Economics and Environment Assessment of Microgrid Configurations for Rural Area with Standalone and Integrated Energy Storage System

Abstract

Nowadays, with the rising in electricity demand, Energy Storage System (ESS) plays an important role in solving power crisis especially in small area such as an island. The microgrid concept with energy storage system (ESS) has rising its popularity and interest because it capable to store energy during off-peak hours and supply it back to the grid during peak demand. The objective of this paper is to optimize energy storage system in a real case during peak demand in rural area which is located in a rural area in Tanjung Labian, Sabah. The optimization was modelled and analysed using HOMER by including renewable and conventional energy resources such as solar PV, diesel generators, batteries, and inverter. This paper is divided into two sections. The first section is to investigate the optimum microgrid system by modelling combination of renewable energy and ESS. The optimization model includes parameters such as life cycle, reliability, cost, and size that would give the minimum cost of microgrid system. In the second section, a further investigation was carried out by determining the economics of energy from the best combination of renewable energy and ESS. The results shown that the present of ESS in the system able to reduce the cost and dependency on standalone system through the optimized diesel-PV-battery system modelling having an approximation of 20% less cost as to compared without battery-available system. The perfection of modelling ESS with optimization characteristics will be the key features to the next generation technologies.