Maximizing the penetration levels of hybrid renewable energy systems in rural areas with demand side management approaches in achieving SDGs

Access to quality healthcare services is an integral part of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and reliable electricity access is a pre-requisite for improving human lives, enhancing healthcare delivery, education as well as other developmental growth within local communities. However, many rural locations far away from the grid centres have difficulties in accessing electricity, due to distance and cost of extension of grid to such areas, and this has resulted in the inability to provide basic amenities. Rural healthcare centres located in such places are unable to deliver their intended mandate, thus hindering the realization of SDG 3. Therefore, the innovative idea of this study is increasing the penetration of renewable energy technology while minimizing the cost by integrating the users’ perspective with demand side management (DSM) approaches, techno-economic analysis, and environmental impact assessment of hybrid energy system configuration, taking a health institution as the case study. To meet the considered rural healthcare facility’s initial average load demand of 20.58kWh/day, an optimum PV-Gen-battery hybrid system was selected using HOMER with cost of energy (COE) of $0.224/kWh, net present cost (NPC) of $61,917.6 and initial capital cost of $16,046.5. After the DSM measures were applied to reduce the peak and average demand, an optimum hybrid system was obtained, producing a COE of $0.166/kWh, NPC of $18,614.7 and initial capital cost of $10,070.8. The cost saving realized for the considered rural healthcare facility is $0.057/kWh, representing a 25.8% reduction from the current COE and a 70% reduction in Total NPC. On the other hand, the optimal configurations gave around a 75% reduction in CO2 emissions compare to a diesel-alone configuration. The work provides novel insights which may be applicable worldwide. It has the potential to significantly advance the development of high-quality and timely evidence to underpin current and future developments in the rural energy sector and contribute to the implementation of SDG3 and 7.