Economics of Hydro-Kinetic Turbine for off-grid Application: A Case Study of Gumara River, Upper Blue Nile, Amhara, Ethiopia

Muluken Temesgen Tigabu, Dawit Diriba Guta, Bimrew Tamrat Admasu

Abstract


This paper examines the economics of Hydro-kinetic (HK) turbines to investigate the possibility of usage in rural areas, where the grid is not available. In support of the different efforts endeavored by the Ethiopian Government to make electricity available to all, the project is called `light for all'. This study was carried out in the Gumara River, upper Blue Nile, and Amhara Region Ethiopia. The energy demand of a representative household family is selected for this study. We implemented the most commonly used domestic home appliances for the model with a total wattage of 2.28 kW at base load and 4.147 kW at peak load. The total daily power demand of the typical household in the area is 19.26 kWh/day. Then to determine costs of HK we used the Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) methodology. The initial capital cost, replacement cost, and operating and maintenance cost were calculated to determine the economics of HK turbine. Then, we applied the HOMER software system design of 5 kW HK turbine and 2.5 kW diesel generator to estimate the economic cost of HK. In our study, we used $20 per metric ton of carbon emission penalty. The IRR was estimated to be 17.4% and the payback period of 5.6 years with a present worth of $4826, and the total Net Present Value of $89,764. The estimated Levelized cost of energy was about $0.42. Our finding indicates that the HK technology is economically and technically viable energy option for small scale o-grid electrification. This work also alludes to risk analysis on Hydro-kinetic turbines.

Keywords


Hydro Kinetic turbines (HK), Energy Economics, Levelized Cost of Energy, HOMER

Full Text:

PDF

References


Mengiste Abate, Jan Nyssen, Tammo S. Steenhuis, Michael M. Moges, Seifu A. Tilahun,Temesgen Enku, and Enyew Adgo,Morphological changes of gumara river channel over 50years, upper blue nile basin, ethiopia, Journal of Hydrology525(2015), 152 – 164.

Moriel A Arango et al.,Resource assessment and feasibility study for use of hydrokineticturbines in the tailwaters of the priest rapids project, Ph.D. thesis, University of Washington,2011.

Stephanie Baldwin,Carbon footprint of electricity generation, London: Parliamentary Officeof Science and Technology268(2006).

Subhes C Bhattacharyya,Energy economics: concepts, issues, markets and governance,Springer Science & Business Media, 2011.

John C. Cannon,Carbon pricing could save millions of hectares of tropical forest: new study,February 2018, Accessed on 2018-09-18.

Aline Choulot, Vincent Denis, and Petras Punys,Integration of small hydro turbines intoexisting water infrastructures, Citeseer (2012).

WORLD ENERGY COUNCIL,World energy resources 2016, 2016, Accessed on 2018-09-23.

Minh Ha Duong,What is the price of carbon? five definitions, SAPI EN. S. Surveys andPerspectives Integrating Environment and Society2(2009), no. 2.1.

Paul Duvoy and Horacio Toniolo,Hydrokal: A module for in-stream hydrokinetic resourceassessment, Computers & Geosciences39(2012), 171–181.

HOMER Energy,Homer pro version 3.7 user manual, no. August (2016), 416.

New Energy,The evg 005 series turbine power units, 2018, Accessed on 2018-10-9.

James A Fay and DS Golomb,Energy and the environment, Oxford University Press Oxford,2002.

Bent Flyvbjerg and Atif Ansar,Hydroelectric dams are doing more harm than good to emerg-ing economies, The Guardian (2014) (en-GB), Accessed on 2018-09-11.

Budi Gunawan, Vincent Sinclair Neary, Josh Mortensen, and Jesse D Roberts,Assessing andtesting hydrokinetic turbine performance and effects on open channel hydrodynamics: An irri-gation canal case study., Tech. report, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque,NM (United States), 2017.

Dawit Guta and Jan B ̈orner,Energy security, uncertainty and energy resource use options inethiopia: A sector modelling approach, International Journal of Energy Sector Management11(2017), no. 1, 91–117.

Dawit Diriba Guta,Determinants of household adoption of solar energy technology in ruralethiopia, Journal of Cleaner Production204(2018), 193 – 204.

M.S. Gney and K. Kaygusuz,Hydrokinetic energy conversion systems: A technology statusreview, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews14(2010), no. 9, 2996 – 3004.

Hui Hu, Nan Xie, Debin Fang, and Xiaoling Zhang,The role of renewable energy consumptionand commercial services trade in carbon dioxide reduction: Evidence from 25 developingcountries, Applied Energy211(2018), 1229 – 1244.

MJ Khan, MT Iqbal, and JE Quaicoe,Design considerations of a straight bladed darrieusrotor for river current turbines, Industrial Electronics, 2006 IEEE International Symposiumon, vol. 3, IEEE, 2006, pp. 1750–1755.

Kanzumba Kusakana, Herman Jacobus, and Vermaak,Feasibility analysis of river off-gridhydrokinetic systems with pumped hydro storage in rural applications, Energy Conversionand Management96(2015), 352 – 362.

Juan Lata-Garca, Francisco Jurado, Luis M. Fernndez-Ramrez, and Higinio Snchez-Sainz,Optimal hydrokinetic turbine location and techno-economic analysis of a hybrid system basedon photovoltaic/hydrokinetic/hydrogen/battery, Energy159(2018), 611 – 620.

N.L. Panwar, S.C. Kaushik, and Surendra Kothari,Role of renewable energy sources in envi-ronmental protection: A review, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews15(2011), no. 3,1513 – 1524.

McCully Patrick,A Critique of â€The World Banks Experience With Large Dams: A Prelim-inary Review Of Impactsâ€, 2018, Accessed on 2018-08-8.

P. Punys, I. Adamonyte, A. Kvaraciejus, E. Martinaitis, G. Vyciene, and E. Kasiulis,Riverinehydrokinetic resource assessment. a case study of a lowland river in lithuania, Renewable andSustainable Energy Reviews50(2015), 643 – 652.

Parag K. Talukdar, Arif Sardar, Vinayak Kulkarni, and Ujjwal K. Saha,Parametric analysis ofmodel savonius hydrokinetic turbines through experimental and computational investigations,Energy Conversion and Management158(2018), 36 – 49.

Bob van der Zwaan, Agnese Boccalon, and Francesco Dalla Longa,Prospects for hydropowerin ethiopia: An energy-water nexus analysis, Energy Strategy Reviews19(2018), 19 – 30.

Herman Jacobus Vermaak, Kanzumba Kusakana, and Sandile Philip Koko,Status of micro-hydrokinetic river technology in rural applications: A review of literature, Renewable andSustainable Energy Reviews29(2014), 625 – 633.

James Walls III and Michael R Smith,Life-cycle cost analysis in pavement design-interimtechnical bulletin, Tech. report, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, andMedicine, 1998, Accessed on 2018-11-23.

Bing Wang, Qian Wang, Yi-Ming Wei, and Zhi-Ping Li,Role of renewable energy in chinasenergy security and climate change mitigation: An index decomposition analysis, Renewableand Sustainable Energy Reviews90(2018), 187 – 194.




DOI (PDF): https://doi.org/10.20508/ijrer.v9i3.9590.g7753

Refbacks



Online ISSN: 1309-0127

Publisher: Gazi University

IJRER is cited in SCOPUS, EBSCO, WEB of SCIENCE (Clarivate Analytics);

IJRER has been cited in Emerging Sources Citation Index from 2016 in web of science.

WEB of SCIENCE between 2020-2022; 

h=30,

Average citation per item=5.73

Impact Factor=(1638+1731+1808)/(189+170+221)=9.24

Category Quartile:Q4