Optimal Sizing and Analysis of Sustainable Solar PV-Biomass Hybrid Energy System for Learning Institutions

Abstract

Energy access is a significant challenge globally due to limited access to electricity together with the unreliability of grid extension. The main backup system is often diesel generators which suffer from high maintenance, running costs and harmful emissions. The abundance of solar irradiation in the equatorial region and biomass due to the high population and agricultural activities provides a green energy solution to improve access to electricity through distributed generation. This study presents a design and analysis of a sustainable, and optimal configuration of a hybrid power system based Solar PV-Biomass energy system. The proposed system was designed and optimized using Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources with the most optimal system being solar PV, Biomass Generator, and Diesel generator with storage. A sensitivity analysis using inflation rate and solar irradiation established that with increasing solar irradiation and reducing inflation rate, the Least Cost of Energy decreases. A sustainability analysis based on Multi-Criteria Decision-Making techniques showed that the most sustainable energy alternatives was solar PV, Biomass Generator with storage of specifications 360 kW of solar PV array, 540 kW of Biomass Generator, 142 kW converter and 576 strings of 1 kW lead-acid batteries storage bank with least cost of energy of 0.1026 USD/kWh. If this proposed hybrid energy system is implemented, it will improve energy access, reliability and reduce costs of energy compared to conventional grid extension.