Analysis and Evaluation of an Off-Grid Mini-Grid PV System for Rural Electrification

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in using renewable energy sources to electrify rural areas in Nigeria. The major motivation for this study is the recognition of the huge potential of renewable energy to improve rural electricity access in the country. One promising option is to use off-grid photovoltaic (PV) mini grid systems. These systems are small, modular, and can be easily installed in remote areas. However, some studies have shown that these systems are posed with certain problems such as its inability to carry loads for prolonged periods of time when the sun is out. This work investigates the feasibility of an optimized off-grid PV mini grid system for electrification of rural areas in Nigeria. The paper made use of the HOMER pro, SAM and MATLAB software. The HOMER pro software was to design a proposed mini grid for a case community in the northern part of Nigeria. The results of the HOMER pro simulations showed that the system generated high NPC and low LCOE. The proposed system for the northern generated an NPC of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{N}\!\!\!\!\!\!{=}$</tex>380,498,512 and an LCOE of 37.01<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{N}\!\!\!\!\!\!{=}$</tex>/kWh. The results of the SAM software showed that the PV array of the proposed models was able to generate sufficient electricity for the community. The results of the MATLAB software showed that a short-term load forecasting carried out using the ANN Levenburg-Marquardt algorithm gave results more accurately for the short-term load demand of the community. This exchange rate at the time of this work was <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{N}\!\!\!\!\!\!{=}$</tex>769.5 to $1.