Solar diesel hybrid mini-grid design considerations: Bangladesh perspective

With the declining price of solar PV panels and increasing price of diesel make the solar PV system popular for rural electrification. The demand of electric energy in rural areas is minimum and also the loads are sparsely distributed. So, it is not economically viable to extend the national grid line to the remote off grid areas. Also there are islands where the grid extension is not economically feasible. Electricity access in rural Bangladesh is less than 50%. IT is the common tendency of the rural people to live in clustered areas. So, it is very common to see the clustered households in rural Bangladesh. These paved the options for electrification of off grid areas with small isolated solar minigrids. One of the challenges of developing minigrids is the storage system management. Incorporation of a small diesel generator not only reduces the requirement of storage system but also can provide energy in low insolation days. This paper highlights the design consideration for developing solar diesel hybrid minigrids in rural areas of Bangladesh.