Abstract:
Rural areas have a high resource of hydropower energy generation system. However, using
such systems has the seasonal changes and bad topographical position of the river flowing.
Even though Ethiopia has abundant hydropower resources, the rural population has no access
to electricity. The utilization of small-scale hydropower in rural areas of the country requires
stream flow data of the rural Rivers. However, most of the Ethiopian rural River watersheds
are ungauged and poorly monitored due to their remote location. This study focuses on energy
potential assessment and techno-economic analysis of micro-hydro integrated with
photovoltaic for rural electrification for a case study of Goda Warke village located in Yaya
Gulele district. The diesel generator is added to the proposed system as a backup system. The
Natural Resource Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (NRSCS-CN) technique is used to
estimate the monthly discharge of the Girar River, which is located in the study area. An
average Girar river discharge and solar radiation resource of the areas are 0.975m
3
/s and
5.39 KWh/m2
/day, respectively. The estimated load of the study village is 1269.79 KWh/day.
HOMER simulation shows that Hydro/PV/DG/Battery and Hydro/PV/Battery are the best
optimum systems in terms of Net Present Cost (NPC). The hydropower potential in the optimum
system is 338 KW, with an effective head of 50 m and a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of
0.0057 USD/KWh. Solar PV has a mean power output of 250 KWh/day with a LCOE of 0.049
$USD/KWh and a PV penetration of 58.2%. Most of the electric load in the area is covered by
micro-hydropower, with capacity factor of 47.5%. The diesel fuel price (DFP), pipe head loss,
and village load growth are the sensitive variables on NPC and the cost of energy (COE).
When DFP is 0.7 $/KWh, hydro/PV/battery is more economical with an NPC of $1.28 million.
