INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL of RENEWABLE ENERGY RESEARCH

Zelalem Girma. ,Vol.3, No. 3

Technical and Economic Assessment of solar

PV/diesel Hybrid Power System for Rural School
Electrification in Ethiopia

Zelalem Girma*

*Department of Electrical Engineering, Arba Minch University , Arba Minch, Ethiopia

* Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Kassel , Kassel, Germany
(zelalem.girma@amu.edu.et)

Corresponding Author; Zelalem Girma, Wolfhager strae 12, 34117, Kassel corraddress, Tel: +49 17666443926,
zelalem.girma@amu.edu.et

Received: 17.08.2013 Accepted: 10.09.2013

Abstract- This paper proposes the most feasible configuration of solar PV system with diesel generator as back up for
hypothetical rural school electrification around Arbaminch town(6.0333 N, 37.5500 E) in the southern region of Ethiopia.
Integration of PV systems with the diesel plants is being disseminated worldwide to reduce diesel fuel consumption and to
minimize atmospheric pollution and the proposed simulation has been done to assure that the PV-Diesel hybrid system is
Economically and technically feasible for Ethiopia as well. The proposed system can supply the daily energy demand of
50kWh / day with 11kW peak for 24 hours. Technical and economic analysis of the optimum system has been done to compare
the economic viability of solar photovoltaic ( PV)/ gen/battery hybrid power system with that of a standalone diesel generator
only system. For analysis purposes HOMER simulation software has been used and meteorological data of solar insolation of
the site have been taken from Online data from NASA. To incorporate uncertainty in solar radiation and diesel fuel price , both
are taken as a sensitivity variable in the simulation. The costs of components are taken from the online site of manufacturing
and equipment suppliers and adjusted to an Ethiopian price value. The result of simulation shows that solar PV system with
Generator backup is more cost effective and environmental friendly over the conventional diesel generator alone system with
in life time of the project.
Keywords- HOMER, Photovoltaic, Diesel Generator, Hybrid power system

1. Introduction Small diesel-power generating sets (diesel gensets) have

been the traditional way to address the problem. They
In Ethiopia rural schools are geographically highly provide a simple solution and can be designed for different
dispersed and electrifying these schools by using an capacities, being adapted to the needs of the consumers. In
extension of the national grid is not economically feasible. In cases security of supply is not of major importance, single
diesel gensets can be applied for electrification, accepting
a highly fragmented areas, the decentralized approaches to
that no electricity can be supplied at times the genset is out of
electrify schools and other institutions by local supply can commission, i.e. due to repair or maintenance. However,
become competitive due to lower investments and diesel gensets have problems with short durability, which is
maintenance costs compared to large-scale electrification by due to the fact that they work very inefficiently when running
expanding interconnected grids. Different technological just at fractions of their rated capacity. Moreover, frequent
options are in practice, most commonly diesel generating sets startup and shutdown procedures decrease their lifetime as
and renewable energies [1]. well [2].
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL of RENEWABLE ENERGY RESEARCH
Zelalem Girma. ,Vol.3, No. 3
One of the basic problems for the application of diesel Chaurey and TC Kandpal [5] presented a techno
generating systems in rural school electrification in Ethiopia economic comparison of rural electrification based on solar
is a problem related to infrastructure, maintenance and home system (SHS) and PV micro grid in India. Techno
covering running costs of the generator. Many rural schools economic comparison of the two options has been done to
are far away from towns where the diesel fuel exists so that facilitate a choice between the two systems. A comparison
the regular supply with diesel fuel becomes a logistical was based on annualized life cycle cost (ALCC) for the same
problem and an important financial burden . type of load and load pattern for varying number of
household and varying length and cost of the distribution
The solution for the above problem is the use of
network. The study analyzed the viability of the two options
renewable energy such as solar photovoltaic and wind energy
from the perspective of the user, the energy Service
as an energy source for remote areas. However, one of the
Company and the society. For purposes of analysis they have
main problems of standalone system such as solar as well as
selected two types of load with daily energy consumption of
wind energy is the fluctuation of energy supply, resulting in
72Wh/ day and 144Wh/day. The result of the study shows
intermittent delivery of power and causing problems if
that a micro grid is financially more attractive option for the
supply continuity is required. This can be avoided by the use
user, the energy Service Company and the society, if the
of standalone hybrid systems. A hybrid power system can be
village has a large number of households, densely populated
defined as a combination of different but complementary
and lies in a geographically flat terrain. Whereas, the SHS is
energy generation system based on renewable energy or
a better option for rough terrain and if the community is
mixed renewable energy source- with a backup of Liquefied
small and sparsely populated
Petroleum Gas (LPG)/diesel/gasoline gen_set).
Benjamin O. et al. [6] Analyzed life cost of diesel-
Shaahid and El Amin [3] performed techno-economic
photovoltaic hybrid power system for off grid residential
evaluation of PV/diesel/battery hybrid power system for rural
building in Enugu Nigeria. The main aim of analysis is to
electrification in Saudi Arabia. They analyzed solar radiation
compare the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) hybrid system with that
of Rafa to asses' techno-economic feasibility of
of single stand alone photovoltaic system and stand alone
PV/diesel/battery hybrid system for a typical remote village
diesel generator options. The life cycle cost analysis of the
of Rawdhat Bin habbas , which has electrical energy
systems has been done by comparing the Net Present
demand of 15,943MWh. The Simulation has been done by
Value(NPV)and the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of the
using HOMER software and the result indicates that
three options.the result shows that the diesel/photovoltaic
PV/diesel/battery hybrid system is technically and
hybrid system has small LCC when compared to that of
economically feasible with levelized cost of energy of 0.170
stand alone single source Photovoltaic and diesel generator
$/kWh. The Study also indicates that the initial cost of
options. Moreover, apart from the economic gain ,the hybrid
Hybrid system is higher than stand alone diesel generator
system is also environmentally friendly because of the
system. The PV cost covers 78% of the total initial cost of
reduced emission of greenhouse gasses and other pollutants
the system. The increase in PV penetration decreases the
associated with diesel
operating hour of diesel generator which further augmented
by including battery storage in the system. The running cost
of diesel generator only system is much higher than that of
In this paper PV/ diesel hybrid system is used to
hybrid system due to continuous cost of diesel fuel.
electrify hypothetical rural school near Arbaminch town in
Eyad S.Hrayshat [4] has performed a detailed techno the southern region of Ethiopia. Optimization and economic
economic analysis of hybrid PV-diesel -Battery system by analysis have been done by using HOMER optimization
using HOMER simulation and Optimization software to meet software [7] which is the optimization model for electric
the load demand of off grid house located in the remote renewable. The proposed hybrid power system typically
Jordanian settlement. The hybrid system is economically relies on renewable energy to generate 95% of total energy .
feasible for diesel fuel price above 0.15$/liter . The optimum The large share of renewable makes this system almost
system reduced the operating hour of diesel generator by independent and lowers the energy prices over the long term,
19.3% , diesel consumption by 18.5 % and 18% reduction of and the diesel generator is used as a backup to assist during
emission of green house gases in comparison with the diesel periods of high loads or low renewable power availability
only situation. Two control strategies have been used in and covers only 5% of total energy need.
simulation. The first is load following energy dispatch
strategy on which whenever the diesel generator starts it
produce only enough power to cover the load and lower 2. Objective
priority loads such as charging battery bank left to renewable
power source. The second dispatch strategy used is cyclic The main objective of this paper is to analyze technical
charging on which whenever the generator operates it operate and economical viability of PV/Diesel hybrid system for
at full output power and the excess electricity charges the rural school electrification in Ethiopia. The analysis has been
battery bank if it is not full or go to low priority load such as done by using HOMER software. Economic comparisons
water pumping. Otherwise, the excess electricity dumped in regarding present worth, annual worth, return on investment
the dump load. In this study the diesel generator brought on and simple payback period has been done with the base case
line at the time when PV fails to satisfy the load and when system ( standalone diesel generator ) and optimal hybrid
the battery storage is depleted. PV/diesel gen/ battery case.

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3. Methodology

In order to design PV/Diesel hybrid power system by

using HOMER optimization software , one has to provide
some inputs such as hourly load profile, monthly solar
radiation value for a PV system, the initial cost of each
component( renewable energy generators, diesel generators
,battery ,converter), cost of diesel fuel, annual real interest
rate project lifetime, etc. The solar radiation data of
Arbaminch were taken from online data of NASA
meteorological department. The capital cost of each
equipment taken from solarbzz site and adjusted to local
value by including transportation and other costs [8]. The Fig. 1. AC coupled hybrid configuration.
load profile of the school determined by using the wattage AC-coupled systems where all loads and generators are
and hour of use of equipment considered as explained in coupled independently on a common AC-bus is currently
subsequent section. To get hourly load profile of the school evolving as a standard due to numerous advantages [12]:
Excel spreadsheet program is used. Standardized coupling of different components
(AC-coupling)
HOMER simulates the operation of a system by making
the energy balance calculation every hour for each of the Off-the-shelf grid components can be used
8760 hours in a year. It displays a list of configurations
Simplified design and operation of island grids
sorted based on the Total Net Present Cost (TNPC). The
total net present cost represents the life cycle cost of the Compatibility with existing grids
system. The calculation assesses all costs occurring within
the project lifetime, including initial set-up costs, component Reduction of system costs
replacement cost, maintenance and fuel cost. However, the Increased reliability of supply
system configuration based TNPC is varied depending on the
sensitivity variables that have been chosen by the designer. Expandability
Therefore, the software repeats the optimization process for
every selection of sensitivity variables. In this paper monthly 5. System Description
solar radiation and diesel fuel price has been used as
sensitivity variables. The final optimal solution of a hybrid
renewable energy system is referring to the lowest TNPC. 5.1. Load Profile of the School
However, the designer can select a different optimal value
depending upon the expected degree of reliability of the The selected hypothetical school consists of six blocks
system [9]. building each having five classes. The design also includes
teacher's home of one building with 8 classes. The school has
4. System Architecture 1-8 grades with approximate number of regular students are
1500 and extension student of 200. To eradicate literacy it is
The configuration hybrid power generation systems can assumed that adult schools are also conducted during the
be divided into three classes according to bus bar forms, night time since they are busy during the daytime in
including pure AC bus bar system, pure DC bus bar system agricultural and social works. It is also assumed that the
and hybrid AC-DC bus bar system. The three class system school can generate income by using supplied electricity for
has different features [10]. In this paper AC configuration is instance by opening barber shops, mobile phone charging
used due to its compatibility with SMA solar Inverters which station and etc. The daily and monthly load profile of the
are well designed for on grid and off grid electrification [11]. school is shown in the figure 2 and 3.

Fig. 2. Daily Load profile.

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Fig. 5. PV output of PV/gen7battery hybrid optimal

system
Fig. 3. Monthly Load profile
5.3. Battery storage
5.2. Solar resource and photovoltaic system
The key difference between a grid-connected system and
Main electrical generator of the proposed system is an off-grid system is the need for a battery bank. Since
photovoltaic panel which converts solar irradiation directly sunlight is not available at night, and since we are most
into Electricity. Since the solar radiation varies daily, hourly likely to require electricity at night for lights, entertainment
and seasonally the electricity produced by the PV array vary
devices , and so on, batteries are indispensable to any off-
accordingly. Since the selected site has very good solar
irradiation throughout the year and battery storage and diesel grid system. Unfortunately, batteries are also often the most
generator are incorporated in the system to handle this problematic and costly part of a system. Renewable energy
variability, the system can supply grid quality electricity for systems, deep cycle batteries provide the energy storage for
24 hours. However, in order to capture the maximum amount the system . Unlike car battery, deep cycle batteries that are
of energy from the solar photovoltaic panel the following used in renewable energy applications are meant to be
factors should be considered during and after the design of
discharged and recharged (cycled) repeatedly. To maintain
the system:
healthy batteries and prolong battery life, most manufacturers
Total size of solar PV array suggest limiting the depth of discharge to about 20%. There
Type of module /array used is a different type of solar batteries. The most common one is
flooded lead acid (FLA) batteries and sealed batteries (AGM
The orientation of the module/array
or Gel cell). Flooded Lead Acid batteries require a bit of
The angle from Horizontal maintenance, however, they generally last longer than their
Anything that shades the array sealed counterparts [9].

The local minimum and maximum ambient The type of battery used for the proposed system is
temperature and etc. Surrette 4KS25p model (AGM type) with a rating of 4V,
1900Ah, 7.6 kWh with life time throughput 10,569kWh. The
The proposed design accounts for the decrease in PV
cost for one battery is assumed $1400 with the replacement
efficiency panels with the ambient temperature. The average
cost of $1300. The battery stack is containing several
daily radiation of the site is 5.32 kWh/m2/day, providing
numbers of batteries and 12 batteries per string with bus
1700kWh/ kWp. The array slope angle is set to 15 degrees
voltage of 48V. The Figure below shows the properties of the
and the array azimuth is 0 degrees which are referring to the
Surrette 4KS25p battery..
South direction. The lifetime of this PV array system is 25
years with de-rating factor of 90% and ground reflectance is
20%. Fig.4 shows the average monthly solar radiation data
on the site where maximum radiation occurs in the month of
January.

Fig. 6. Battery State of Charge of optimal

PV/gen/battery hybrid power system .
As shown in Fig. 6 the state of charge of battery is
higher in all months except Jun, July and August which are
the raining seasons of the site with low solar radiation. The
battery is almost full during day time since the load is
directly covered by the power out of the PV system without
Fig. 4. Average Monthly solar radiation of the site discharging the battery.

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5.4. Power converter load totally PV without discharging the battery or starting the
backup diesel generator. If the load requirement is greater
The power electronic converter is used to maintain the than the capacity of the power system including battery and
flow of energy between AC and DC components .The generator the inverter sends signal to load relay to shed some
optimal size of power converter used in this system is 9 kW.
The lifetime for one unit of converter is 10 years with the non critical loads.
efficiency of 95%. The system uses two types of converters.
One is Sunny boy inverter which converts DC (direct 6. Descriptio Energy management and control scenario
current) electricity from PV array to AC (Alternating current
) with bus voltage of 240V, 50 Hz. The other converter is The sunny battery inverters monitor and control the
Sunny Island battery inverter as shown in fig 1, which is an
whole system automatically by calculating the state of charge
energy manger of the overall system. It converts DC
electricity from Battery into AC electricity with the same (SOC) of the batteries and controlling the power via bus
voltage and frequency of the bus. It is a bi-directional frequency (50Hz). The sunny Island battery inverter forms
inverter with the capability of converting Ac to DC and vice the AC grid of the hybrid power system [13]. At the same
versa. The overall controlling detailed will be explained in time it controls the voltage and frequency on the AC side.
next consecutive section.
When the Photovoltaic array produces more energy than
being consumed, the energy is used to charge the battery
bank if the battery is in a low state of charge otherwise it
increases the bus frequency and automatically reduces the
power feed from a photovoltaic array to the buss. If, on the
other hand, the photovoltaic array generates less energy than
a.
being used, the batteries provide the needed margin. The
Sunny Islands continuously monitor the SOC of the batteries.
If the SOC decreases below 60 %, the sunny battery inverter
automatically starts the generator. The generator will be
disconnected at 90 % SOC. With commissioning, the Sunny
Island inverter configuration was set to default, requesting
b. the diesel generator to run between 40 % to 90 % SOC. This
was changed to avoid deep cycling of the batteries and thus
to increase the lifetime of the batteries.
Fig. 7. Output of power converter a). Inverter output b.)
Rectifier output
In order to enable the parallel operation of the AC
Figure 7 reveals that the inverter working intensively coupled voltage source without involving any
during day time to convert DC power from the PV system to communication the so called droop mode is used. This
AC power needed by the load. At 12:00-13:00 which is lunch
method uses active and reactive power statics as a basis for
time , no consumption of power and the inverter output is
very small since it reduces the power from the PV system by coordinating the performance of the various coupled
increasing system frequency. Otherwise it charges the battery converters. To achieve optimum power flow , the grid
if it is not full. Figure 7b shows that the diesel generator parameters voltage and frequency are specifically
charges the battery rarely during the year. It charges the influenced.
battery during the raining season and seasons with low solar
radiation.

5.5. Diesel generator

The diesel power plant of 1 kW is used in an optimal

configuration. The diesel price with three discrete values of
1$/L, 1.2$/L and 1.5$/L are used for the sensitivity
variables. At present, the diesel price is about 1$/L in
Ethiopia. The lower heating value is 43.62MJ/kg, the
density. The main advantage of using a Sunny Island inverter
is, it controls the energy flow to the load and it prolongs the
life of battery which is the main fragile component in the
system. As far as enough power is available to power the Fig. 8 Schematic of hybrid PVdieselbattery power
load from the solar array, the inverter directly supplies the system.

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7. Sensitivity Analysis price change of the fuel. The current diesel fuel price in
Ethiopia is around 1.2 $/liter . When the diesel price sore
Two sensitivity variables have been chosen to take into beyond 1.5 $/litter PV/battery hybrid system is more
accounts the variation of these variables in the future. The economical. Since the optimal system incorporates all the
chosen variables are amount of solar radiation of the site and subsystems it is feasible to install generator as back up and
the price of diesel fuel. It is assumed that these two variables use solar energy and battery to cover base loads. Of course
highly affect the cost of the system. The output of sensitivity the energy management system in the battery inverter always
analysis is shown as graph as shown in Fig 9 . As seen from prioritizes energy from solar energy followed by batteries
fig 9, PV/Gen/battery system is optimal until the solar and finally the backup diesel generator.
radiation will reach 5.88 kWh/m2 and less sensitive to the

Fig. 9. Graphical Result of sensitivity analysis between Diesel fuel price and Solar radiation value for optimal Hybrid system
account the Lifecycle costs of both systems [14]. The system
8. Economic comparison of Diesel only system and
PV/Diesel/battery hybrid system summary table (Fig 9) shows the component sizes, capital
cost and net present cost of the base case system and current
The fig 9 below shows economic comparison of the systems.
diesel only system , which is base case, with that of
The present worth is the difference between the net
PV/Gene/battery system. The important variables are
present costs of the diesel only system and the
displayed in the table with corresponding value and here only
PV/diesel/battery hybrid system. A positive value
the meaning of the variables will be explained to avoid
indicates that the PV/diesel/battery system saves
repetition. The metrics ( present worth, Annual worth, return
money over the project lifetime compared to the
on investment etc.) show the value of the difference between
diesel only system which is equivalent to $ 206,562
the two options( base case and current system) taking into

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Fig. 10. Economic comparison of PV/gen/Battery system with that of Diesel generator only system

The annual worth is the present worth multiplied by the base case system. In our case it takes 2.09 years
the capital recovery factor. The capital recovery to pay back the investment. The simple payback is
factor (CRF) is given by where the nominal cash flow difference line crosses
zero. The discounted payback is where the
discounted cash flow difference line crosses zero.

Internal rate of return (IRR) is the discount rate at

Where which the base case and current system have the
same net present cost
i= real interest rate in our case 8%
Therefore the PV/diesel/battery hybrid system is
N= number of years, in our case 25 years which are the economically feasible compared to that of diesel generator
lifetime of the project only case. With good solar radiation of the site the day load
can be completely covered by Pv generator and the night
Return On Investment (ROI), is the concept of an
load with battery and diesel generator backup.
investment of some resource yielding a benefit to
the investor. A high ROI means the investment
gains compare favorably to investment cost. In 9. System Description Result and Discussion
purely economic terms, it is one way of considering Several simulations have been made by considering
profits in relation to capital invested. It is calculated different PV , Battery , converter and Diesel generator. The
as PV capacity has been allowed to vary from 0 to 20kW , the
diesel generator from 0 to 10kW , battery from 0 to 5 string
and converter from 0 to 12kW. It can be noticed from the
result( see Table 1) PV/ diesel gen./ battery system is the
optimum system with the total net present cost of $89,085
In our case it is 46.7 % which shows good business case.
and with the cost of energy 0.468$/kWh . However , the
Payback is the number of years at which the diesel only system has a total net present cost of $295,647
cumulative cash flow of the difference between the with the cost of energy 1.531$/kWh which is much higher
current system (PV/diesel/battery) and base case than hybrid system.
system( diesel only) switches from negative to
The optimum system contains all the generators hence
positive. The payback is an indication of how long
increases the reliability of the system. The economic
it would take to recover the difference in
comparison clearly shows that the hybrid system has
investment costs between the current system and

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economic as well as technical advantages over a stand alone PV/Diesel/battery hybrid power system is feasible in terms
diesel system. The system pays back its investment cost of economics as well as technically. It has also less
within two years and saves a huge amount of money. The greenhouse gas emission (see Table2) and therefore reduces
main advantage of hybrid system involving SMA battery negative externality of diesel generator. Figure 11 and 12
inverter is that it can deliver the required amount of energy shows cash flow summary of hybrid and stand alone diesel
directly from PV without discharging the battery as far as generator system. As seen from the hybrid system has a high
enough solar radiation on the site. This increases the lifetime initial capital cost and low operating and fuel cost. Whereas
of the battery and also prevents the frequent start and stop of the stand alone diesel system has a low capital cost and high
diesel generator consequently saves the fuel cost of the operating and fuel cost.
system. From the result of the simulation it is concluded that
Table.1. Categorized result of simulation

Fig. 11. Cash flow summary of PV/Gen/ battery hybrid system by cost type

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Fig. 12. Cash flow summary of diesel generator only system by cost type

Table 2. Comparison of greenhouse gas emission

Pollutant PV/Gen/battery Diesel Generator only system

Emission Kg/yr
Hybrid system Emission Kg/yr

Carbon dioxide 584 36,450

Carbon monoxide 1.44 90

Unburned hydrocarbons 0.16 9.97

Particulate matter 0.109 6.78

Sulfur dioxide 1.17 73.2

Nitrogen oxides 12.9 803

[5] Eyad S. Hrayshat , '' techno economic analysis of

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[10] Givler,T. and Lilienthal, P. (2005). Using Appendix
HOMER Software, NRELs Micro-power
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Technical Report National Renewable Energy
Laboratory,USA. PV Array DC
[11] M.H.Nehrir, C.Strunz A Review of hybrid Capital cost 4000$/kW
renewable /alternative Energy for Electric Power Replacement cost 3000$/kW
Generation, IEEE Transaction on Sustainable Energy O& M cost $0
Vol, 2 No.4, October 2011 Efficiency 15%
Lifetime 25
[12] SMA web site http://www.sma.de/ accessed on
Tracking system No tracking
13/08/2013
Diesel Generator AC
[13] Mike Meinhardt, Martin Rothert, Alfred Engler, Capital cost 600$/kW
''New V/fStatics controlled Battery Inverter: Sunny Replacement cost 500$/kW
Island- the key component for AC-Coupled Hybrid O& M cost 0.075$/hour
Systems and Mini Grids'' , European union More Lifetime 15000hr
Microgrid project paper. Battery DC
[14] W. J. Kaszeta, Handbook of Secondary Storage Technology Surrette 4KS25P
Batteries and Charge Regulators in Photovoltaic Capacity 7.6 kWh
Systems Nominal Capacity 1900Ah
Voltage 4V
[15] Solar Stand-Alone Power and Backup Power Min. state of charge 40%
Supply, SMA solar technology, Technology
Capital cost $1300
Compendium 2.
Replacement cost $1200
O& M cost 100$/year
Efficiency 80%
Lifetime 12year
Converter AC/DC/AC
Capacity 9kW
Capital cost $700/kw
Replacement cost $700/kw
O& M cost 70$/year
Efficiency 90%
Lifetime 10 year

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