Techno-economic feasibility assessment of a solar-biomass-diesel energy system for a remote rural health facility in Nigeria

This paper explores the feasibility of supplying power to a remote hospital in Vandeikya local government area of Benue state where the facility is strictly run by diesel generator. The average hourly electrical load demand data for the hospital was obtained by measuring electricity consumption from the power house using digital owl meter (CM 199). The annual average insolation for Vandeikya is 4.92 kWh/m2/d obtained from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory database. The simulation was carried out using HOMER Pro (Hybrid Optimization Model for Multiple Energy Resources version 3.13.8). The average hourly electricity load demand data; cost of components and sizes; average annual insolation data, serve as input into the software. The results gave a net present cost (NPC) of Nu 718,308,000.00 (Note:$ 1 equals. 386.32 Naira as at 6th July, 2020) as compared to diesel only with a cost of N 9,060,974,000.00; the lifetime of the project considered is 25 years and an assumed real interest rate of 10% per annum, while the system offers a payback period of 1 year. The optimal system configuration is the system with diesel genset (300 kW), generic 500 kW biogas genset, generic flat plate PV (300 kW), generic 1kWh lead acid, and system converter (300 kW). The system has a yearly excess electricity of 411,771 kWh/yr which can be sold out and has no unmet load. It greatly reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. The hybrid PV/diesel/biomass gasifier system makes economic sense and is technically viable for Mbaakon hospital and those with similar load and weather conditions.