Performance Analysis of a Hybrid Diesel – Renewable Energy (RE) Electrical System in Cuyo Island, Palawan, Philippines

Abstract

Remote island communities are mostly energized by diesel generation. Although fossil fuel provides on-demand power, its application on these type of islands has its drawback in terms of operations and logistics. Today, Renewable Energy technologies is becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuels and can be deployed on large scales. For these islands community’s power demand, renewable energy is an option, but unfortunately, it cannot cover the demands at all times. In such cases, a hybrid energy system is recommended. This study, focused on the performance analysis of different combinations of Diesel – RE hybrid system in terms of the lowest cost of energy, renewable energy fraction, and carbon emission reduction. The analysis has been performed using HOMER Pro, in which for a Diesel – RE hybrid system in Cuyo Island, the most suitable is the Diesel/Wind Hybrid Electrical System, which gives the lowest cost of energy of about $0.113/kWh, renewable energy fraction of about 72.8% and emission reduction of 71.8%. This system can support additional future load as much as 88.6% of the existing load demand and has a significant impact on mitigating carbon footprint. Wind Turbine and Solar PV array’s Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) are $ 0.029/kWh and $ 0.053/kWh respectively. With a 40-year wave hindcast data from MetOceanView, Wave Energy Converter (WEC) performance was also assessed using the Hydro module of Homer Pro Software. Assessment has been made with single and multi – WEC combined with diesel and other RE’s. Results show that the LCOE for WEC is about $0.66/kWh, which is within the range of $0.20 - $0.90/kWh levelized cost for wave energy at present. With the continues evolution of RE Technologies and cost – competitiveness is becoming less of an issue, electrifying isolated island communities through hybrid electrical system will be more feasible in the future.