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Techno-Economic Evaluation of Power Systems for off-Grid Telecommunications Infrastructure in Remote Locations in Ghana
| Communications on Applied Electronics |
| Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA |
| Volume 7 - Number 7 |
| Year of Publication: 2017 |
| Authors: E. T. Tchao, K. A. P Agyekum, Kwasi Diawuo |
10.5120/cae2017652694
|
E. T. Tchao, K. A. P Agyekum, Kwasi Diawuo . Techno-Economic Evaluation of Power Systems for off-Grid Telecommunications Infrastructure in Remote Locations in Ghana. Communications on Applied Electronics. 7, 7 ( Oct 2017), 22-27. DOI=10.5120/cae2017652694
Abstract
Due to non-existent commercial power, unreliable power supply and high cost of running diesel generators at remote locations in Ghana, it is becoming increasingly uneconomical for network operators to maintain off-grid communication infrastructure at remote locations since subscriber numbers are relatively low in these locations. In order to surmount these challenges, network operators are turning towards the use of alternative power supply systems to power their off-grid infrastructure in these remote areas. This paper seeks to perform a techno-economic evaluation of two commonly used power supply systems for BTS in these remote locations; namely dual prime generators and hybrid power systems. The performance of two off-grid sites using dual prime generators and hybrid power systems have been evaluated at a 100% site load. The load per day from the two sites was measured as 100W on the average. During the evaluation process, it was realized that the hybrid efficiency operates within a 2% tolerance of the simulated results and provides fuel saving of 61.70% as compared to the site using dual prime generators at a 100% site load per day. It was also realized that, the hybrid system has the capability to expand to 5 rectifier modules although the maximum is limited by the size of the generator. With a greater amount of rectification available to increase the rate of recharge for the batteries, it is possible to improve on the reduction in diesel run time and thereby further increase operational expenditure (OPEX) savings to more than 80%.
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