Optimal Design of Renewable Hybrid Energy System for a Village in Ghana

This paper proposes a methodology for configuring hybrid solar-wind-diesel-energy systems at minimum cost and minimum dumped load. An iterative optimisation technique has been developed to calculate, the optimum system configuration to achieve minimum hours of loss of power supply and minimum annualized cost of system. The decision variables included in the optimization process are the number of PV modules, wind turbines, batteries and diesel generators. The proposed method has been applied to the analysis of a hybrid system which supplies power to a cluster of villages in Bonsaaso located in the Amansie -- West District of the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The optimal configuration consisted of 92 PV panels, 9 wind turbines, 32 batteries and 1 diesel generator. The optimal configuration obtained is capable of providing maximum reliability of the system and minimum load rejection over a 20 year period of the project.