Research Proposal
Research Proposal
Research Proposal
Energy is one of the most fundamental elements of our universe. Especially for developing
countries like Ethiopia, the significance of energy is vital. Energy in the form of electricity and
modern fuels is the life blood of modern civilization and is critical factor for economic
development and employment. It amplifies human efforts enables humans to produce more,
travel farther and faster, communicate more broadly and quickly, and live at a higher standard of
living than is possible through human efforts alone. Hence it can be said that like the other basic
needs for human beings, energy is the basic inevitability for survival.
Even if Ethiopia has a huge potential of renewable energy (hydro, wind, solar, geothermal), it is
suffering from energy crisis throughout characterized by frequent blackouts and interruption.
This is because of the unbalance between the increasing energy demands versus energy
production in the country. Even due to the limited energy production, there are places; especially
remote areas, where energy is not available/ accessed and the people around are living in
darkness. In addition to this limited production, the country was concentrating in large energy
production systems. But it is difficult to use most of the potentials that the country had and to
make all people access to this modern energy without small energy production systems.
The oil price volatility, growing concerns of global warming, and depleting oil/gas reserves and
due to the contradiction between gradual growth of the global energy demand, renewable energy
such as solar energy, wind energy, bio-energy, and hydropower might become a new manner in
which we produce energy for sustainable development. Photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy
systems are the most promising candidates of the future energy technologies, and it has been
widely noticed that stand alone and grid connected PV and wind energy markets have grown
rapidly. Energy generation system reliability has been considered as one of the most important
issues in any system design process. However, natural energy resources are unpredictable,
irregular, and seasonally unbalanced. Therefore, a combination of two renewable energy sources
may satisfy bigger share of electricity demand and offer reliable and consistent energy supply.
The Hybrid PV and Wind Electricity System is well suited to conditions where sun light and
wind have seasonal shifts, for example, in summer the sun light is abundant but windless, while
in winter wind resource increased that can complement the solar resource. The reliability of the
stand-alone hybrid PV-wind system in producing energy has been proven by earlier studies. In
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the last two decades solar energy and wind energy has become an alternative to traditional
energy sources. These alternative energy sources are non-polluting, free in their availability and
renewable. But high capital cost, especially for photovoltaic, made its growth a slow one. The
best way to attempt to decrease the cost of these systems is by making use of hybrid designs that
uses both wind/photovoltaic.
The price of conventional energy sources in remote areas such as paraffin, candle, is
often more expensive than in urbanized areas due to the remoteness of the retailers.
Peoples pay high cost for mobile charge and travel long distance to charge their battery.
Lack of pure education quality and good health care in ruraldue to electricity shortage.
Literature Review
According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), the annual market of wind energy grew
a staggering 41.5% in 2009 compared to 2008. More than 38 GW of new Wind power capacity
was installed around the world in 2009, bringing the totalInstalled capacity up to 158.5 GW. This
represents a year-on-year growth of 31.7%[Global Wind Energy Council, "Global wind 2009
report", Brussels, Belgium, 2009.]. A third of theseAdditions were made in China, whichreports
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100% growth for the fifth year in a row, and now has more than 12GW installed. That makes
China the world’s fourth-biggestWind market, after the U.S., Germany, and Spain [Keith
Johnson, "Wind Jammers: U.S.,China, Fight out Global Wind Leadership", The Wall Street
Journal, 2 Feb. 2009.].
Hybrid systems are the main subject in this study. The earlier studies showed the
rapidDevelopment of renewable energy systems around the world, both in the developedAnd
developing nations. Energy schemes in both of standalone and hybrid systemsare badly depend
on weather conditions, causing a lack in power continuity due to theIntermittent nature of wind
and sun. However, solar parks and wind farms generationSystems are usually accompanied with
storage system to coat any energy shortage.
The high cost of storage system provides an additional cost to the total generationSchemes, and
introduces a hindrance in the employment and exploitation of renewable energy system
(RENs)Applications.
Objective
General objective
The main objective of this project is to generate solar-wind hybrid power system in rural area to
improve the sustainable power supply.
Specific objective
Economic evaluation of the systems and compare their feasibilities of solar, wind
hybrid system.
System design for each energy source at the selected site using analytical methods.
To provide electrical energy for rural areas with solar-wind hybrid system.
To supply sufficient electric energy for the peoples living in those who are far from
cities.
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To solve the socio-economic problems of the society living in rural areas by providing
solar-wind hybrid power system.
To reduce the fuel consumption in rural area and to make environmental friendly.
To develop and analyze cost estimates and long term economic benefits for renewable
energy technologies (economic analysis).
Methodology
The methodologies to accomplish this project work will be as follows:-
1. Problem Identification
The problem identification involved a literature survey in collecting general information about
Rural Areas such as geography, climate, and population, current electricity status of the Rural
and future demand and cost of energy (COE) is collected. The main focus of the survey is on the
renewable energy resources availability, electricity supply crisis in the selected rural come from
absence of electricity in the Rural Area.
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2. Renewable Energy Resource Assessment
The potential solar resource and wind power resource for Rural area is assessed. The wind speed,
solar isolation and clearness index for a yearlong period is obtained from the NASA Surface
Meteorology and Solar Energy database (SMSE). Wind and solar map of Ethiopian is collected
from SWERA.
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Conducted on batteries design, selection maximum point tracker, Inverters design as well as
Energy Consumption and load estimation of this area. In this step which includes Battery design
and modeling, better converter design, PV controller design and analyzed
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Work plan
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Budget
Cost estimation
component capital replacement fuel total
($) ($) ($) ($)
PV 600.00 0 0 600.00
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References
[1]. Hadagu A., 2006 “Status and trends of Ethiopian rural Electrification Fund”,
http://www.bgr.de/geotherm/ArGeoC1/pdf/07%20A.%20Hadgu%20status%20of%20 Ethiopian
%20Electrification%20fund.pdf
[2]. AyeleNigussie “Development Of A Dual Mode Frequency Controller for Standalone, Micro
and Mini Hydropower Systems”, A thesis Submitted to the Addis Ababa Institute of Technology,
in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Science In Electrical Power
Engineering, July 2010
[3]. AkliluDalelo, “Rural Electrification in Ethiopia”: opportunities and bottlenecks, Addis
Ababa University, College of Education
[4]. Eng. AmareHadgu “Status and Trends of Ethiopian Rural Electrification Fund”, November
2006.
[5]. Dipl.-Geogr. HediFeibel, “An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Dissemination of Mini and
Micro Hydropower - the Case of Ethiopia”, December 2003.
[6]. http://earthtrends.wri.org, Energy and Resources—Ethiopia