article · Energy Strategy Reviews
This study evaluates the technical and economic feasibility of an off-grid solar, wind, and battery hybrid mini-grid designed to supply electricity to 152 consumers in Mbouda, Cameroon. The community load covers essential energy needs for households, schools, healthcare facilities, and local businesses. Using HOMER Pro software for system optimisation, the investigation compares fixed solar panels against six different tracking configurations, alongside three wind turbine hub heights of 17, 50, and 150 metres. The findings indicate that dual-axis tracking generates between 7.02% and 30.73% more power than fixed systems, while also achieving the highest renewable penetration and the lowest levelised cost of energy and net present cost. Increasing the turbine hub height substantially improves wind energy capture. Accounting for ambient air temperature influences system yields, and the final hybrid design produces zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Off-grid rural communities frequently struggle with unreliable or non-existent electrical power, which limits education, healthcare, and economic development. By showing how specific technological choices like dual-axis tracking and taller wind turbine hubs reduce the overall cost of electricity while eliminating greenhouse gas emissions, this study helps planners design cleaner, more cost-effective mini-grids for isolated settlements.
This research serves as an applied feasibility and system-design model, placing it at an early planning stage rather than a deployed product. The findings can directly assist mini-grid developers, rural electrification agencies, and clean energy engineering consultants operating in central Africa. These stakeholders can use the optimisation results to configure cost-effective, zero-emission generation assets tailored to the energy demands of small rural towns and public institutions.
AI-generated from the published abstract. Always read the original work before citing.
The present work demonstrates the techno-economic analysis of an environmentally friendly small-scale PV/Wind/Battery hybrid system for off-grid rural electrification in the city of Mbouda. The major contributions of this work are fourfold: (i) PV/Wind/Battery hybrid system is proposed for the very first time in this locality; (ii) six PV tracking techniques namely: horizontal axis (monthly adjustment), horizontal axis (weekly adjustment), horizontal axis (daily adjustment), horizontal axis (continuous adjustment), vertical axis (continuous adjustment) and dual-axis tracker are implemented in the present hybrid system; (iii) the impact of ambient air temperature on the PV power production is evaluated; (iv) the influence of three different hub heights (17 m, 50 m, 150 m) on the wind turbine power output is investigated. The electric load for the basic needs of a community of 152 consumers (households, hospitals, schools, businesses) such as; lighting, radio, television, phone charger, water heater, electric iron, and laptop, is estimated. HOMER Pro is used for the optimization and sensitivity analysis of the proposed hybrid system. The solutions obtained in the present work showed that compared to the PV power generated by fixed solar panels, the dual-axis solar tracker system was the system that offered the maximum power production (about 7.02%–30.73% more power). In addition, compared to the PV penetration of fixed solar panels, the dual solar tracker also offered the maximum PV penetration (about 7.64%–31.50% more PV penetration). It was also concluded that increasing the hub height (from 17 m to 150 m), significantly increased the wind power generation and penetration. Concerning the economic aspect of the work, it was noticed that the dual-axis solar tracking system presented the lowest levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and net present cost (NPC) when compared with the other aforementioned solar tracking systems. The results also indicated that taking into account the ambient air temperature, impacted the PV and wind power productions. The analysis of emissions allowed us to confirm that the system was environmentally friendly since no greenhouse gas was produced.
This page summarises published work. The authoritative version sits with the publisher.
DOI: 10.1016/j.esr.2023.101107
Is something wrong with this record? Report it or request removal.
Discussion
Have you built on this work, tried to replicate it, or seen it applied in practice? Share what you know. Verified researchers and MARATTO™ domain experts can open a discussion, and any member can reply. Contributions are reviewed before they appear.
No discussion yet. Open the first thread.
New to MARATTO™? Create a free account.
