Techno-Economic Analysis of Wireless Community Grid for Rural Communities
| Autor: | Tejan Adhikari, Robert J. Stevens |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Sustainable development
business.industry Computer science 050204 development studies 020209 energy 05 social sciences Photovoltaic system 02 engineering and technology Environmental economics Net present value Electrification Wireless grid 0502 economics and business 0202 electrical engineering electronic engineering information engineering Financial modeling Electric power Electricity business |
| Zdroj: | GHTC |
| Popis: | Approximately 14% of the world population lack basic access to electricity and 84% of those people live in rural areas. The United Nations has adopted a Sustainable Development Goal to ensure universal access to reliable energy services. Different electrification approaches have not been able to penetrate the rural populations. A newer approach, Wireless Community Grid, has been introduced here. It involves an energy center from which portable batteries are swapped and rented to the customers to enable in-home lighting and small DC applications. Unlike mini-grids, there is no physical distribution network instead portable batteries act as the carrier of electricity. A preliminary technical and financial model for such a system is developed to explore the viability. Major parameters that impact system performance are the solar array size, battery capacity, swap period, and the number of batteries. Reliability and net present value are simulated for different system configurations for a community of 49 households in Borgne, Haiti. To obtain a desired reliability, weekly battery swapping scenario is always more economically attractive than a daily swapping scenario. Cost difference between those scenarios decreases as the reliability increases. The developed model will be helpful in exploring the trade-offs between electric power access reliability and costs in the early stages of project development. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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