Network Cost Estimation for Mini-Grids in Large-Scale Rural Electrification Planning

Pedro Ciller, Sara Lumbreras and Andrés González-García
Additional contact information
Pedro Ciller: Institute for Research in Technology (IIT), ICAI, Comillas Pontifical University, 28015 Madrid, Spain
Sara Lumbreras: Institute for Research in Technology (IIT), ICAI, Comillas Pontifical University, 28015 Madrid, Spain
Andrés González-García: Institute for Research in Technology (IIT), ICAI, Comillas Pontifical University, 28015 Madrid, Spain

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 21, 1-21

Abstract: Universal access to electricity is a crucial challenge in many developing countries. Establishing the electrification agenda of an underserved region is a complicated task where computer models play a critical role in calculating geospatial plans that efficiently allocate resources. Such plans should include—among other things—reasonable estimations of the designs and economic costs of standalone systems, mini-grids, and grid extensions. This implies that computer models need to estimate the network cost for many potential mini-grids. To that end, most planning tools apply quick rules of thumb or geometric methods that ignore power flows and electric constraints, which play a significant role in network designs. This paper presents a methodology that rapidly estimates any low-voltage mini-grid network cost without neglecting the impact of electrical feasibility in such cost. We present a case study where we evaluate our method in terms of accuracy and computation time. We also compare our method with a quick estimation similar to the ones most regional planning tools apply, showing the effectiveness of our method.

Keywords: energy access; rural electrification; geospatial planning; mini-grid; network design; linear regression; hierarchical regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/21/7382/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/21/7382/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:21:p:7382-:d:673037

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().