Techno-Economic Analysis of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems for Electrification of Rustic Area in Egypt

Abstract

Hybrid Power Systems (HPSs), particularly renewable energy-mix systems, use a wide variety of enabling technologies to overcome the difficulties associated with Renewable Energy (RE) resource variability in both standalone and grid-connected systems. According to the Egyptian national program towards reaching the 2020 objectives together with the continuous declination of the RE generation cost, extensive development and deployment of RE are witnessed from the government, academia, utilities and industry in Egypt. Therefore, this paper mainly aims at highlighting the potential of RE-hydrogen concept application for rural electrification in the small villages in Egypt in comparison with batteries. After introducing the comprehensive literature review that demonstrates the advantages and drawbacks of the RE standalone systems that mostly necessitates an Energy Storage System (ESS) support.

The optimal.conomic design of the HPS that feeds the required electric load of the small Mansheat Taher village at Beni-Suef Governorate, Egypt is considered. For this purpose, five different HPS configurations are studied such as: PV-wind-battery, PV-Fuel Cell (FC), wind-FC, PV-wind-FC, and PV-wind-battery-FC systems. The models of various systems are optimally designed, sized based on the daily data for energy availability and the demand using HOMERTM software. From the viability analysis of the simulation results, HPS system of xxxxxxx that provides a total net present cost of $1,233,317 is considered the most economic and feasible option. The cost of energy is 0.1424 $/kwh with a required initial capital of $916,728.

A case study area, Monshaet Taher village at Beni-Suef Governorate, Egypt with (29° 1' 17.0718"N, 30° 52' 17.04"E) is identified for economic feasibility in this work. HOMER optimization model plan was designed with annual average solar radiation scaled of 5.93 (kWh/m2/day), annual average wind speed for the location is 4.92 m/s.

Keywords: Batteries, Energy Storage; Fuel Cells; Hybrid System; Renewable Energy; Rural Electrification.