Microgrid Design for Rural Island in PEA Area

The Provincial Electricity Authority's (PEA) target is for electrification of 100% of villages and households in Thailand. Currently 99.99% of villages and 99.72% of households are electrified. For some rural islands, PEA supply electricity by using diesel generators. The cost of generating electricity using diesel generators on islands is more than 3 times that of the cost of generating electricity on the mainland. However the electricity sale price in the Kingdom of Thailand is a uniform tariff rate. For some unelectrified islands, PEA plan to use PV together with diesel generators and/or submarine cable to supply the power to meet the 100% electrification target. This paper outlines the design of a microgrid power system for one rural island for which PEA considered that the submarine cable investment is not economically feasible. HOMER Pro microgrid analysis tool (HOMER Pro) will be used for calculating the optimal sizing of the PV array and BESS. According to the national policy for microgrids in the Kingdom of Thailand, this paper will present a method to calculate the appropriate electricity tariff for microgrid systems that can be proposed to the government if this new business model would be implemented in the Kingdom of Thailand in near future.