Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14279/29071
Title: An optimisation tool for minimising fuel consumption, costs and emissions from Diesel-PV-Battery hybrid microgrids
Authors: Rangel, Nina 
Li, Hu 
Aristidou, Petros 
Major Field of Science: Engineering and Technology
Field Category: Electrical Engineering - Electronic Engineering - Information Engineering
Keywords: Hybrid microgrids;Cost optimization;Rural electrification;Diesel generator;Biofuel blends;Pollutant emission costs
Issue Date: 1-Apr-2023
Source: Applied Energy, 2023, vol. 335, articl. no.120748
Volume: 335
Journal: Applied Energy 
Abstract: Diesel generators (diesel gensets) are widely used within microgrid (MG) and off-grid systems for rural electrification, particularly in developing countries. The sizing and selection techniques during the MG planning stage are a key for maximising cost-effectiveness and minimising environmental impacts. This becomes more important for hybrid mini-grid systems when photovoltaic (PV) electricity generation and other renewable energies are included in the system as special attention is needed to limit the genset's output power, to keep it within the recommended operating range. This paper presents a cost optimisation model, centred on the generatoŕs performance, within diesel/PV/battery MGs, for minimising the MG's operating costs and environmental impact. The model considers fuel consumption equations adapted for castor oil-diesel (COD) blends and two major pollutant emissions (NOx and PM2.5), which are not considered in other optimisation models. The optimisation was implemented for high, medium, and low electricity demand scenarios, with eight possible system configurations, for the Lindi Region of Tanzania as it belongs to one of the five countries with the lowest electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). An economic assessment was done to compare the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of the system configurations. The impact of the fuel price and pollutant emission costs on the fuel selection was investigated using sensitivity analysis. The results confirmed that for specific electricity demand each scenario requires a unique set of diesel generators and the selection is affected by the PV share and the battery energy storage (BES) units included. The best LCOE for the high, medium, and low electricity demand scenarios were 0.43£/kWh, 0.42£/kWh, and 0.45£/kWh, respectively. The sensitivity analysis revealed that the pollutant emission costs have a significant impact on LCOE for the different fuel choices whereas the variation of fuel prices has a minimal effect unless the diesel price increased by 100%.
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14279/29071
ISSN: 18729118
DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.120748
Rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Type: Article
Affiliation : Cyprus University of Technology 
University of Leeds 
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed
Appears in Collections:Άρθρα/Articles

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat
2023JRangel.pdf4.39 MBAdobe PDFView/Open
CORE Recommender
Show full item record

SCOPUSTM   
Citations

10
checked on Mar 14, 2024

WEB OF SCIENCETM
Citations

1
Last Week
0
Last month
1
checked on Oct 29, 2023

Page view(s)

178
Last Week
2
Last month
8
checked on Oct 4, 2024

Download(s) 50

78
checked on Oct 4, 2024

Google ScholarTM

Check

Altmetric


This item is licensed under a Creative Commons License Creative Commons