Project objectives

Rural electrification in South Mediterranean countries mostly done with solar home systems, which only provide service for a very limited number of appliances (lights).
This service gives an image that “PV is for the poor”, and is not sufficient for stimulation of economic activities in rural areas. Fuel generators, also used, give more electrical power, but suffer high maintenance cost, irregular availability of fuel, and are mostly used to give a limited energy service during 6 to 14 hours per day only. The solution is the employment of hybrid systems using a mix of renewable energies and fossil fuel, and by providing

energy service for the population of a rural community via a micro grid. The integrated approach for rural electrification using such multi user hybrid grids has been tested for electrification in Europe, but still has to be adapted to the different social, economical and environmental context in the South Mediterranean countries.

The objectives of this project are mainly socio-economical and technical.

Socio-economical:

Information on the needs for energy service and institutional framework conditions in South Mediterranean countries is not available or widely dispersed. Once gathered and combined with field interviews, a strategy for rural electrification in the South Mediterranean countries is worked out.

There are few measures to assure the long term sustainability of rural electrification in South Mediterranean countries. For most of the systems, it is not clear how the necessary replacement of the batteries after several years of operation can be financed. This is the problem of rural electrification projects, because no previsions for long term sustainability have been made. Such a result would be typical for a failed project, and the image that “PV does not work”. Objective of this project is therefore to define appropriate models and strategies for the long term sustainability of rural electrification projects in South Mediterranean countries. The positive experiences made in Europe on these issues will help all project partners to find sustainable solutions and long lasting business models.

Rural electrification programs usually use only one system architecture, independently of the energy needs of the user and the location of the site. This project aims at a more differentiated approach, where users close to the village centre are provided by a micro grid and users which live too far away with small scale autonomous systems. However, a tariff structure which can be applied by the same operator to users of both cases will be developed. It is clear that such a tariff structure and operation scheme has to be adapted to an eventually existing framework, as for example in Morocco, where such a framework has been developed for a rural electrification program, which, however, is only based on solar home systems for villages without access to gridlines.

Technological:

Appropriate energy service:
In multi user hybrid systems, the energy provided to every single household should be limited in order to avoid excess consumption. The existing algorithms, which work well in Europe, have to be further developed, so that they are simple enough to be easily understood by the user, and efficient to keep the energy consumption within the tariff contracted.

Guarantee of service:
Solar energy systems for rural electrification use batteries for the intermediate storage of energy for consumption during night time. A guarantee of service would mean that the batteries always provide sufficient energy allowing the user to consume the energy contracted. In the case of low charge state of the batteries, the energy service is interrupted, but it is not clear, whether this has to be attributed to an excess of energy consumption by the users or to a failure of the system. A clear indicator will be developed, which, based on energy metering, is able to indicate whether the system is performing as contracted or not.

Appropriate power conditioner technology:
Typical power conditioners are specified for operation at ambient temperatures of up to 40°C, which is too low for application in Mediterranean partner countries. Objective of this project is to increase the maximum operation temperature to 60°C and improve resistance against dust in order to cope with the heavy duty conditions in the Mediterranean countries.

Appropriate monitoring and control equipment:
Operators responsible for a larger set of systems dispersed in a region need a tool in order to monitoring and control the state of the system. Usually, monitoring data can be only obtained by direct download from the system. Objective is to develop equipment allowing the monitoring and control of a remote hybrid system via satellite or similar communication technologies.

Communication of system components and load management tools:
For the communication of hybrid system components, there is no common standard. Load management tools, which require system information over long distance call for a simple communication bus with drastically increasing the costs for these devices. Objective of this project is to find a cost efficient and robust communication bus and protocol, and to develop prototypes of system components which use this bus for communication.