Abstract:
According to the increase of energy requirements in different fields, there is still a problem with satisfying energy demand for the whole country of Rwanda supplied by the national grid. The big problem high cost of energy due to the location of users, source of energy, or the type of suppliers. Especially health cares located in rural areas or where the national grid is very expensive. This problem can be handled by introducing embedded generation based on renewable energy instead of depending on independent power producers or presumers like distributed generation based on solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. Therefore, this project research focuses on designing embedded generation based on PV for supplying health centers where the grid energy is much cost. The case study is Busoro Health Centre located in the southern province, Nyanza District, Busoro Sector where high solar intensity is obtained. This research is done through the evaluation of the primary load at the health center, working hours per day, and the capacity of PV production. The system of the grid-connected solar system was designed and simulated through the HOMER (Hybrid Optimization Multiple for Electrical Renewables) pro, for achieving the optimal cost of energy. Today energy cost to the health centers is RF186/kWh, proposed cost of energy selling back to the grid in the first scenario is 50% (RF93/KWh) of the energy price where the net present cost from homer becomes RF44 million, LCOE becomes RF113.14/kWh and the grid charge becomes RF372717/ year. In the second scenario, 75% (RF139.5/KWh) of the energy price of the national grid, net present cost becomes RF43.6millions LCOE becomes RF105/KWh and the grid charge will be RF2409/year. To conclude the results according to the purpose of this thesis for minimizing monthly electrical bills, distributed generation is needed for reducing energy bills and for making energy stable due to the source being closed to load.