Optimization and techno-economic analysis of a solar photo-voltaic/biomass/diesel/battery hybrid off-grid power generation system for rural remote electrification in eastern India

Abstract

This work presents a case study for powering energy poor remote rural communities of Eastern India with locally available solar, biomass, diesel energy resources using Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables tool to identify the optimized system architecture. The selection of the energy resources has been based on the performance assessment of the resources. The software tool brings four different categorized optimized hybrid configurations using different architectures of resources mentioned above with battery bank. The study exposed that cost of electricity, and net present cost of the most suitable low cost optimized hybrid configuration (600 kW solar photo-voltaic/10 kW biomass generator/50 kW diesel generator/1000 kWh battery/200 kW bidirectional converter) is $0.222/kWh and $0.922 M. The system benefits in terms of reduced emissions and improved system economics. The use of solar energy resource in optimal system modelling provides 45.5% return of investment, 49.4% internal rate of return, payback period of 2.04 years, and discounted payback of 2.25 years from the system without solar photo-voltaic component. Additionally, variation of cost of electricity is analyzed by interpreting sensitivity variables affecting load, system economics, and power production of energy sources using one-dimensional and distinguished multi-dimensional approaches. Eventually, the proposed configuration suitability is justified by comparing with the esteemed works from existing literature.