Abstract
SummaryAddressing climate change with the rising global energy usage necessitates electricity sector decarbonization by rapidly moving toward flexible and efficient off-grid renewable energy systems (RESs). This paper analyzes the wind and solar micro-grids, with batteries and pumped hydro storage for a robust off-grid RES techno-economic operation, while considering diverse multi-objective optimization cases. This research has considered the RES variable operational losses in the developed methodology and relations between different indicators are evaluated, revealing a basic understanding between them. The results reveal that the reliability index is inversely related to the oversupply index, while directly related to the system self-sufficiency index. The cost of energy is more sensitive to technical indicators rather than the storage cost and so can be used as a primary monetary index. Energy and cost balance analysis showed that 16%–20% of the used energy was drained in RES operational losses, which were usually ignored in previous studies.
Highlights
Many countries aim to meet 100% of their electricity demand from renewable or zero-carbon sources by 2040–2050 to meet the Paris agreement goals (Dowling et al, 2020; Rogelj et al, 2016; Mitchell, 2016; Jacobson et al, 2017)
The results reveal that the reliability index is inversely related to the oversupply index, while directly related to the system self-sufficiency index
The cost of energy is more sensitive to technical indicators rather than the storage cost and so can be used as a primary monetary index
Summary
Many countries aim to meet 100% of their electricity demand from renewable or zero-carbon sources by 2040–2050 to meet the Paris agreement goals (Dowling et al, 2020; Rogelj et al, 2016; Mitchell, 2016; Jacobson et al, 2017). Off-grid renewable energy systems (RES) with electricity storage are crucial to safeguard national grids as large penetration of intermittent RE is out of jurisdiction owing to grids’ stability and congestion issues. Some studies suggested the coupling of different energy sectors and continent-wide energy transmission (i.e., Europe) for the high share integration of RE in national grids (Brown et al, 2018). These approaches require the agreement of more decision makers and are not viable for all regions, especially the countries having border disputes. Off-grid RES can play a significant role in social and economic growth of 1.3 billion people who have no access to electricity, as most of them live in remote areas (Mondiale, 2008; Pimm et al, 2021; Ma and Javed, 2019)
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