Economic evaluation of solar hybrid electric systems for rural electrification

Abstract

Diesel generators have long been in use in rural communities despite, the impact of emission caused by these generators to the environment. Due to the need for a greener environment, such electric generating systems seem not to be environmentally friendly and need to be addressed.Connection to the grid can also be expensive. This paper investigates the feasibility of employing hybrid electric system in rural communities. The HOMER software that analyzes system configuration was used to study the application and functional limitation of each hybridised arrangement. The result showed that the solar renewable energy (RE) based system has lower cost of capital cost, replacement cost and O&M cost with higher energy production compared to grid connected system, making the solar RE system most economically viable and a better candidate for the rural community electrification demands.