Rural area application of HOMER software for feasibility analysis of hybrid energy system with an improved approach

摘要

For a power supply in a remote rural area where a grid supply is infeasible, a hybrid energy system consisting of a renewable energy mix, with a backup generation, could be a viable alternative. Feasibility analysis and determination of optimal combination of such a system is a complex task owing to the uncertain nature of renewable energies, load demand uncertainty, non-linear characteristic of components and interdependency of process components. HOMER software performs this complicated task in an easy and accurate way by economically analysing various possible alternatives and sorting them out for optimality. However the limitation of results for optimality determination based on single criteria has been improved in the present paper using analytic hierarchy process (AHP). A rural study area has been identified for validation of proposed methodology. The approach provides the most optimal hybrid energy system for the selected study area accommodating many aspects of analysis allowing suitable weightage to each of them.