This paper aims to investigate the techno-economic feasibility analysis of stand-alone diesel system, stand-alone PV/storage system, PV/diesel hybrid system, PV/diesel/storage hybrid system for the Pratas island in Taiwan. The power supply of outlying islands in Taiwan still use fossil fuel generators. The fuel cost is higher than that of on shore of Taiwan, and it has a great impact on the environment. This problem can be mitigated by hybrid energy systems. Through the investigation to know the existing generator set and Photovoltaic (PV) operating status, load consumption, etc., the study collects the required data for statistical meteorological analysis and economic analysis, and uses Hybrid Optimization Models for Energy Resources (HOMER) to simulate techno-economics of the stated hybrid energy systems. The analysis contains the capital cost, net present cost (NPC), cost of energy (COE) and fuel saving in different capacities for each power supply system with different constraints. From the simulation results, the lowest COE is 0.3569 $/kWh that can be found at the PV/diesel hybrid system configuration scheme with a total PV system capacity of 200 kWp, the renewable fraction (RF) is 15.3% and the excess electricity fraction is 2.6%, which is lower than the generally acceptable 5%. Although the COE of PV/diesel/storage hybrid is higher than that of stand-alone diesel system, the annual total CO2 emissions is reduced by 31.63%, which is of great benefit to environmental protection. INDEX TERMS Cost of energy, distributed generation, energy storage, hybrid power system, mini-grid, renewable energy.

The Philippines consists of 7100 islands, many of which still use fossil fuel diesel generators as the main source of electricity. This supply can be complemented by the use of renewable energy sources. This study uses a Philippine offshore island to optimize the capacity configuration of a hybrid energy system (HES). A thorough investigation was performed to understand the operating status of existing diesel generator sets, load power consumption, and collect the statistics of meteorological data and economic data. Using the Hybrid Optimization Models for Energy Resources (HOMER) software we simulate and analyze the techno-economics of different power supply systems containing stand-alone diesel systems, photovoltaic (PV)-diesel HES, wind-diesel HES, PV-wind-diesel HES, PV-diesel-storage HES, wind-diesel-storage HES, PV-wind-diesel-storage HES. In addition to the lowest cost of energy (COE), capital cost, fuel saving and occupied area, the study also uses entropy weight and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method to evaluate the optimal capacity configuration. The proposed method can also be applied to design hybrid renewable energy systems for other off-grid areas.Energies 2020, 13, 8 2 of 28 energy may fulfill the low load requirements, while these systems need a significant energy storage for higher loads, resulting in high COE [17][18][19]. The other option to alleviate this problem is autonomous hybrid renewable energy systems (HRES) which combine two or more energy resources, to fulfill higher energy requirements of off-grid areas and resolve the inherent problem of single renewable energy (RE) resource [1,[20][21][22][23][24]. Furthermore, hybridization of energy sources increases the reliability of the system as the shortcomings of any component are compensated for by the selection of other but appropriate components and their sizing is essential during design of such systems [25][26][27]. Some of the hybrid energy systems with different storage technologies and performance measure criteria found in literatures are presented in Table 1 [ 12,28,29].

Achieving universal electricity access is a challenging goal for the governments of developing countries such as Ethiopia. Extending the national grid to the remotely located, scattered, and island populations demands a huge investment. This paper aims to show the techno-economic feasibility of minigrid renewable energy system to electrify Kibran Gabriel island in Ethiopia, through the execution of simulation, optimization and sensitivity analysis using Hybrid Optimization Models for Energy Resources (HOMER Pro) software. The minigrid systems were compared with both diesel generation (DG) and grid extension systems. The hybrid PV/DG/battery system is more economically feasible compared with other minigrid systems, and the best cost-effective option is the one including load flow (LF) strategy with 25 kW of PV, 10 kW of DG, 40 kWh of battery, and 5 kW of bi-directional convertor. The optimal PV/DG/Battery system, having levelized cost of energy (COE) of USD 0.175/kWh, net present cost (NPC) of USD 119,139 and renewable fraction (RF) of 86.4%, reduces the pollutant emissions by 33,102 kg/yr compared with the stand-alone DG system. The optimal minigrid sensitivity to the variations in global horizontal irradiance (GHI), diesel price and load consumption were considered in the sensitivity analysis, and the result shows that the system will operate reasonably well.

The electrical distribution system has experienced a number of important changes due to the integration of distributed and renewable energy resources. Optimal integration of distributed generators (DGs) and distribution network reconfiguration (DNR) of the radial network have significant impacts on the power system. The main aim of this study is to optimize the power loss reduction and DG penetration level increment while keeping the voltage profile improvements with in the permissible limit. To do so, a hybrid of analytical approach and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are proposed. The proposed approach was tested on 33-bus and 69-bus distribution networks, and significant improvements in power loss reduction, DG penetration increment, and voltage profile were achieved. Compared with the base case scenario, power loss was reduced by 89.76% and the DG penetration level was increased by 81.59% in the 69-bus test system. Similarly, a power loss reduction of 82.13% and DG penetration level increment of 80.55% was attained for the 33-bus test system. The simulation results obtained are compared with other methods published in the literature.

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