Print Email Facebook Twitter Quantifying the Benefits of a Solar Home System-Based DC Microgrid for Rural Electrification Title Quantifying the Benefits of a Solar Home System-Based DC Microgrid for Rural Electrification Author Narayan, N.S. (TU Delft DC systems, Energy conversion & Storage) Chamseddine, Ali (Student TU Delft) Vega Garita, V.E. (TU Delft DC systems, Energy conversion & Storage) Qin, Z. (TU Delft DC systems, Energy conversion & Storage) Popovic, J. (Klimop Energy B.V.) Bauer, P. (TU Delft DC systems, Energy conversion & Storage) Zeman, M. (TU Delft Electrical Sustainable Energy) Department Electrical Sustainable Energy Date 2019 Abstract Off-grid solar home systems (SHSs) currently constitute a major source of providing basic electricity needs in un(der)-electrified regions of the world, with around 73 million households having benefited from off-grid solar solutions by 2017. However, in and of itself, state-of-the-art SHSs can only provide electricity access with adequate power supply availability up to tier 2, and to some extent, tier 3 levels of the Multi-tier Framework (MTF) for measuring household electricity access. When considering system metrics of loss of load probability (LLP) and battery size, meeting the electricity needs of tiers 4 and 5 is untenable through SHSs alone. Alternatively, a bottom-up microgrid composed of interconnected SHSs is proposed. Such an approach can enable the so-called climb up the rural electrification ladder. The impact of the microgrid size on the system metrics like LLP and energy deficit is evaluated. Finally, it is found that the interconnected SHS-based microgrid can provide more than 40% and 30% gains in battery sizing for the same LLP level as compared to the standalone SHSs sizes for tiers 4 and 5 of the MTF, respectively, thus quantifying the definite gains of an SHS-based microgrid over standalone SHSs. This study paves the way for visualizing SHS-based rural DC microgrids that can not only enable electricity access to the higher tiers of the MTF with lower battery storage needs but also make use of existing SHS infrastructure, thus enabling a technologically easy climb up the rural electrification ladder. Subject Battery storageDC microgridsEnergy sharingMulti-tier frameworkRural electrificationSolar home systems To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:3d92d77a-38dd-4337-ae0e-05cef49f3dee DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/en12050938 ISSN 1996-1073 Source Energies, 12 (5), 1-22 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2019 N.S. Narayan, Ali Chamseddine, V.E. Vega Garita, Z. Qin, J. Popovic, P. Bauer, M. Zeman Files PDF energies_12_00938_v2.pdf 1.07 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:3d92d77a-38dd-4337-ae0e-05cef49f3dee/datastream/OBJ/view