Economic Consideration of an Off-Grid Hybrid Power Generation System using Renewable Energy Technologies: Case Study of an Institutional Area in the State of Rajasthan

The focal point of this study is to recreate and plan a hybrid system consisting of a solar photovoltaic, a battery and a diesel generator and optimize the configuration into an off-grid hybrid structure to meet the electricity demand of an institutional area situated in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Various configurations have different specifications obtained to meet the load demand based on input parameters which are obtained from a pilot survey and the main survey a particular location. Various costing parameters such as per unit of cost and net present cost are estimated with the condition of meeting the maximum load demand. The HOMER (Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewable) software is used for different simulation processes and finally it is found that solar PV-battery-diesel generator hybrid system is an economical system to meet the electricity demand in which the cost of energy is obtained as ₹ 13.83 and Net Present Cost is ₹ 9.78M with initial capital and operating costs of ₹ 4.20M and ₹ 646,319 per year, respectively. The diesel fuel cost is obtained as ₹ 5,09,288 per year. Meanwhile, the electricity produced and consumption are also estimated as 1,09,040 kWh/year and 81,939 kWh/year, respectively, with an unmet load of 1.77% only.