Towards Self-Reliant Renewable Power generation: Techno-Economic Analysis of an Educational Institute based Hybrid Power System

In developing countries like India, there is a rapid increase in load growth and energy demand due to heavy industrial development, urbanization and economy rise. Most of this demand is met through power generation from conventional sources which have adverse environmental impact. Renewable energy resources provide a good alternative but lack of continuous generation, high initial cost, complex control, conversion between AC and DC generation, grid integration etc. are some of the drawbacks associated with renewable energy sources. To overcome these disadvantages and to efficiently utilize the available energy resources, a hybrid power system combining the advantages of individual power sources, can be seen as a preferred option to generate and deliver power. In this paper, an attempt has been made to perform techno-economic analysis of a hybrid power system existing in an educational facility with conventional grid power supply, diesel generator and photovoltaic generation and the results are summarized. An augmentation for the existing system has been proposed with biogas power generation system with the organic waste available within facility and found to be imperative.