article · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Mada Community, an off-grid farming settlement in Ogun State, Nigeria, lacks an established electricity demand baseline. To resolve this, researchers conducted a field survey of 200 buildings to generate an hourly community demand profile. This baseline was combined with local NASA solar resource data to simulate standalone hybrid solar photovoltaic and battery storage options. The investigation tested two system sizing configurations alongside two battery chemistries: lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and valve-regulated lead-acid. Only the configuration benchmarked against an existing operating mini-grid, using LFP batteries, satisfied the target reliability metric of a loss of power supply probability below 5%. This configuration achieved a 4.48% loss probability, a 95.52% renewable energy fraction, and a levelised cost of energy of around 289 Naira per kilowatt-hour. Most evaluated designs demonstrated lower lifecycle expenses than the community's current energy costs, resulting in a specific recommendation for an 85 kilowatt-peak solar array with a 768.6 kilowatt-hour LFP battery bank.
Rural settlements without power grids often rely on costly, inefficient energy alternatives. By establishing real demand profiles and identifying optimal solar and battery combinations, this approach demonstrates how off-grid farming communities can achieve dependable, clean electricity at a lower lifecycle expense than their current spending.
This work provides applied design specifications directly usable by mini-grid developers, rural energy agencies, and project financiers targeting rural electrification in Nigeria. Because the model relies on field data and is validated against an existing operating mini-grid, the technical recommendations are near-market and ready to guide procurement and deployment for Mada Community or comparable off-grid agricultural settlements.
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Mada Community, an unelectrified farming locality in Isara-Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria, has no grid connection and no published, disaggregated electricity demand baseline. This study addresses that gap by developing a validated model of a standalone hybrid solar photovoltaic and battery storage system for the community, using field-surveyed demand data and site-specific solar resource data. A bottom-up field survey of 200 buildings, sampled using the Taro Yamane formula, produced an hourly community demand profile, cross-validated against 8,760-hour NASA POWER solar resource data. Two system configurations, one sized from the survey data and one benchmarked against the published, operating Gbamu-Gbamu mini-grid, were simulated hour by hour under lithium iron phosphate (LFP) and valve-regulated lead-acid (VRLA) battery chemistries. Only the Gbamu-Gbamu-benchmarked configuration under LFP met the study's 5% Loss of Power Supply Probability (LPSP) target, achieving 4.48% against a Renewable Energy Fraction of 95.52%, at a Levelised Cost of Energy of approximately ₦289/kWh, the lowest of the four scenarios evaluated. The performance and cost gap between chemistries was found to be driven principally by depth of discharge and battery replacement frequency. Three of the four modelled configurations returned a lower lifecycle cost than the community's current energy expenditure. An 85 kWp photovoltaic array paired with a 768.6 kWh LFP battery bank is recommended for Mada Community.
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DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22244430
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