Techno-economic impacts of floating PV power generation for remote coastal regions

The Government of Bangladesh (GOB) has set a goal to produce 6000 MW of electricity solely from solar Photovoltaic (PV) to ensure energy usage and sustainable development for every region by the year 2041. To meet this target, we have proposed a recently innovated floating PV (FPV) fed 1.4 MW capacity mini-grid system for the remote western coastal region of the country. Considering various practical load profiles, the paper contains an elaborate simulation of electrical characteristics for the modeled supply system. The simulation results show an excellent agreement with different levels of desired voltage, current, and power. Then, in-depth techno-economic and environmental analyses are presented to address the feasibility and benefit of the minigrid. The optimum Cost of Energy (COE) from the generation facility is evaluated as 18.29 US cents which is consistent with the current tariff. We have estimated that 2500 households and 120 Electric-Vehicle (EV) scooters can save an emission of 228 and 466.56 metric tons, respectively, of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) per year. Finally, an experimental PV generation-based case study is demonstrated to emphasize the techno-economic impacts of the proposed mini-grid. For the electrical characteristics and techno-economic simulation, we have adopted MATLAB/Simulink and HOMER Pro software, respectively.