Renewable Energy Integrated Islanded Microgrid for Sustainable Irrigation—A Bangladesh Perspective

Abstract

Due to high investment and maintenance costs, the government on Bangladesh is unable to provide sufficient support for grid extension and supplying electricity to remote or rural areas. The deficit in electricity introduces a crisis in powering irrigation systems, which influences negatively the country's dominant income-generating sector, agriculture. Islanded microgrids with solar photovoltaic (PV) cells is one of the most attractive solutions for providing power to rural areas due to their cost-effectiveness, reliability and environment-friendly attributes. Therefore, a techno-economic feasibility study has been undertaken to investigate the prospects of renewable energy-based islanded microgrids to support rural electrification to power both households and irrigation systems. Three case studies based on the operation time of irrigation pumps during the day are developed using the HOMER Pro Microgrid Analysis Tool to identify the optimised configurations for the proposed system. The optimised configurations are then assessed considering the performance matrices of the cost of electricity (COE), net present cost (NPC), greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and renewable energy fraction (RF). From the analyses, it is perceived that the operation of irrigation pumps at different times of a day is a significant influence, and the optimum method considering techno-economical evaluation is to run the irrigation pumps during the daytime by solar PV. It is evident that the proposed islanded microgrid has significant potentialities in powering irrigation systems as well as rural electrification with low energy generation costs, a contribution to the reduction of global warming and to ameliorating the energy crisis in Bangladesh in order to achieve a sustainable future.

A Cost-Effective Methodology for Sizing Solar PV Systems for Existing Irrigation Facilities in Chile

“…A well-designed drip irrigation system may reduce the required energy to approximately 60% of that required by other conventional methods; therefore, the PV system in this case would be smaller and cost less. Additionally, a PV system for small applications does not require the use of trackers as suggested in Reference [40]. With a two-axis tracker, a PV system may produce up to 40% more energy than without one.…”

“…The project lifetime is 25 years, which is like other studies [40,41]. Consequently, the feasibility of the system needs to be guaranteed.…”

“…The off-grid approach presents itself as a viable, cost-sensitive solution for irrigation systems due to difficulties in electrical grid connections in remote areas [10]. Many authors [2,3,7,9,11,12] discussed the use of off-grid solar PV irrigation systems for remote areas in the last decade. Some reports focused on off-grid solar PV systems connected directly to the pump [11], while others also described storage alternatives such as batteries and water storage [2].…”

“…In general, off-grid systems use fossil fuels, such as diesel, in stationary generator sets [2][3][4][5]. Although rural electrification is expanding, it may still not be technically or economically feasible in some regions of Asia and Latin America due to the cost of extending the electrical grid, and the complicated access to some remote areas [6][7][8]. The use of renewable energy contributes to reducing the dependency on fossil fuels and greenhouse emissions [7]; consequently, solar energy has been used to power irrigation in agricultural activities for two decades [9].…”

A State-of-the-Art Review on the Drive of Renewables in Gujarat, State of India: Present Situation, Barriers and Future Initiatives

“…Carbon dioxide is a major source of greenhouse gas and the energy sector produces nearly 75% of the total carbon dioxide emission across the globe [1]. Moreover, the statistics reveal that approximately 1.2 billion people across the globe do not have access to electricity [2,3]. Statistics account for "over 50 million people in Africa and 300 million people in India" [2,3].…”