ESCoBox: A Set of Tools for Mini-Grid Sustainability in the Developing World

Peter Boait, Rupert Gammon, Varun Advani, Neal Wade, David Greenwood and Peter Davison
Additional contact information
Peter Boait: Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development, De Montfort University, Queens Building, The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK
Rupert Gammon: Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development, De Montfort University, Queens Building, The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK
Varun Advani: Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development, De Montfort University, Queens Building, The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK
Neal Wade: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UK
David Greenwood: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UK
Peter Davison: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UK

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: Mini-grids powered by photovoltaic generators or other renewable energy sources have the potential to bring electricity to the 17% of the world’s population, mainly in rural areas, that are currently un-served. However, designing and managing a mini-grid so that it is reliable and economically sustainable is difficult because of the high variability of demand that arises from the small population of consumers. We describe an integrated set of four tools to assist mini-grid operators to predict and manage demand. These comprise a decision support tool to predict peak and average demand from a consumer population, a demand disaggregation tool that allows the key statistical properties of connected electricity-consuming appliances to be identified, a battery condition modeling tool which allows the impact on battery life of a planned operating regime to be predicted and a demand control sub-system which limits the operating time of high demand appliances to intervals when they can be supported. Results from application of the tool set to mini-grids in Kenya and The Gambia are presented. We conclude that accessible, usable and low cost tools of this form can improve mini-grid sustainability.

Keywords: mini-grid; micro-grid; battery management; demand-side management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/5/738/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/5/738/ (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:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:5:p:738-:d:97412

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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