Multi-criteria assessment of hybrid renewable energy systems for Nigeria's coastline communities

Background: Nigeria's rural coastline communities have long suffered from the consequences of both poor rural electrification and environmental degradation. Therefore, there is an urgent need to provide an optimal sustainable and environment-friendly energy system for the coastline communities in Nigeria, which has the potential of ameliorating the climate change in this country. Methods: The HOMER hybrid optimisation software and multi-criteria decision-making, based on the TOPSIS algorithm, were used to determine the best hybrid energy system. The decision is based on four alternatives as well as 15 different economic, social and environmental criteria. The NASA SEE data base with monthly averaged values for global horizontal radiation over a 22-year period (July 1983-June 2005) was considered in the current analysis. Results: The results show that the most promising hybrid energy system, based on a multi-criteria decision analysis and prevailing economic data, is the diesel-PV-wind energy system, which has a relative closeness of 0.489226. The suggested best hybrid energy system has a cost of electricity of 0.787 $/kWh and potential to reduce gas emission by 48.5 %/year. The best energy system gives the best components with an appropriate operating strategy to provide an efficient, reliable, cost-effective and environment-friendly system. It is shown that both positive energy policies of the Federal Government of Nigeria towards renewable energy penetration and the support from the oil producing companies towards their operational areas would see the cost of electricity being significantly reduced. Conclusions: It is envisaged that the implementation of the suggested energy system with other environmentally responsible interventions would support the Niger Delta coastline communities, whose livelihoods have been impaired by gas and oil exploration, to attain their full environmental, social and economic potentials. The suggested energy system could be useful in other coastline communities globally once there are available renewable energy sources.