Smart Grid and Renewable Energy

Volume 5, Issue 5 (May 2014)

ISSN Print: 2151-481X   ISSN Online: 2151-4844

Google-based Impact Factor: 0.88  Citations  

Hybrid Power System Options for Off-Grid Rural Electrification in Northern Kenya

HTML  Download Download as PDF (Size: 1701KB)  PP. 89-106  
DOI: 10.4236/sgre.2014.55009    8,702 Downloads   12,667 Views  Citations

ABSTRACT


For domestic consumers in the rural areas of northern Kenya, as in other developing countries, the typical source of electrical supply is diesel generators. However, diesel generators are associated with both CO2 emissions, which adversely affect the environment and increase diesel fuel prices, which inflate the prices of consumer goods. The Kenya government has taken steps towards addressing this issue by proposing The Hybrid Mini-Grid Project, which involves the installation of 3 MW of wind and solar energy systems in facilities with existing diesel generators. However, this project has not yet been implemented. As a contribution to this effort, this study proposes, simulates and analyzes five different configurations of hybrid energy systems incorporating wind energy, solar energy and battery storage to replace the stand-alone diesel power systems servicing six remote villages in northern Kenya. If implemented, the systems proposed here would reduce Kenya’s dependency on diesel fuel, leading to reductions in its carbon footprint. This analysis confirms the feasibility of these hybrid systems with many configurations being profitable. A Multi-Attribute Trade-Off Analysis is employed to determine the best hybrid system configuration option that would reduce diesel fuel consumption and jointly minimize CO2 emissions and net present cost. This analysis determined that a wind-diesel-battery configuration consisting of two 500 kW turbines, 1200 kW diesel capacity and 95,040 Ah battery capacity is the best option to replace a 3200 kW stand-alone diesel system providing electricity to a village with a peak demand of 839 kW. It has the potential to reduce diesel fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by up to 98.8%.


Share and Cite:

Lukuyu, J. and Cardell, J. (2014) Hybrid Power System Options for Off-Grid Rural Electrification in Northern Kenya. Smart Grid and Renewable Energy, 5, 89-106. doi: 10.4236/sgre.2014.55009.

Cited by

[1] Design and implementation of rural microgrids: Laguna Grande case study
2022
[2] Integration and Modeling of Small-Scale Pumped Storage
… Modeling and Analysis in Renewable Energy, 2021
[3] Integrated approach for optimal techno-economic planning for high renewable energy-based isolated microgrid considering cost of energy storage and demand …
2020
[4] Hybrid Power Systems for Commercial Application in Kenya
2018
[5] Comparison of various approaches to design wind‐PV rural electrification projects in remote areas of developing countries
2018
[6] PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF HYDROKINETIC HYBRID SYSTEM WITH WATER VELOCITY ESTIMATION TECHNIQUE FOR RURAL ELECTRIFICATION IN …
2018
[7] Portable Hybrid Power Plant with Automatic Load Scheduling Using Micro-Controller
International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, 2017
[8] REVIEW ANALYSIS OF SOLAR-FUEL CELL OF INTEGRATED ENERGY SYSTEM
2nd International Conference on Emerging Trends in Engineering, Technology, Science and Management, 2017
[9] Wind Resource Potential for Electricity Generation Using Micro-Hybrid Systems in Northern Kenya
2017
[10] Assessing the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts and Benefits of PV-Microgrid Systems in Off-Grid Communities
2016
[11] Novel business models and policy directions based on SE4ALL global framework for minigrids
2016
[12] Life Cycle Assessment of Solar Photovoltaic Microgrid Systems in Off-Grid Communities
Environmental Science & Technology, 2016
[13] Scaling Renewable Energy Based Microgrids in Underserved Communities: Latin America, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa
2016
[14] Design of a hybrid power system for a wireless communication tower system
Thesis, 2015
[15] Modelling a hydropower plant with reservoir with the micropower optimisation model (HOMER)
International Journal of Sustainable Energy, 2015
[16] Modeling pumped hydro storage with the micropower optimization model (HOMER)
Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, 2014

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.