Design and optimization of Stand Alone/Grid Connected Hybrid System (Wind/Solar/Diesel Generator) for Rural/Remote Areas of Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan is a developing country, facing energy crisis due to increase in population and rapid urbanization. Pakistan mainly depends upon its conventional energy resources which are depleting day by day because of the excessive increase in demand for energy. The electricity shortfall duration in summer was 14–18 h in rural areas and 8–10 h in urban areas. Currently, it is a big challenge for the Government to overcome the shortfall of energy. The modern world is meeting up most of its energy demand from renewables, Pakistan also needs to focus on the best utilization of its available large renewable energy resources to overcome the shortfall of energy. This shift will raise the contribution of renewables in the total energy mix of Pakistan, lower the cost of electricity and reduce the carbon footprint. The main purpose of this study is to model a technical and economically viable standalone/hybrid (PV/Wind/Diesel Gen. /Battery) off-grid/grid-connected energy system for the rural/remote areas having poor electrification. Weather data for wind speed and solar irradiance (kWh/m2/day) is taken from Meteorological High Precision (MHP) stations, as well as from NASA weather database accordingly selected site. For efficient modeling, five different software like as RETScreen, Homer Pro, SAM, PVSyst and SOLAGIS were evaluated on different parameters by designing a similar sized system with similar components and weather conditions. During the analysis, capacity factor results were compared to find out more efficient modeling tool. Later on Homer Pro was chosen for the detailed study due to having good capacity factor and for its unique feature of system optimization. Which makes the system design size more efficient and reliable accordingly to local weather conditions. So, wind/solar/diesel hybrid systems were modeled using HOMER Pro to perform optimization and analysis for all the selected Provincial capitals and two remote areas for each Province of Pakistan using their own weather data. While viability is examined on financial parameters like the cost of energy (COE) and net present cost (NPC). The results from analysis show that the proposed hybrid energy system is more feasible than single source energy systems for all selected sites for its lower cost of energy. Thus hybrid renewable energy system can act as a reliable energy resource for the electrification of rural, remote far-flung areas and the communities having no ease of access to the electricity in Pakistan.