Assessment of Economic Viability of Stand-Alone Solar-PV System to Electrify Agri-Farmhouse: A Case Study

Abstract

Availability of abundant solar energy and acute power shortage in Bijapur district draws attention to assess the economic viability of the stand-alone solar PV system. This paper presents a case study on economic viability assessment of solar PV system for an Agri-farmhouse located at Bijapur, North Karnataka, India. The economic viability of a solar PV system is carried out using life cycle cost computation based on solar radiation at seasonal tilt angle, the days of autonomy, battery replacements. The main objective of this study is to estimate the unit electric cost of solar PV system to electrify an Agri-farmhouse. It is found that estimated unit electric cost and payback period for 2-days of autonomy are highly reasonable economically viable for remote rural electrification in global perspective.

Techno-economic Assessment of Hybrid Energy System for Electrification of a Farmhouse in North Karnataka, India

“…The variation of monthly average daily clearness index is presented in Table 1. It indicates that July-September is lean period for solar application [14].…”

“…The monthly average daily total horizontal radiation (Gt in kWh/m2) data for past three years is processed according to the recorded time-series data and it is presented in Table 1. It varies from 3.5 kWh/m2 (July) to 6.75 kWh/m2 (April) with annual average radiation available is 5.26 kWh/day [14].…”

“…Power output of a solar PV panel depends on its inclination with the horizontal surface. An annual average value of tilt angle estimated for the project location is 22 O and the monthly average daily optimum angles (β) are presented in Table 1 [14].…”