Techno-economic and reliability assessment of an off-grid solar-powered energy system

In the current era of the world, electricity has become a basic need of every individual. Therefore, the global energy demand has doubled from 77 trillion kWh to nearly 155 trillion kWh since 1980. However, despite the rising energy demand in developing countries, the per capita energy consumption only grew by about 14% globally. It is mainly because of the rural and remote areas where grid supply infrastructure is unavailable or inaccessible. Therefore, a solar-based microgrid (MG) can be considered an alternative energy solution. These MGs with energy storage support can be considered a viable solution because of the intermittent nature of solar photovoltaic (PV). In this regard, this paper describes the design, development, and deployment of a solar rooftop microgrid (SRMG) at the commercial building of BITS Pilani, India. Further, a comprehensive economic analysis is performed using a novel method of levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and payback period, and the results are compared with the traditional method's results. In order to improve the reliability of the SRMG, a demand side management (DSM) strategy is developed and implemented. It can effectively cater the unbalance between load and generation by shifting the non-critical loads to unused solar PV generation hours. It was found from the results that a significant energy of BESS is conserved which is reflected by the high state of charge (SOC) value. The developed design, economic analysis, and proposed DSM make the SRMG an economical and reliable energy solution.