Independent or complementary power system configuration: A decision making approach for sustainable electrification of an urban environment in Sierra Leone

Keifa Vamba Konneh, Hasan Masrur, David A. Konneh and Tomonobu Senjyu

Energy, 2022, vol. 239, issue PD

Abstract: Providing quality and reliable power to grid-isolated areas has long been a difficulty in Africa, particularly in Sierra Leone, where government regulations are either weak or non-existent to assist the developing endeavour. Hybrid off-grid systems have grown in popularity as a way to offer electricity to people who live remote from power grids. This strategy, on the other hand, is capital demanding and prone to interruptions. This paper considers a decision-making process based on the Government of Sierra Leone's initiative to undertake a project to provide sustainable electricity to the people of Bo and Kenema in Sierra Leone's South-eastern region, with the assistance of the Africa Development Bank (ADB) and the Department for International Development (DFID). Two operating scenarios were modeled, and a comparative study was performed to determine which of the two should be considered. The results showed that the complementary scenario's proposed optimized hybrid configuration performed best in terms of technical, economic, and environmental features. Technically, it produced an excess energy of 2.29 %, compared to the combined total of the independent scenarios with 49.4 % (15.3 % excess energy from Bo and 34.1 % from Kenema). In terms of cost, it has a net present cost (NPC) of $45.6 million (M), compared to a combined NPC of $52 M ($37.8 M for Bo and $14.2 M for Kenema) for the independent networks. In terms of the environment, it generated 2,402,380 kg/yr of CO2 which is 42 % less than the combined total produced by Bo and Kenema (3,408,018 kg/yr). Sensitivity analysis revealed that the overall system cost is heavily reliant on the diesel fuel price and average annual stream flow rate, as well as the hydro turbine's deplorable efficiency status, with the intention of project leaders' ignoring the impact of variations in the PV derating factor.

Keywords: Hybrid renewable energy sources; Complementary scheduling; Seasonal variability; Net present cost; Techno-economic analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544221025585
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:239:y:2022:i:pd:s0360544221025585

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.122310

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().