Abstract
Umuokpo Amumara is a village with an estimated population of 9,000 people and about 800 households located in the eastern region of Nigeria in West Africa. This village has no access to power grids for over a decade of existence. Umuokpo, by virtue of its location 5°27′35.9″N 7°19′60.0″E, on the average receives about 6 hours of sunlight with a daily average irradiance of 6.12 kWh/m2. The solar energy can be tapped and harnessed to generate quality electricity for this small village. Since the wind speed is low (ranging between 3.0 m/s and 3.5 m/s), the wind resource cannot be incorporated into the design. The average load demand of the village is 9.422 MWh/day with a peak load of 1.3 MW. This paper is aimed at designing a small hybrid power system that can generate sustainable electricity for the village from renewable energy sources. The design also considers a backup diesel generator and an energy storage system. The designed system consists of a 2,750 kW solar photovoltaic (PV), a 21,600 kWh battery storage, a 1,500 kW power electronic converter, and a 1,000 kW diesel generator. The simulation suggests that the proposed system can adequately meet the electricity needs of the village. A sensitivity analysis is also carried out on the system to observe its behavior with varying levels of irradiation and load.
Highlights
Many rural areas in the world lack electrical supply due their remote locations and consequent high cost of electrical infrastructure
Renewable resources are intermittent in nature, which creates significant system design challenges [2, 3]
To mitigate uncertainty caused by renewable energy sources, the combination of conventional and renewable power generation known as a hybrid power system appears to be effective [4]
Summary
Many rural areas in the world lack electrical supply due their remote locations and consequent high cost of electrical infrastructure. More than 1.5 billion people lack access to electricity [1] These communities have resorted to the use of local methods to meet their lighting, heating, and cooking needs, which to a very large extent have a detrimental effect on the surrounding environment, economic development, and quality of life. Most times, these areas have abundant renewable energy resources such as wind, solar, and hydro. To mitigate uncertainty caused by renewable energy sources, the combination of conventional and renewable power generation known as a hybrid power system appears to be effective [4]. Such systems can be either grid-connected or stand-alone and consist of conventional and renewable distributed generation, power conditioning equipment, and energy storage devices [5, 6]
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