Off-Grid Solar PV System Design in Isolated Island for Sustainable Energy Access: A Case Study in Sukun Island, Indonesia

This paper presents a preliminary study on the design of an off-grid solar PV system for an isolated island. It conducts a case study for Sukun Island that has the highest potential for solar energy in Indonesia. The study includes climate research, consumption estimation, system sizing, simulation, quasi-dynamic analysis, and environmental analysis. Climate data from Solargis and Meteonorm is utilized. The greatest difficulty in conducting an initial PV system planning study is pre-sizing. Using PVsyst simulation, this study confirms the validity of simplified theoretical calculations stated in the paper for system pre-sizing, with the theoretically calculated system (285 kWp solar power plant with 2.91 MWh storage system) managed to get a Loss of Load Probability (LOLP) valued at 0.17%, meeting applicable standard. The proposed method of combining simulation using PVsyst and quasi-dynamic analysis using DIgSILENT Powerfactory can be used to verify the power stability of the designed PV-BESS system. The simulations attest to the use of battery energy storage systems (BESS) in maintaining the stability of the solar PV network by preventing the vulnerability of electrical networks to insufficient electricity (loss of load) and voltage sags, proven by the minimum voltage level of 96.6%, meeting international safety standards.