Solar-Biogas Microgrid : A Strategy for Development of Rural Communities in Pakistan

Access to uninterrupted power is not a luxury but a basic need. Rural communities living far from the national grid, particularly those in the southern region of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, have limited access to a reliable power supply. In order to provide sustainable electricity, small-scale off-grid renewable energy systems are increasingly used for rural electrification. These systems are commonly known as stand-alone home systems or community micro-grids. This paper proposes an off-grid solar-biogas micro-grid for rural communities in the Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The area is mainly dependent upon income from agricultural and Livestock sectors. HOMER was used to simulate the electric power system, while RET-Screen was used to analyze the economics of the system. The results of the optimized system show that using a 30-kW photovoltaic along a 30-kW biomass hybrid system with a 64-kWh battery storage capacity and a 20-kW converter forms the most cost-effective technically feasible system generating 187,987 kWh and 123,552 biogas annually. The proposed approach is techno-economically viable based on the net present system and energy costs