TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring the boundaries of Solar Home Systems (SHS) for off-grid electrification
T2 - Optimal SHS sizing for the multi-tier framework for household electricity access
AU - Narayan, Nishant
AU - Chamseddine, Ali
AU - Vega-Garita, Victor
AU - Qin, Zian
AU - Popovic-Gerber, Jelena
AU - Bauer, Pavol
AU - Zeman, Miroslav
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - With almost 1.1 billion people lacking access to electricity, solar-based off-grid products like Solar Home Systems (SHS) have become a promising solution to provide basic electricity needs in un(der)-electrified regions. Therefore, optimal system sizing is a vital task as both oversizing and undersizing a system can be detrimental to system cost and power availability, respectively. This paper presents an optimal SHS sizing methodology that minimizes the loss of load probability (LLP), excess energy dump, and battery size while maximizing the battery lifetime. A genetic algorithm-based multi-objective optimization approach is utilized to evaluate the optimal SHS sizes. The potential for SHS to cater to every tier of the Multi-tier framework (MTF) for measuring household electricity access is examined. The optimal system sizes for standalone SHS are found for different LLP thresholds. Results show that beyond tier 2, the present day SHS sizing needs to be expanded significantly to meet the load demand. Additionally, it is deemed untenable to meet the electricity needs of the higher tiers of MTF purely through standalone SHS without compromising one or more of the system metrics. A way forward is proposed to take the SHS concept all the way up the energy ladder such that load demand can also be satisfied at tier 4 and 5 levels.
AB - With almost 1.1 billion people lacking access to electricity, solar-based off-grid products like Solar Home Systems (SHS) have become a promising solution to provide basic electricity needs in un(der)-electrified regions. Therefore, optimal system sizing is a vital task as both oversizing and undersizing a system can be detrimental to system cost and power availability, respectively. This paper presents an optimal SHS sizing methodology that minimizes the loss of load probability (LLP), excess energy dump, and battery size while maximizing the battery lifetime. A genetic algorithm-based multi-objective optimization approach is utilized to evaluate the optimal SHS sizes. The potential for SHS to cater to every tier of the Multi-tier framework (MTF) for measuring household electricity access is examined. The optimal system sizes for standalone SHS are found for different LLP thresholds. Results show that beyond tier 2, the present day SHS sizing needs to be expanded significantly to meet the load demand. Additionally, it is deemed untenable to meet the electricity needs of the higher tiers of MTF purely through standalone SHS without compromising one or more of the system metrics. A way forward is proposed to take the SHS concept all the way up the energy ladder such that load demand can also be satisfied at tier 4 and 5 levels.
KW - Battery lifetime
KW - Battery sizing
KW - Multi objective optimization
KW - Multi-tier framework
KW - Optimal sizing
KW - Solar Home Systems
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062014534&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.02.053
DO - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.02.053
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85062014534
SN - 0306-2619
VL - 240
SP - 907
EP - 917
JO - Applied Energy
JF - Applied Energy
ER -
