Impact of the Reduction of Diesel Fuel Subsidy in the Design of an Off-Grid Hybrid Power System: A Case Study of the Bellavista Community in Ecuador

Ruben Hidalgo-Leon, Fernando Amoroso, Jaqueline Litardo, Javier Urquizo, Miguel Torres, Pritpal Singh and Guillermo Soriano
Additional contact information
Ruben Hidalgo-Leon: Centro de Energías Renovables y Alternativas (CERA), Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), Km. 30.5 Vía Perimetral, Guayaquil EC90902, Ecuador
Fernando Amoroso: Centro de Energías Renovables y Alternativas (CERA), Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), Km. 30.5 Vía Perimetral, Guayaquil EC90902, Ecuador
Jaqueline Litardo: Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering Department, Politecnico di Milano, Via Bonardi 9, 20133 Milano, Italy
Javier Urquizo: Electric and Computer Engineering Department, Villanova University, Villanova, PA 19085, USA
Miguel Torres: Centro de Energías Renovables y Alternativas (CERA), Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), Km. 30.5 Vía Perimetral, Guayaquil EC90902, Ecuador
Pritpal Singh: Electric and Computer Engineering Department, Villanova University, Villanova, PA 19085, USA
Guillermo Soriano: Centro de Energías Renovables y Alternativas (CERA), Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL), Km. 30.5 Vía Perimetral, Guayaquil EC90902, Ecuador

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 6, 1-16

Abstract: This paper presents a technical, economic, and environmental analysis and optimization of the impact of the reduction of diesel fuel subsidy in the design of an off-grid hybrid power system (OHPS). The OHPS includes a diesel generator, battery energy storage system (BESS), and a solar power system (SPS). This impact will focus on the electricity production levels of each of the OHPS components according to the increase of the fuel price and the SPS size. The Bellavista community in Ecuador was selected as the case study for this work. In this South American country, the government has begun a gradual increase in the diesel fuel price until it reaches international prices. Fifteen scenarios of OHPSs were simulated, in Homer Pro software, considering three SPS sizes and varying the diesel fuel price in five values. The annual load profile for the simulations was built based on the information of a previous study in this community. The results showed that for lower fuel prices (USD$0.26/L and USD$0.35/L), the OHPSs worked mostly with their diesel generators with reduced use of their BESSs. However, there was a higher penetration of the power delivered from the SPSs and BESSs, with higher fuel prices (USD$0.44/L, USD$0.53/L, and USD$0.62/L). These OHPSs considerably reduced their CO 2 emissions compared with the standalone diesel generator scenario.

Keywords: solar power system; diesel generator; autonomous hybrid system; CO 2 emissions; BESS (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: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/6/1730/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/6/1730/ (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:6:p:1730-:d:520994

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 ().