Alternative Electrification in Rural Area of India

Nitesh Prajapati[1] , Omprakash Sahu[2]
Page No. 83-91

Wind energy is one of the fastest developing renewable energy technologies. This is due to the vast
resource of wind and also a green technology which does not emit any pollutants to the
environment. Among the common renewable options for supplying electricity to remote locations is
using wind turbines coupled to diesel generators with larger battery banks. Its dependency on
diesel and thus sustainability could be improved by using hydrogen storage and fuel cells. To study
the performance of the system, a typical rural electric load consisting of household electricity,
small business facility, health post, school and water pump is modeled along with system
components. The wind resource data for two locations Jamnagar and Dhwarka have been used.
Simulation and optimization of the energy system are carried out in homer and numerous
alternative implementable system designs have been proposed. The results show that the use of fuel
cells enabled enhanced energy autonomy, higher renewable energy contribution and less CO2
emission with moderate increase in net present cost. Sensitivity study on diesel price, wind speed,
average electric load has also been carried out.
Key words: Energy; Fuel cells; Hydrogen; Renewable; Source