DESIGN OF A TECHNO-ECONOMIC OPTIMIZATION TOOL FOR SOLAR HOME SYSTEMS IN NAMIBIA

The expansion of the electrical grid and infrastructure is an essential part of development since it contributes to improved standard of living among the population. Solar home systems (SHS) are one solution to generate electricity for households where the national grid does not reach or is too sparsely populated to build a local mini-grid. Solar home system programs have been used as a solution for rural electrification in developing countries all over the world with various success, one of these countries is Namibia. A large fraction of the population in Namibia lacks access to electricity where most of the people live in rural areas not reached by the national electrical grid. However, several SHS clients in Namibia have been dissatisfied with their systems due to several issues regarding the service providers. Several service providers have limited technical know-how and therefore frequently over- and undersize system components and make mistakes during installations. An opportunity to improve SHS in Namibia is to develop a software tool that service provider can use to quickly calculate an optimum SHS in a user friendly way based on the electricity demands of the clients. An optimization model was developed using MS Excel which calculates the optimal SHS component capacities regarding cost and reliability with the use of Visual Basic macros. Various field studies and sensitivity analyses were conducted with the MS Excel model. The results were validated and compared with other software programs such as PVsyst and a Matlab model used in a previous study regarding solar power. Results show that several components in existing systems are incorrectly sized and that the MS Excel model could improve future installations and improve the reputation of SHS. The sensitivity analyses focused on cost, system reliability, system size and PV-module tilt and were implemented in the MS Excel model to optimize the results in a techno-economic perspective. The MS-Excel model was approved by Namibia Energy Institute and will be available for all service providers in Namibia