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An Optimal Stand-Alone Biomass/SolarPV/Pico-Hydel Hybrid Energy System

for Remote Rural Area Electrification of
Isolated Village in Western-Ghats Region
of India
a

S. Kumaravel & S. Ashok

Department of Electrical Engineering , National Institute of

Technology Calicut , Calicut , Kerala , India
Accepted author version posted online: 31 Jan 2012.Published
online: 06 Aug 2012.

To cite this article: S. Kumaravel & S. Ashok (2012) An Optimal Stand-Alone Biomass/SolarPV/Pico-Hydel Hybrid Energy System for Remote Rural Area Electrification of Isolated Village
in Western-Ghats Region of India, International Journal of Green Energy, 9:5, 398-408, DOI:
10.1080/15435075.2011.621487
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15435075.2011.621487

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International Journal of Green Energy, 9: 398408, 2012

Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1543-5075 print / 1543-5083 online
DOI: 10.1080/15435075.2011.621487

AN OPTIMAL STAND-ALONE BIOMASS/SOLAR-PV/

PICO-HYDEL HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEM FOR REMOTE
RURAL AREA ELECTRIFICATION OF ISOLATED VILLAGE
IN WESTERN-GHATS REGION OF INDIA

Downloaded by [University of Calgary] at 17:59 06 October 2014

S. Kumaravel and S. Ashok

Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Calicut,
Calicut, Kerala, India
Biomass based hybrid energy system is utilized for the electrification of villages, especially in
developing countries like India. Hybrid Energy System (HES) components, feasibility study,
and cost analysis are presented in this paper for a remote area Kakkavayal, a forest region in
Kerala, India. A water stream at 25 m height has been identified at Kakkavayal by the Forest
Department of Kerala. The village has been marked to study hourly measured meteorological
and load data for a period of time. The performance of the proposed hybrid system is determined on hourly basis and optimum configuration, which can meet the energy demand with
minimum cost using the hybrid system design tool HOMER. Parametric analysis indicates
that with 2 kW solar PV, 15 kW pico-hydel, and 5 kW biomass gasifier generator together
with five numbers of 12 V, 200 Ah of battery storage to meet the primary load demand of
56 kWh/d and 17 kWh/d (scaled annual average) of deferrable load. From the simulation,
the cost of energy is found to be Rs 7.274 (US$ 0.164) per kWhr. The cost of energy of the
proposed HES is also compared with the diesel-based HES. It is found that economically,
the proposed HES is a very good alternative for present pico-hydel/diesel system.
Keywords: Hybrid energy system; Rural electrification; Solar; Biomass energy; Alternative
energy; Pico-hydel

INTRODUCTION
Electricity is a major commodity for the socio-economic development of any country. It plays vital role in all activities of human beings in the present scenario. The major
part of electricity is developed mainly from the fossil fuel like coal, oil, and gas. These fossil fuels have severe impact over the atmosphere in various aspects. Stock of these fossil
fuels is limited and will lasthardly till the middle of this century.
A growing interest in renewable energy resources has been observed for several years
due to their pollution-free nature, availability all over the world, and continuity. These facts
make these energy resources attractive for many applications. Most of the developing countries are poor in conventional fossil fuel resources and have to import them at the expense
of their meager foreign exchange reserves. Introduction of nuclear technology on a large
scale around the world has many ramifications and raises many unanswered questions.
Address correspondence to S. Kumaravel, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of
Technology Calicut, Calicut, Kerala, India. E-mail: kumaravel_s@nitc.ac.in

398

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HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEM FOR ELECTRIFICATION OF ISOLATED VILLAGES IN INDIA 399

More than two-thirds of the population of the developing world lives in rural areas and
about half of them live in perpetual penury, dependent almost entirely on traditional fuels
for their energy needs.
Hybrid renewable energy systems have great potential to provide higher quality and
more reliable power to customers than a system based on a single source. The renewable
energy sources can complement each other. Hybrid renewable energy sources are recognized mainly for remote area power applications and are nowadays cost-effective, where
extension of grid supply is expensive. It has been observed that solar energy has always
been a popular renewable energy resource and widely accepted because of its availability
virtually in all areas and regions all over the world (Balamurugan, Ashok, and Jose 2009).
A clear sky model to determine sizing of SPV stand-alone system by predicting solar
radiation for various locations of the country is developed. The effect of maximum cell
temperature and different load profile on the systems size has also been investigated. The
operational experiences acquired with solar PV hybrid system installed as a line extension
alternative at a residence.
A hybrid system using different components was developed by Ashok (2007) to
find out an optimal combination of HES components using non-linear constrained optimization techniques. The concept of an alternative hybrid power system configuration
that combined PV modules and digester fuelled by animal manure was introduced. Picohydel and photovoltaic hybrid systems incorporating a biogas generator for remote village
in Cameroon was simulated. Almost 70% of the total demand of Kerala state is met
from 17 hydel stations of total initialization capacity of 1881.5 MW located in Western
Ghats region of Kerala (KSEB report). Several HES configurations such as PV/wind,
PV/diesel, diesel/wind, hydel/diesel are widely reported in the literature (Kinoshita et
al. 1997; Elhadidy and Shaahid 1999; Muselli et al. 1999; Sharma et al. 2000; Celik
2002; Schmid and Hoffmann 2004; Liu et al. 2006; Eke et al. 2007; Good et al. 2007;
Rehmana et al. 2007; Toke and Oshima 2007; Deshmukh and Deshmukh 2008; Shaahid
and Elhadidy 2008; Bekele and Palm 2010; Shaahid et al. 2010; Wang and Fang 2010;
Nafeh 2011). However, biomass-based electrical generation is rarely reported, especially
for rural electrification.
A waterfall at 25 m height has been identified in Kakkavayal by the Forest
Department of Kerala, and the government has established an herbal park called
Vanaparvam in 111.4 hectares in Kakkavayal. Around 21 houses are located near the place
with population of 119 near the park. The place Kakkavayal is considered as study area
and a collaborative work has been started between NITC Calicut and Forest Department
of Kerala state to develop a generating plant. Figure 1 shows a photograph of waterfall at
Kakkavayal. The study area has adequate potential of water stream to develop a 15 kW
pico-hydel plant. But, the availability of water resource is less during NovemberMay
every year.
In this paper, a stand-alone hybrid energy system consisting of biomass gasifierbased power generation, pico-hydel, and PV is proposed for the study area and is shown in
Figure 2. For a stand-alone application, the system needs to have sufficient storage capacity
to handle the power variations from the renewable energy sources involved. A system of
this type can be considered as a micro-grid, which has its own generation sources and loads.
This system can be considered as a complete green power generation system because
the main energy sources are all environment friendly.
Intermittent nature energy source solar PV is integrated in a common DC bus line
through DC/DC converter with a controller. A PWM voltage source inverter is used to

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400

KUMARAVEL AND ASHOK

Figure 1 Photograph of waterfall at Kakkavayal, Kerala state (color figure available online).

Figure 2 Schematic of proposed solar PV/pico-hydel/biomass hybrid energy system.

convert the DC power into AC at 50 Hz. When the output of the energy system is not
enough to meet the load, the battery powers the DC load or the discharged inverter to
power AC loads, as a source. If excessive power is still available after fully charging the
battery, it will become the unutilized power. Objective of the hybrid energy system is to
provide reliable power to primary load. According to the availability, power is delivered
to deferrable loads. Deferrable load is electrical load that must be met within some time
period, but the exact timing is not important. Water pumping electric vehicle charging is a
common example of deferrable load.

DEVELOPMENT OF OPTIMAL SIZING MODEL

In rural areas where hybrid energy systems are the only source of energy, it is very
important to make use of the available energy effectively. The sources are to be operated
based on priority so as to minimize the operating cost of the hybrid energy system and to
give maximum importance to the critical loads during shortage of energy. A strategy to
operate the hybrid energy system effectively is very essential to address the above issues.

HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEM FOR ELECTRIFICATION OF ISOLATED VILLAGES IN INDIA 401

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In a renewable hybrid energy system, due to the unpredictable nature of the sources, the
availability may not always match with the load demand.
Economics plays integral role in sizing optimization of a renewable energy system.
System operation is simulated for each possible combination of system components to minimize net present cost; further optimal system configuration with lowest net present cost
is searched out in optimization process. Total Net Present Cost (NPC) is HOMERs main
economic output. It is the appropriate metric to compare the economics of different systems as it balances widely divergent cost characteristics of renewable and non-renewable
sources. It condenses all costs and revenues that occur within the lifetime of the project,
i.e., future cash-flows discounted back to the present using the discount rate. It includes
initial capital, component replacement, maintenance, and fuel cost. Optimization objective
here is to achieve a system with least NPC. NPC can be expressed as

Minimize

N


CCLC =

j=1

N

j=1

Cannztotal
,

CRF i, Tproj

(1)

where CCLC is the cost of life cycle of the hybrid energy system, CRF is the capital recovery
factor, i is the interest rate, T proj is the project life time,N is the total number of energy
sources and Cannztotal is the total annualized cost of all the components of the hybrid energy
system. The initial capital cost of each component over the project lifetime is used to
calculate the annualized capital cost. The annualized capital cost of each component is:


Cannzcc = Cinitcc CRF i, Tproj ,

(2)

where Cinitcc is the initial capital cost of the component. The total annualized cost is the
sum of the annualized costs of each system component and other annualized costs, such as
annualized replacement cost, annual operation and maintenance cost, and annual fuel cost.
Cost of Energy (COE), which is the average cost per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced
by the system, has also to be calculated for each of the system can be expressed as
COE =

Cannztotal
,
Eprim + Edefe

(3)

where Eprim is the primary load in kWh and Edefe is the deferrable load in kWh in the system.
Energy supplied to the primary and deferrable load at any instant can be expressed as

x


t=1


Pdi Ii (t) ,

(4)

where, t is the time interval. The total planning horizon time is divided into x equal
intervals, i is type of load demand (primary and deferrable load), Pdi (t) is demand of load i
at time t in kW, Ii (t) is the fraction of time t that the load i is supplied energy. The energy
distribution from the energy sources j at any time interval t to each load i is given as
3 

j=1

Qj,i (t) +



i


QB,j (t) = Pi Ii (t) ,

(5)

402

KUMARAVEL AND ASHOK

where j is the number of source since solar, biomass, hydel systems are considered having
maximum value of j equal to 3. Energy supplied (Ej (t)) by the source j to the loads i and
battery bank in time interval t is given by
3


Qj,B (t) +


QL,i (t) = Ei (t) .

(6)

j=1

The net energy balance determines its State-of-Charge (SoC). The state of charge is
expressed as follows:

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QB SoC (t) = QB SoC (t 1) +





Qj,B (t)





Qj,B (t) .

(7)

It is also necessary to guard the battery against excessive discharge. Therefore, the
SoC(t) at any period t should be greater than a specified minimum value
SoCmin SoC (t) SoCmax .

(8)

The proposed optimization algorithm is a generalized one, so that it can be applied to

any type of system by including the source constraints. The load and equipment constraints
are formulated as follows. The energy distribution from the energy sources at period t to
each load i is given as
Qp,i (t) + QBio,i (t) + QH,i (t) + QB,i (t) = Pi Ii (t) ,

(9)

where Q is energy supplied, QL is load, QP is photovoltaic system, QBio is biomass system,

QH is pico-hydel system, and QB is battery. Sum of the energy supplied by the solar photovoltaic system (Ep (t)), biomass generator (EBio (t)), and pico-hydel system (EH (t)) to the
loads and the battery bank in period t:
Qp,B (t) +



i

QBio,B (t) +



i

QH,B (t) +


Qp,i (t) = Ep (t) ,

(10)


QBio,i (t) = EBio (t) ,




(11)


QH,i (t) = EH (t) .

(12)

The battery bank serves as an energy source entity when discharging and a load
when charging. The net energy balance determines its State-of-Charge (SOC). The state of
charge is expressed as follows:





QB,i (t) .
QB SoC (t) = QB SoC (t 1) + Qp (t) + QBio (t) QH (t)
i

(13)

HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEM FOR ELECTRIFICATION OF ISOLATED VILLAGES IN INDIA 403

LOAD PROFILE AND RESOURCE DATA OF THE STUDY AREA

Load Profile

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The cluster of houses in the village has presently very low electricity demand, but
as electricity will be made available to these villages, the energy consumption is expected
to increase with time. The present energy demand is calculated by considering the future
requirements also. Load profile has been formulated from the detailed survey conducted
about various house-hold electrical loads, rating, and operating time in the specified site.
Total Load is classified into primary and deferrable load. The primary loads include dayto-day electric applications like florescent lamp, fan, TV, iron box, etc. The daily primary
load demand of the study area is shown in Figure 3. Estimated yearly load profile of the
intended study area in terms of monthly average has been depicted in Figure 4.
Solar Energy Characterization
The measured global horizontal solar radiation of Kakkavayal is obtained at hourly
intervals from 6:00 to 18:00 from the monitoring station installed at Herbal park,
Kakkavayal. The annual hourly solar radiation computed for solar modules are shown
in Figure 5. The average monthly insolation of Kakkavayal on the horizontal plane

Figure 3 Hourly load profile of the study area for a typical day (color figure available online).

Figure 4 Estimated annual energy demand profile of the study area (color figure available online).

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404

KUMARAVEL AND ASHOK

Figure 5 Available average solar radiations at Kakkavayal (color figure available online).

is in the range 3.5066.085 kWh/m2 /day. It is maximum during May month about
6.085 kWh/m2 /day, minimum during July about 3.866 kWh/m2 /day, and scaled annual
average horizontal insolation is 3.89 kWh/m2 /day.
Stream Flow Characterization
The study area has adequate falling water available 810 months in a year frequently.
Monthly average stream-line flow at study area for a year is shown in Figure 6. Generally,
the monsoon period in Western Ghats region of India is during MaySeptember. Maximum
water flow is 102 L/s during July. The height of the turbine point from storage tank is 25 m.
Biomass Characterization
Biomass is traditionally and extensively used to meet the thermal energy demand,
especially in the rural areas. The availability of different biomass in the study area and
their properties are listed in Table 1. Coconut and rubber trees are prominent cultivation
in the study area and produce highest biomass energy availability. The average cost of

Figure 6 Average water flow at Kakkavayal (color figure available online).

HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEM FOR ELECTRIFICATION OF ISOLATED VILLAGES IN INDIA 405

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Table 1 Properties of Various Biomass Available in the Study Area

Biomass

Bulk density
(kg/m3 )

Ash contents
(%)

C (%)

H (%)

N (%)

O (%)

Calorific value
(MJ/kg)

Wood
Coir pith

330
47

1.50
13.60

25.30
41.27

5.20
4.02

0.50
1.51

42.00
39.60

18.4
16.7

Figure 7 Biomass availability (color figure available online).

biomass at the site is Rs 1,800 per ton. Monthly average biomass availability at study area
for a year is shown in Figure 7.
PROMINENT OUTCOME AND ANALYSIS
System sizing and optimization has been carried out using required details of study
area and components of proposed supply system. A set of suggested ratings of solar PV,
pico-hydel generator, biomass gasifier, and battery are given as input, and hourly time
series simulation has been carried out for every possible system type using micro power
optimization software HOMER. Net Present Cost (NPC) and Cost of Energy (COE) of all
the feasible systems have been calculated to rank all of them in increasing order. Table 2
shows the suggested ratings of HES components taken for simulation.
Simulation for 8,760 h in a year is carried out by making energy balance calculations.
For each hour, the simulation software HOMER compares the demand per hour to the
energy that the system can supply in that particular hour, and calculates the flows of energy
to and from each component of the system. From the simulation, it is observed that the most
feasible system is solar PV/pico-hydel/biomass HES, which has least COE of Rs. 7.274
Table 2 Suggested Components Ratings of HES for Optimization

Solar PV generator kW
2
2
20

Pico-hydel
generator kVA

Biomass
generator kVA

Battery bank
unit12 V, 200 Ah

Power electronic
converter kW

15

15

5
5

5
5
5

10
10
10

406

KUMARAVEL AND ASHOK

Table 3 Optimization Result of Hybrid Energy System Configuration

Components
Solar PV (kW)
Pico-Hydel (kVA)
Biomass/Diesel Gen (kVA)
Battery (12 V, 200 Ah)
Power Conv. (kW)
Initial cost (Rs)
Operating cost (Rs/yr)
Total NPC (Rs)
COE(Rs/kWh)
Capacity shortage (%)

SPV/Hydel/Biomass

SPV/Biomass

SPV/Hydel/Diesel

SPV/Hydel

2
15
5
5
10
17,50,000
52,790
24,24,836
7.274
2

2
0
5
5
10
7,50,000
2,36,018
37,67,110
11.245
2

2
15
5
5
10
17,50,000
1,83,830
40,99,961
12.140
1

20
15
0
5
10
41,50,000
24,017
44,57,015
14.368
9

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Bold indicates prime factor for feasible hybrid energy system.

(US$ 0.164 @1 INR = 0.0225 US$). Table 3 illustrates the most feasible system obtained
in the present case obtained from the simulation.
Ratings of the feasible best hybrid energy system components are 2 kW solar PV,
15 kVA pico-hydel, and 5 kVA biomass generator along with five numbers of 12 V,
200 Ah battery and 10kW converter unit. The NPC of solar PV/pico-hydel/biomass is
Rs. 24,24,836 (US$54558.81) which is less than other HES, and also the reliability of supply is good (2% shortage). In a diesel-based HES, the diesel generator contributes 7% of
electricity which is 5,296 kWh/yr with the diesel consumption of 3333 L/yr to meet the
demand, and as the result amount of CO2 emission is huge which is harmful to the atmosphere. Increased fuel consumption, shortage, and security issues have reflected in the rate
of diesel price about 10%. This may further reduce the scope on diesel-based hybrid energy
system in near future.
The biomass required for the power generation can be taken from the villages itself.
It also gives employment opportunities to the rural people. In this work, the net present
cost is calculated for a project time of 25 years and 6% interest rate. Table 4 shows
the cost details and their annualized costs. Initial capital investment requirement will
be Rs. 17,50,000 (US$ 39375) whereas total NPC of the system is Rs. 24,24,836 (US$
54558.81). The system has 100% renewable fraction and it has meager (2%) capacity
shortage, i.e., reliability of supply is good enough.
The energy contribution from each source to meet the demand of primary load of
56 kWh/day and deferrable load of 17 kWh/day is shown in Table 5. The maximum energy
is contributed from pico-hydel system of 1,15,514 kWhr/yr about 72%. The annualized

Table 4 Cost Analysis of Optimal Solar PV/Pico-Hydel/Biomass Hybrid Energy System

Components

Capital cost
(Rs)

Replacement cost
(Rs)

O&M cost
(Rs)

Fuel cost
(Rs)

Salvage cost
(Rs)

Total cost
(Rs)

Solar PV
Pico-Hydel
Biomass gen
Battery unit
Power conv.
System

3,00,000
10,00,000
3,00,000
75,000
75,000
17,50,000

0
0
1,39,800
65,565
0
2,05,365

38,350
51,133
1,59,409
63,917
31,958
3,44,767

0
0
1,43,468
0
0
1,43,468

0
0
10,280
8,483
0
18,763

3,38,350
10,51,133
7,32,396
1,95,999
1,06,958
24,24,836

HYBRID ENERGY SYSTEM FOR ELECTRIFICATION OF ISOLATED VILLAGES IN INDIA 407

Table 5 Energy Contribution of the Sources and Loads of the Optimal Hybrid Energy System
Item

kWh/yr

Item

kWh/yr

Energy production from solar

Energy production from hydel
Energy production from biomass
Unmet electric load

2,667
72,678
4,660
538

3
91
6
2

AC primary load
Deferrable load
Excess electricity
Capacity shortage

20,238
5,840
53,720
541

78
22
67.1
2

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average values of energy resources are, respectively, solar radiation of 3.89 kWh/m2 /day,
stream flow of 51.7 L/s, and biomass availability of 0.692 t/d.

CONCLUSIONS
Size optimization of hybrid retrofits for sustainable energy system designed for rural
remote area electrification in Kakkavayal, Kerala, India, has been presented in this study.
The study analyzed the economical feasibility for solar PV/biomass/pico-hydel hybrid
energy system to meet annual average load of 56 kWh/d in the study area. The optimal
hybrid system design is realized by satisfying the load demand, non-linear seasonal variations, and equipment constraints. Optimal hybrid system explored being the one having
least COE and is found to be Rs 7.274 (US$ 0.164) per kWhr. The annualized average
values of energy resources are, respectively, solar radiation of 3.89 kWh/m2 /day, stream
flow of 51.7 L/s, and biomass availability of 0.692 t/d. This detailed analysis indicates
that the study area is a viable candidate for installation of proposed biomass-based hybrid
energy systems. Further, It is suggested that the biomass gasifier hybrid energy system is
best suited for the rural areas of the Western Ghats region of India.

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