Abstract
Off-grid houses can be considered an important concept to increase the access to electricity throughout the world. Although there are quite some initiatives in place to improve the access to electricity, the implementation rate of practical solutions is far below the UN Sustainable Development Goal 7: Energy (SDG 7) + for 2030. This situation is most apparent in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the current trends of electricity access calculated by the World Bank indicate that this region will not be able to achieve the SDG 7 target. Another worldwide trend which may help to increase electricity access is that currently, a lot of renewable energy generation is realized locally in houses (especially Solar Photovoltaics (PV)). This paper reviews the recent developments to increase the access to electricity in the world and the implementation of off-grid houses in different scenarios. The focus here is on the different efforts to create off-grid houses considering their challenges on a macro and micro level. Moreover, potential research directions for technologies in off-grid houses are presented in more detail. For this, a case description of a possible off-grid house in the Netherlands is presented together with some initial simulations results for this case using solar PV, the Sea-Salt battery, and a Glycerol Fuel Cell. The simulations use the DEMkit software and the analysis is performed using measured house load data for a period in winter and in summer.
Highlights
Houses not connected to the electricity grid or being able to operate without the electricity grid may become an important element in the future electricity infrastructure.On the one hand, as worldwide the access to electricity inside homes is an important element for creating quality of life, off-grid houses may enable such an access in regions without a proper grid infrastructure [1]
Off-grid houses may be an important asset for the electrical grid, on the one hand, to increase the electricity access in the world and, on the other hand, to allow a better integration of renewable energy sources in the energy system
Initiatives to improve the access to electricity are plenty, but the rate of implementation of practical solutions is far below the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development
Summary
Houses not connected to the electricity grid or being able to (almost) operate without the electricity grid (i.e., off-grid houses) may become an important element in the future electricity infrastructure.On the one hand, as worldwide the access to electricity inside homes is an important element for creating quality of life, off-grid houses may enable such an access in regions without a proper grid infrastructure [1]. Due to the possible consequences of a worldwide climate change, the vast majority of countries are making plans towards a massive introduction of renewable energy—especially solar photovoltaics and wind turbines. This massive introduction of renewable energy leads on the one hand to local energy generation but on the other hand to a lot of challenges that need to be overcome. In this context, off-grid houses may be an element that can support the integration as they tend to keep generated energy locally. These two topics lead to two opposite trends of developing and implementing off-grid houses, the top-down approach and the bottom-up approach
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