Minigrids for Rural Electrification in Ethiopia

Despite the presence of sufficient renewable energy resources, several remote villages in Ethiopia do not have access to electricity due to lack of grid connection. In this context, three remote villages which are far from the power grid network has been selected and this paper proposes the development of minigrids for harnessing electricity supply from locally available renewable energy resources and cater to the villagers demand. A techno-economic analysis is performed for the design of the individual minigrids such that the cost of energy can be minimized. It is found that the cost of energy can be significantly reduced by designing for a higher capacity shortage.