Techno-economic optimization based approach for energy management of a stand-alone integrated renewable energy system for remote areas of India

In recent years, sustainability receives greater attention due to increasing demands and limited resources worldwide. The Indian state of Uttarakhand is rich in the availability of renewable energy resources such as solar, micro hydro, biomass, wind etc. Optimum utilization of these resources in stand-alone mode has been recognized as an economical and efficient option compared to grid extension for electrification of remotely located rural households. This paper presents a combined techno-economic optimization and energy management of a stand-alone solar-micro hydro-biomass-wind based IRES (Integrated Renewable Energy System) to meet the electrical energy demand of cluster of village hamlets of Uttarakhand state. A load shifting based DSM (demand side management) strategy has been suggested in the paper for energy management of the considered IRES. Further, optimization results without and with DSM strategy have been presented and compared. Finally, a sensitivity analysis has also been performed to evaluate the impact of different parameters on the considered system. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.