Green Hybrid AC Microgrid and its Sustainability for Rural Electrification

Abstract

A green hybrid ac microgrid (GHAM) is an interconnection of renewable energy sources like micro-hydro power (MHP) plants, photo-voltaic (PV) systems, wind turbines (WT), bio-gas generators etc., storage devices and distribution lines to provide power to the local loads. This paper presents a method to evaluate the sustainability of green hybrid ac microgrids. The sustainability of different alternatives for green and hybrid ac microgrid are evaluated based on several sustainability indicators defined by experts' survey. The paper presents an approach to analyze the sustainability of alternatives of GHAM by combining optimized result from Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources (HOMER) and total weighted score of sustainability of different technologies to be used for GHAM. This approach can be used by policy makers for selecting a suitable option for GHAM to electrify a rural community.