Economic analysis and environmental impacts of a PV with diesel-battery system for remote villages

This paper discusses the economic analysis and environmental impacts of integrating a photovoltaic (PV) array into diesel-electric power systems for remote villages. Matlab simulink is used to match the load with the demand and apportion the electrical production between the PV and diesel-electric generator. The economics part of the model calculates the fuel consumed, the kilowatt-hours (kWhrs) obtained per gallon of fuel supplied, and the total cost of fuel. The environmental part of the model calculates the CO₂ participate matter (PM), and the NO_x emitted to the atmosphere. Simulations based on an actual system in the remote Alaskan community of Lime Village were performed for three cases: 1) diesel only, 2) diesel-battery, and 3) PV with diesel-batter using a one year time period. The simulation results were utilized to calculate the energy payback, the simple payback time for the PV module, and the avoided costs of CO₂, NO_x , and PM