Analysis of a Solar Hybrid Electricity Generation System for a Rural Community in River State, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper presents the technical and economic analysis of a solar–wind electricity generation system to meet the power requirements of a rural community (Okorobo-Ile Town in Rivers State, Nigeria) using the Renewable—energy and Energy—efficiency Technology Screening (RETScreen) software. The entire load estimation of the region was classified into high class, middle class, and lower class. Two annual electricity export rates were considered: 0.1 USD/KWh and 0.2 USD/KWh. The results from the proposed energy model comprising a 600 kW PV system and a 50 kW wind system showed that with a USD 870,000 initial cost and USD 9600 O&M cost, the annual value of the electricity generated was 902 MWh. The simple payback was 5.1 years with a net present value of USD 3,409,532 when 0.2 USD/KWh was used as the annual export rate instead of 10.8 years for simple payback and an NPV of USD 1,173,766 when 0.1 USD/KWh was used. Thus, there is a potential to install a wind–solar system with average weather conditions of 4.27 kWh/m2/d for the solar irradiance and 3.2 m/s for the wind speed at a 10 m hub height using a rate of 0.2 USD/KWh as the electricity export rate.

Keywords

• solar energy
• feasibility analysis
• electricity export
• net present value
• wind power