Estimating battery lifetimes in Solar Home System design using a practical modelling methodology

Narayan, Nishant; Papakosta, Thekla; Vega‐Garita, Victor; Qin, Zian; Popović, Jelena; Bauer, Pavol; Zeman, Miroslav

doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.06.152

Cited by 72 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Dimensioning or sizing is often a critical exercise; an oversized SHS leads to an expensive system leading to wastage of energy and unaffordability to a considerable portion of the target population, while an undersized SHS leads to insufficient power availability that may cause user dissatisfaction and lower technology adoption rates. Therefore, SHS need to be optimally sized for a given load demand [43].…”

Section: Climbing the Electrification Ladder With Shsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…it would be at the cost of discarding the previously perfectly dimensioned lower tier SHS, as households seldom demand a direct tier 4 or 5 level access and usually climb up the electrification ladder (ii) at higher levels of electricity demand, the storage costs would significantly drive up the total system costs [43,45].…”

Section: Climbing the Electrification Ladder With Shsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Long Road to Universal Electrification: A Critical Look at Present Pathways and Challenges

et al. 2020

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Nearly 840 million people still lack access to electricity, while over a billion more have an unreliable electricity connection. In this article, the three different electrification pathways—grid extension, centralized microgrids, and standalone solar-based solutions, such as pico-solar and solar home systems (SHS)—are critically examined while understanding their relative merits and demerits. Grid extension can provide broad scale access at low levelized costs but requires a certain electricity demand threshold and population density to justify investments. To a lesser extent, centralized (off-grid) microgrids also require a minimum demand threshold and knowledge of the electricity demand. Solar-based solutions are the main focus in terms of off-grid electrification in this article, given the equatorial/tropical latitudes of the un(der-)electrified regions. In recent times, decentralized solar-based off-grid solutions, such as pico-solar and SHS, have shown the highest adoption rates and promising impetus with respect to basic lighting and electricity for powering small appliances. However, the burning question is—from lighting a million to empowering a billion—can solar home systems get us there?The two main roadblocks for SHS are discussed, and the requirements from the ideal electrification pathway are introduced. A bottom-up, interconnected SHS-based electrification pathway is proposed as the missing link among the present electrification pathways.

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Section: Climbing the Electrification Ladder With Shsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Climbing the Electrification Ladder With Shsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Long Road to Universal Electrification: A Critical Look at Present Pathways and Challenges

et al. 2020

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“…The detailed PV and storage modeling at every SHS level has been covered extensively in previous works by the authors in [2,9,33]. The power management scheme implemented at the SHS level is shown in the flowchart in Figure 4 [9].…”

Section: Power Management Scheme For Interconnected Shs-based Microgrmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying the Benefits of a Solar Home System-Based DC Microgrid for Rural Electrification

et al. 2019

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Off-grid solar home systems (SHSs) currently constitute a major source of providing basic electricity needs in un(der)-electrified regions of the world, with around 73 million households having benefited from off-grid solar solutions by 2017. However, in and of itself, state-of-the-art SHSs can only provide electricity access with adequate power supply availability up to tier 2, and to some extent, tier 3 levels of the Multi-tier Framework (MTF) for measuring household electricity access. When considering system metrics of loss of load probability (LLP) and battery size, meeting the electricity needs of tiers 4 and 5 is untenable through SHSs alone. Alternatively, a bottom-up microgrid composed of interconnected SHSs is proposed. Such an approach can enable the so-called climb up the rural electrification ladder. The impact of the microgrid size on the system metrics like LLP and energy deficit is evaluated. Finally, it is found that the interconnected SHS-based microgrid can provide more than 40% and 30% gains in battery sizing for the same LLP level as compared to the standalone SHSs sizes for tiers 4 and 5 of the MTF, respectively, thus quantifying the definite gains of an SHS-based microgrid over standalone SHSs. This study paves the way for visualizing SHS-based rural DC microgrids that can not only enable electricity access to the higher tiers of the MTF with lower battery storage needs but also make use of existing SHS infrastructure, thus enabling a technologically easy climb up the rural electrification ladder.

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“…Minimizing battery replacements by introducing smart energy management functions to balance the load over the interconnected SHS microgrid could reduce numbers of battery failures, resulting in cost reduction for new units [17]. Equal power distribution amongst prosumers/consumers can serve to reduce peak discharge rates of the batteries as a result of increased diversity factor [18].…”

Section: Solar Home Systems Load Profiles and Consumption Patterns Anmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bottom-Up Electrification Introducing New Smart Grids Architecture—Concept Based on Feasibility Studies Conducted in Rwanda

2019

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Over the past eight years, off-grid systems, in the form of stand-alone solar home systems (SHSs), have proved the most popular and immediate solution for increasing energy access in rural areas across the Global South. Although deployed in significant numbers, issues remain with the cost, reliability, utilization, sustainability and scalability of these off-grid systems to provide higher-tiered energy access. Interconnection of existing stand-alone solar home systems (SHSs) can form a microgrid of interconnected prosumers (i.e., households owning SHS capable of producing and consuming power) and consumers (i.e., households without an SHS, and only capable of consuming power). This paper focuses on the role of a smart energy management (SEM) platform in the interconnection of off-grid systems and making bottom-up electrification scalable, and how it can improve the overall sustainability, efficiency and flexibility of off-grid technology. An interconnected SHS microgrid has the potential to unlock latent generation and storage capacity, and so effectively promote connected customers to higher tiers of energy access. This approach can therefore extend the range of products currently used by people located in the remote areas of developing countries to include higher-power devices such as refrigerators, TVs and potentially, electric cookers. This paper shows the results of field studies in the Northern Province of Rwanda within off-grid villages where people mainly rely on SHSs as a source of electricity. These field studies have informed further simulation-based studies that define the principal requirements for the operation of a smart energy management platform for the interconnection of SHSs to form a community microgrid.

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Estimating battery lifetimes in Solar Home System design using a practical modelling methodology

Cited by 72 publications

References 21 publications

The Long Road to Universal Electrification: A Critical Look at Present Pathways and Challenges

The Long Road to Universal Electrification: A Critical Look at Present Pathways and Challenges

Quantifying the Benefits of a Solar Home System-Based DC Microgrid for Rural Electrification

Bottom-Up Electrification Introducing New Smart Grids Architecture—Concept Based on Feasibility Studies Conducted in Rwanda

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