Abstract
Renewable energy sources contribution to the entire energy mix is increasing rapidly across globe in general, and in developing nations like India in particular. With 19,706 un-electrified villages in India (Web-1, 2014), government is currently looking vigorously into sustainable off-grid solutions to electrify these villages, as most of them are far from the reach of grid connection. Off-grid electricity generation is comparatively cost effective as the locally available surplus resources which come at a reasonable or no cost can be utilized. This study investigates on the various possible off-grid power generation configurations with mix of various energy sources (solar, wind and diesel) for Indian villages. Four different villages representing four different regions of India which vary in resource distribution as well as the electricity load profiles are considered for study. Also, analysis is extended to study the impact of different projected future population scenarios on the results. HOMER (Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources), a soft tool from NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) is used for the work. Based on the present study, an optimal off-grid hybrid energy generation solution with respect to the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCoE) is identified for a steady and sustained power supply for the villages under consideration. The results show that the LCoE of electricity for an off-grid wind system is highly sensitive to the load profile and the load factor for the villages under study.
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