Stochastic sizing of isolated rural mini-grids, including effects of fuel procurement and operational strategies

Abstract

The governments of developing countries struggle to guarantee the universal access to electricity on their territory and 1.2 billion people are still without any service, especially in remote areas. Hybrid mini-grids can be an effective solution since they exploit local renewable resources integrated with energy storage devices, reduce the use of fuel generators, and defer the construction of long and expensive grids until the growth of demand makes it profitable. Off-grid mini-grids are typically operated with simple load-following dispatching strategies, but predictive approaches can provide better performances, although at the expense of additional computational requirements. This paper investigates the benefits of using rolling-horizon dispatching strategies during the mini-grid design stage, also comparing how the optimal size of components is affected by several technical and economical parameters. Moreover, we propose the use of a stochastic sizing procedure that captures the uncertainties related to the load, to the renewable generation, and to the time required for the fuel procurement and delivery. A case study with real load data collected from an existing mini-grid placed in Habaswein, Kenya, is presented and discussed. The optimal sizing of some

Methodology for the Energy Need Assessment to Effectively Design and Deploy Mini-Grids for Rural Electrification

“…With the objective of reducing the viability gap of micro-grids as a means to provide energy access to communities which are not feasible to be grid connected, many models and software tools are being developed to size optimally a micro-grid and to operate it to serve the demand while minimizing running costs. A literature overview of the approaches used to optimize power systems with multiple energy sources can be found in [11].…”

“…HOMER can also be used to evaluate poor design choices and operational issues in existing mini-grids [14]. Whereas HOMER considers a single deterministic scenario of load and renewable energy generation, stochastic methods to cope with load and generation uncertainties have been proposed by other applied studies [11,15,16].…”

Generation Expansion Planning Model for Integrated Energy System Considering Feasible Operation Region and Generation Efficiency of Combined Heat and Power

“…In addition, an energy availability under stochastic nature of renewable energy improved when electrical and thermal generation were incorporated [5]. The operational dispatch strategies with multiple energy sources reduced negative effects of intermittent renewable energy on small energy systems [6,7]. Therefore, the integrated energy systems have the advantages of reducing the usage of fossil fuels and increasing the penetration rate of renewable energy.…”

How Hybridization of Energy Storage Technologies Can Provide Additional Flexibility and Competitiveness to Microgrids in the Context of Developing Countries

“…Furthermore, the presence of energy storage, while increasing upfront capital costs and adding another layer of complexity in the MG structure, will allow the adoption of sophisticated control techniques, thanks to the increasing availability on the market of cheap and reliable control devices. This will allow to pre-emptively optimize the power management among storage devices and fuel generators thanks to load and RES production forecasting, thus reducing the investment cost by optimizing the sizing of the MG components [14].…”