ANALYSING THE OPERATIONS AND IMPROVEMENT OF A HYBRID PV MINI-

GRID

1. OVERVIEW

Electrical energy is useful in all manufacturing, telecommunications,

residential, agricultural, medical and commercial activities. Electrical energy
can be derived from various sources which include hydro, nuclear, wind,
solar, and thermal sources [1]. Since some of the commuties in Namibia are
hundreds of kilometers away from nearest electrical grid which makes
unviable for the extension of the network from those grids. Hence the need
has raised for government in cooperation with relevant stakeholders to
implement hybrid mini-grid for such communities. Since Namibia has good
record of solar radiation, solar energy/diesel generator hybrid mini-grid was
designed for such communities. Some of the hybrid mini-grids in Namibia
are: Tsunkwe, Gobabeb and Usib Primary school solar PV/diesel hybrid mini
grid [2]. The studies have shown that solar PV hybrid mini-grid connected
system is economically viable for rural electrification for isolated, small and
remote communities where the national grid has to be extended distances
beyond 20km. Furthermore, PV mini-grid systems can be integrated into the
national grid, when those communities are connected to the national grid in
future [1].

A hybrid mini-grid is composed of three subsystems: the production, the

distribution, and demand subsystems. Each subsystem can vary greatly in its
components and architecture according to the availability of resources,
desired services to provide, and user characteristics. Production subsystem
includes the generation, storage, converters and energy management
systems components. The production subsystem determines the capacity of
the hybrid system to provide electricity, and connects all the components
through the bus bar (i.e. the electrical wiring connecting the different
components together) at the required voltage for the distribution subsystem
[3]. While distribution subsystem is in charge of distributing the produced
electricity to the users by means of the mini-grid. The primary issues are
whether to use a distribution mini-grid based on DC or AC, and whether to
build a single phase or three-phase grid. This decision will have an impact on
the cost of the project and will mainly determinate the devices which can be
used. Demand subsystem includes all the equipment on the end-user side of
the system, such as meters, internal wiring, grounding, and the devices
which will use the electricity generated by the hybrid power plant [4].

Hybrid Optimisation of Multiple Energy Resources (HOMER) software is a well-

known for designing, modelling, simulation and the sizing of the hybrid
systems and its individual technical components. It is also used for economic
and financial analysis of the hybrid.