Rural electrification through renewable resources in a rural/remote area in Nigeria: design, optimization and techno-economic evaluation

Abstract

The need for electricity generation in rural areas of Nigeria through renewable energy sources or grid extension is paramount in order to increase the rural electrification rate (35%) to an appreciable value. Electricity can be supplied through either the national grid being extended or through off-grid systems, grid extension cost depends on the location of the area, its terrain, the number of households, distance of the area from a grid point, the size of the land among others. However, based on these factors and inadequate supply of electricity to even the areas connected to the national grid, renewable energy sources may provide an alternative means of electricity generation in rural areas in Nigeria. This research designed and evaluated the techno-economic feasibility of providing electricity to rural Dilchidama in Nigeria through renewable energy source considering 77 households, 1 primary school, 1 primary health centre and 4 shops having an estimated load of 306 kWh/d and compared it with extending the national grid to the area using HOMER and RETScreen tools. The results obtained from the techno-economic design from HOMER tool showed that grid extension is much more cost competitive to the solar PV system for the study area and to other neighbouring villages with similar geographical data and settlement up to a distance of 9.99 km. The sensitivity analysis performed by varying several input parameters such as annual average load, scaled annual average solar resource, annual real interest rate and solar PV components prices indicated that, solar PV renewable resource has a high potential especially if the location is far away from a grid source.