Economic assessment of the remote community microgrid: PV-ESS-diesel study case

This paper proposes a methodology for quantifying and allocating the economic benefits of implementing Photovoltaic Panels (PV) and Energy Storage Systems (ESS) in diesel powered isolated Remote Communities (RCs). The study, a cost-benefit analysis, proposes a set of benefits, incurred costs and stakeholders affected by the implementation from a long-term planning perspective. As a demonstration, the proposed methodology is used to compare two case studies to a benchmark diesel system. The first case adds ESS to the base case, the second one implements PV panels and ESS to the diesel infrastructure. Both implementations are made primarily with the goal of reducing the system´s diesel consumption. The application of the methodology shows an increase on the project´s present value of approximately 12% over the business-as-usual, in the first case, and in around 20% over the base case, for the second case, when compared to the benchmark.