A novel off-grid optimal hybrid energy system for rural electrification of Tanzania using a closed loop cooled solar system

Abstract

A large proportion of the world's populations live in developing countries. Rural areas in many of these countries are isolated geographically from grid connections and they have a very low rate of electrification. The uninterrupted power supply (UPS) in these regions is a considerable challenge. The use of renewable energy resources (RER) in an off-grid hybrid energy system can be a pathway to solving this problem. Tanzania has a very low electrification rate (rural 16.9%, urban 65.3%). This paper discussed, described, designed a novel uninterruptible, and environmental friendly solar-wind hybrid energy system (HES) for remote area of Tanzania having closed loop cooled-solar system (CLC-SS). An optimized configuration for the proposed HES was obtained by Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewable (HOMER) analysis software using local solar and wind resources. The designed CLC-SS improved the efficiency of the hybrid solar-wind systems by extracting more power from the solar modules. An evaluation of CLC-SS revealed a 10.23% increase in power output from conventional solar PV modules. The results validate that the optimized system's energy cost (COE) is 0.26 $/kWh and the net present cost (NPC) of the system is $7110.53. The enhanced output solar wind hybrid system, designed in this paper is cost-effective and can be applied easily to other regions of the world with similar climate conditions.