Design of a DC Microgrid System for a Remote Community in Nigeria

This paper presents the design of a DC microgrid for a remote community in Edo State, Nigeria having a solar irradiance of 4.63 kWh/m2/day. The community is isolated and located far away from the city with no access to the electricity grid. There is a need for lighting and running of electronics, as the main source of lighting presently is kerosine, which is not efficient and leads to health issues. The community is made up of 9 residences that are not more than 100 m apart. House 1 was selected as the standard house with a load of 1 kWh/day, while the other 8 houses have a load difference of ±10% with reference to house 1. Using a 48 V DC bus, the designed PV system components comprise of a 100W solar photovoltaic (PV) panel and a 12 V 45 A·hr battery. The system was sized using Homer Pro. Optimization results presented various design for the various houses. The result obtained showed reasonable and feasible cost-effective solution in terms of the Net Present Cost in both installation and running of the hybrid system for the community. Sensitivity analysis was also carried out to test the adaptability of the system using a solar irradiation input of ±10%. Detailed result of the analysis is presented in the paper.