ARTICLE IN PRESS

Renewable Energy 32 (2007) 832–844

www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Modelling of solar/diesel/battery hybrid power

systems for far-north Cameroon
E.M. Nfaha,, J.M. Ngundamb, R. Tchindaa
a
University of Dschang IUT Fotso Victor, PO Box 134, Bandjoun, Cameroon
b
University of Yaounde I School of Engineering, PO Box 8390, Cameroon
Received 3 September 2005; accepted 1 March 2006
Available online 2 May 2006

Abstract

Solar/diesel/battery hybrid power systems have been modelled for the electrification of typical
rural households and schools in remote areas of the far north province of Cameroon. The hourly
solar radiation received by latitude-titled and south-facing modules was computed from hourly
global horizontal solar radiation of Garoua using Hay’s anisotropic model. Using the solar radiation
computed for latitude-tilted and south-facing modules, the average daytime temperatures for Garoua
and parameters of selected solar modules, the monthly energy production of the solar modules was
computed. It was found that BP solar modules with rated power in the range 50–180 Wp produced
energy in the range 78.5–315.2 kWh/yr. The energy produced by the solar modules was used to model
solar/diesel/battery hybrid power systems that could meet the energy demand of typical rural
households in the range 70–300 kWh/yr. It was also found that a solar/diesel/battery hybrid power
system comprising a 1440 Wp solar array and a 5 kW single-phase generator operating at a load
factor of 70%, required only 136 generator h/yr to supply 2585 kWh/yr or 7 kWh/day to a typical
secondary school. The renewable energy fraction obtained in all the systems evaluated was in the
range 83–100%. These results show that there is a possibility to increase the access rate to electricity
in the far north province without recourse to grid extension or more thermal plants in the northern
grid or more independent diesel plants supplying power to remote areas of the province.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Rural electrification; Hybrid power systems; Renewable energy fraction

Corresponding author. Tel.: +237 539 0043; fax: +237 344 2449.
E-mail address: em_nfah@yahoo.fr (E.M. Nfah).

0960-1481/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.renene.2006.03.010
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1. Introduction

It is estimated that two billion people in small villages in developing countries currently
lack grid-based electricity service. In many cases, grid extension is impractical because of
dispersed populations, rugged terrain, or both. Thus, small off-grid stand-alone renewable
energy systems represent an important option for narrowing the electricity gap in rural
parts of the developing world, where progress in grid extension remains slower than
population growth [1,2]. Even though these small-scale energy systems generate relatively
little power they can contribute greatly to the quality of life in remote locations in
developing countries [3]. Cavello and Grub stress that 1 kWh of electricity provides 10
times more electricity services in India than in Indiana. They further stated that two small
wind generators, which would supply only two homes with electric heat in the United
States, could pump water for 4000 people in Morocco [4].
In remote villages, far from the grids of many countries, electric energy is usually
supplied by diesel generators or small hydroelectric plants. In most of these cases, the
supply of diesel fuel becomes so expensive that hybrid diesel/photovoltaic generation
becomes competitive with diesel-only generation [5]. Photovoltaic/diesel hybrid systems
have more reliability for electricity production than photovoltaic-only systems, and often
represent the best solution for electrifying remote areas. The diesel generator reduces the
photovoltaic component, while the photovoltaic system decreases the operating time of the
generator, reducing the running costs of the diesel generator [6]. The addition of battery
storage reduces the number of start/stop cycles of diesel generators thus minimising fuel
consumption considerably [7,8].
The utilisation of small-scale off-grid hybrid generation option is not in application yet
in Cameroon, which has 70% of its population in rural areas that are neither grid-
connected nor do they have independent generating plants [9]. The main reason for this is
the reliance on interconnected generation systems based on large-scale hydroelectric
plants, located at Edea and Songloulou in the southern grid, and at Lagdo in the northern
grid. Electrical energy produced by these power stations is supplied to urban and some
rural areas mainly through grid extension. For over ten years now, nationwide power cuts
have adversely affected the economy [10], demonstrating the limits of a centralised
generation system. In 2002, it was reported that only 40% of city dwellers and 2000 villages
out of 30,000 villages in Cameroon had access to electricity. This shows a total access rate
for the country as 11% [11], which is quite low indeed.
To redress the energy crisis specifically in the southern interconnected grid, where low
water volumes in dams during the dry season affect hydroelectric production [11], the
electricity power corporation and the government have embarked on hydrothermal
expansion as proposed by Kenfack et al. [12], while optimal scheduling of large-scale
hydrothermal power systems developed by Ngundam et al. [13] is yet to be implemented.
In spite of the expansion of thermal generation capacities and future development of
hydroelectric installations, many villages will still remain without electricity for many years
due to the limited coverage of the nation by existing electric networks and low rate of grid
extension.
Electricity supplies for these remote villages could be attained through off-grid
renewable energy options that are yet to be considered for parts of Cameroon which
have reasonable solar and/or wind resources. However, some research efforts to encourage
the use of renewable energy have been conducted without institutional support and
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interest. These include the estimation of the solar energy potential of Cameroon [14], the
situation of renewable energies in Cameroon [15], and the assessment of the wind energy
potential in the Adamoua, north and far north provinces of Cameroon [9,16,17]. Tchinda
et al. [17] have evaluated the wind energy potential of selected sites in Northern Cameroon
using a 22 kW wind generator with a cut-in wind speed of 3.5 m/s. The results obtained for
a hypothetical village, comprising 50 households and essential facilities (such as a hospital,
school, and cottage industry) requiring 70 kWh/day, showed that wind energy conversion
systems performed better at Maroua Salak (10128’ N, 14116’ E), than at Garoua (9120’ N,
13123’ E) and Ngaoundere (7117’ N, 13119’ E). In spite of the fact that the wind energy
conversion systems produced 99.5% of the annual village load at Maroua, the capacity
factor of the wind generator was 13.2%. This low value excludes the installation of wind
turbines in this region, leaving solar and biomass resources as the only options for the
development of off-grid power systems. It has been proposed by Tchinda et al. [15] that the
solar energy potential of the southern and northern parts of Cameroon that are 4 and
5.8 kWh/m2/day, respectively, could be exploited in photovoltaic and thermal applications.
Elhadidy [18] confirms this by stating that thousands of photovoltaic deployments exist
worldwide providing power to small, remote, grid-independent or stand-alone applications
in locations with monthly average daily solar insolation level in the range of 3–6 kWh/m2.
The objective of this work is to model solar/diesel/battery hybrid power systems using
the solar resource of Garoua for the electrification of isolated rural households, schools or
small villages in the far north of Cameroon. In this paper, BP solar modules in the range
50–180 W were selected on the basis of the availability of performance data for the
modelling of solar/diesel/battery hybrid power systems that could satisfy the energy needs
of typical low-voltage-grid-connected customers in Cameroon. These systems are expected
to increase the rate of access to electricity in the far-north province, which was 7.1% in
2001, and consequently reduce the incidence of poverty of 56.3% for the area in 2001,
which was the highest in the country [19].

2. Analysis of energy consumption

In Cameroon, there are no proper records of load profiles for remote areas due to low
population densities and low power demand in rural areas. The peak-load demand at
urban and rural distribution transformers that supply electricity to urban and rural
households is often measured during evening hours, when peak power demand is expected.
The basis of this practice has been confirmed by a residential load curve constructed from a
representative sample of households in cities in Cameroon [20]. This load curve was based
on the nature, number and power of appliances owned by urban households, as well as
their operation periods. They found that the need for electrical energy varies according to
the size of the city and household incomes, and that the peak load occurred in the evening.
Since rural households generally have lower incomes than urban households, the load
curve obtained in [20] is not applicable to rural households. Thus, the energy bills of some
low-voltage-grid connected customers in a rural council were used to establish the energy
demand profiles of typical households in Cameroon. From this survey, the energy
consumption of a household of 3 persons living in a two-room apartment was selected for
the classification of the energy demand of typical households. The household uses two
incandescent lamps rated 40 W in two rooms and a fluorescent lamp rated 36 W outdoor as
a security light. The household initially used a radio set and an iron for two years, then
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bought a television set, and finally a digital video player. The annual energy demand
profile of the household for the period 1996–2004 is shown in Fig. 1.
From an analysis of the growth of the energy demand of this household, an increase in
household appliances included three categories for household energy demand:

 low-energy households requiring less than 70 kWh/yr for lighting and radio commu-
nications,
 medium-energy households requiring more than 70 kWh/yr but less than 250 kWh/yr
for lighting, radio communications and television viewing,
 high-energy households requiring more than 300 kWh/yr due to video viewing and other
loads, such as refrigerator, water heaters, electric fans, etc. These additional loads are
used by households that have the means to pay for electricity.

The monthly energy demand of all the participants in the energy survey is shown in
Fig. 2.
From the results of this survey, it was observed that the daily energy demand of a
household that uses electricity only for lighting and powering of a radio set was less than
0.2 kWh/day. Households with television sets required less than 1 kWh/day, while those
with digital video players and refrigerators require about 2 kWh/day. Households with
other equipments, such as water heaters and cable television required about 3 kWh/day.
The only secondary school that participated in the energy survey required about 7 kWh/
day for three administrative offices, a library, and two residences. In spite of the limited
number of households that participated in this survey, it was found that the daily energy
demand of most of the customers was comparatively higher than that obtained in an
extensive energy survey that involved 41 households in Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Region of China. The results obtained by a joint China–US research team found that the

Fig. 1. Annual energy consumption of a typical rural household.

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836 E.M. Nfah et al. / Renewable Energy 32 (2007) 832–844

Fig. 2. Average monthly energy demand of typical low-voltage-grid-connected customers.

daily energy consumption of most households in Inner Mongolia was in the range
0.3–0.6 kWh/day, mainly for lighting, and to power radios and small black and white TV
sets. They also found that the introduction of a small refrigerator raised the daily
consumption of the households to 1.2–1.6 kWh [2]. The main task of the research team was
the design of solar, wind and solar/wind systems that could supply electricity to the
region’s remote herder families. Furthermore, the average electricity demand of a small
hill-tribe village in Thailand comprising 22 households with 140 inhabitants has been
evaluated at 7.928 or 0.36 kWh/day per household [21].

3. Solar energy characterisation

In Cameroon, solar radiation data is measured over hourly intervals by the Laboratory
for Research on Energies, a research unit of the Institute of Geological and Mining
Research under the Ministry of Scientific and Technical Research. The data obtained for
Maroua Salak (10128’N, 141E) located in the far north province did not include the solar
radiation data of two months. However, the solar radiation data for Garoua (9120’ N,
13123’E), located in the north province was complete and could be used to characterise the
solar potential at Maroua since the average annual insolation evaluated from the global
horizontal solar radiation data of 10 months was approximately 2.8% higher than the
average annual insolation of Garoua. The global horizontal solar radiation of Garoua was
measured at hourly intervals from 6:00 to 18.00.
Since the hourly output of photovoltaic modules depends on the tilt angle and
orientation of the solar modules, formulae from Hay’s anisotropic model [22] were used to
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compute solar radiation on south-facing and tilted solar modules from measured global
horizontal solar radiation. The annual hourly solar radiation computed for solar modules
tilted at the latitude and latitude +101 are shown in Fig. 3, together with the annual hourly
global horizontal radiation of Garoua. In Fig. 3, the solar radiation on latitude-tilted
panels is higher than that on horizontally placed panels. It was found that the average
monthly insolation of Garoua on the horizontal plane was in the range 4.6–6.1 kWh/m2/day,
while the monthly insolation on latitude-tilted modules was in the range 4.61–6.33 kWh/day.
Thus, the average monthly solar radiation on latitude-tilted and south-facing panels was
preferred for the computation of the energy production of selected solar modules.
The average monthly energy production of the selected PV modules was computed using
the relationship
Z 18
W ðkÞ ¼ F c F o dðkÞ I pv ðtÞ  V pv ðtÞdt; (1)
t¼6

where W(k) is the energy generated by the PV module in the kth month, Fc is the factor
representing connection loss, Fo is the coefficient representing power loss caused by other
factors, d(k) is the number of days in the kth month, Ipv(t) the optimum operating-point
current of PV module at the tth hour, and Vpv(t) is the optimum operating-point voltage of
PV module at the tth hour. Assuming that maximum-power-point tracker (MPPT) is used
and that the PV module is always working at the maximum-power point, the formulae for
calculating the optimum operating-point current and voltage under arbitrary conditions

Fig. 3. Annual hourly solar radiation for Garoua on horizontal and tilted modules.
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838 E.M. Nfah et al. / Renewable Energy 32 (2007) 832–844

presented in [22] can be rewritten in the following forms:

      
V mp E tt ðtÞ
I pv ðtÞ ¼ I sc 1  C 1 exp 1 þ ½aðT a ðtÞ þ 0:002E tt ðtÞÞ þ 1  I sc ,
C 2 V oc E st
(2)
  
E tt ðtÞ
V pv ðtÞ ¼ V mp 1 þ 0:0539 log þ bðT a ðtÞ þ 0:02E tt ðtÞÞ, (3)
E st
with


C 1 ¼ 1  I mp =I sc exp V mp =ðC 2 V oc Þ , (4)

V mp =V oc  1
C2 ¼  , (5)
ln 1  I mp =I sc
where Isc is the short-circuit current of the module, Vmp is the maximum-power voltage of
the module, Voc is the open-circuit voltage of the module, Imp is the maximum-power
current of the module, Ett total solar radiation on tilted panel, Est is standard solar
radiation (1000 W/m2), a is the current temperature coefficient of the module, b is the
voltage temperature coefficient of the module, and Ta is the ambient temperature at
arbitrary conditions. The annual hourly temperatures to which solar modules are subjected
to at Garoua are shown in Fig. 4. These temperatures were obtained from monthly hourly
temperatures of Garoua measured at 10 m. It is observed in Fig. 4 that the annual
temperatures are in the range 19.6–32.7 1C for the period during which solar radiation is
available for Garoua. The monthly hourly temperatures were used in the computation of
the hourly power output of the selected solar modules.

Fig. 4. Average annual daily temperatures of Garoua at height of 10 m.

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To compute the hourly output of selected solar modules, the electrical and physical
parameters obtained from the manufacturer have been summarised in Table 1. In Table 1,
MD represents the model of the selected module, Vn the nominal output voltage of a
module, A the surface area of the module, and Z the efficiency of the module. Using
manufacturer’s data for selected solar modules, solar radiation calculated for south-facing
and latitude-titled surfaces, and the monthly hourly temperature of Garoua, the hourly
output of selected solar modules was computed. The monthly energy output obtained by
integration of the daily power output of the selected solar modules is shown in Table 2 and
Fig. 5. It is observed in Table 2 that the annual energy production of the latitude-tilted and
south-facing solar modules is in the range 78.5–315.2 kWh.
From these results, it was found that the annual energy produced by a 50 Wp BP solar
module was sufficient for remote households that require less than 70 kWh/yr for lighting
and radio communications. Medium-energy households requiring less than 250 kWh/yr
could be powered with 150 Wp BP solar modules, while high-energy households requiring
more than 300 kWh/yr could be powered with two or more BP solar modules in the range
125–180 Wp.

Table 1
Data of some selected BP solar modules

MD BP350 BP375 BP380 BP785 BP790 BP3125 BP3150 BP3175 BP3180

Pmp (W) 50 75 80 85 90 125 150 175 180

Vmp (V) 17.3 17.3 17.6 17.9 18.1 17.6 34.5 36 36.2
Imp (V) 2.89 4.35 4.55 4.8 5.0 7.1 4.35 4.9 5.0
Isc (A) 3.17 4.75 4.8 5.2 5.4 7.54 4.75 5.3 5.4
Voc (V) 21.8 21.8 22.1 22.1 22.4 22.1 43.5 44.4 44.8
a (A/1C) 0.00065 0.00065 0.00065 0.00065 0.00065 0.00065 0.00065 0.00065 0.00065
b (V/1C) 0.080 0.080 0.080 0.080 0.080 0.080 0.080 0.080 0.080
Vn (V) 12 12 12 12 12 12 24 24 24
Z 0.111 0.118 0.126 0.131 0.139 0.124 0.12 0.139 0.143
A (m2) 0.451 0.649 0.649 0.650 0.650 1.018 1.259 1.259 1.259

Table 2
Monthly energy production of some selected BP solar modules

MD BP350 BP375 BP380 BP785 BP790 BP3125 BP3150 BP3175 BP3180

January 5.3 7.9 8.9 9.2 9.7 13.7 17.0 20.2 20.8
February 7.0 10.5 11.6 12.2 12.9 18.0 22.9 27.2 28.0
March 7.2 10.8 11.9 12.5 13.2 18.4 23.8 28.3 29.1
April 7.3 11.0 12.1 12.8 13.5 18.8 24.3 28.9 29.7
May 7.3 11.0 12.2 12.8 13.5 18.8 24.3 28.9 29.7
June 6.6 9.9 11.0 11.5 12.2 17.0 21.7 25.9 26.6
July 5.8 8.8 9.8 10.2 10.8 15.1 18.9 22.7 23.3
August 6.3 9.5 10.6 11.0 11.6 16.3 20.5 24.5 25.2
September 6.6 10.0 11.0 11.5 12.2 17.0 21.7 25.8 26.5
October 6.6 10.0 11.0 11.5 12.2 17.0 21.7 25.8 26.5
November 6.4 9.6 10.6 11.1 11.8 16.4 20.9 24.9 25.6
December 6.1 9.1 10.1 10.5 11.2 15.6 19.8 23.5 24.2
Annual 78.5 118.1 130.8 136.8 144.8 202.1 257.5 306.6 315.2
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Fig. 5. Average monthly energy production of selected BP solar modules.

4. Solar/diesel/battery hybrid system

To attenuate shortfalls in energy production during periods of poor sunshine,

photovoltaic systems require a backup diesel generator for increased system availability
and minimum storage requirements. In the systems considered, the AC-coupled modular
expandable hybrid system concept [21] was adopted. In this concept, all generators and
loads are connected to a common AC bus. Photovoltaic arrays and battery banks are
connected in series with string and battery inverters, respectively, to the AC bus, while the
diesel generator is directly coupled to it. The direct coupling of the diesel generator
necessitates that the generator be sized to meet the peak-load demand.
To evaluate the contribution of the backup diesel generator to total production, the
hours of generator operation were computed using the energy deficit per month, the rated
power of the diesel generator selected, and a generator load factor. It is assumed here that
the generator operates at a constant load factor during hours of operation. To create the
optimum solar/diesel/battery hybrid system for each customer, a number of photovoltaic
modules are selected based on their daily energy production and the daily energy demand
of the customer.
The annual number of generator hours required in the solar/diesel/battery system can be
computed by the relation
"  #
X12 
DðkÞ  N pvp N pvs Zmppt Zstri W ðkÞ
h ¼ int   , (6)
 qPg 
k¼1
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with Npvp the minimum parallel connection number of PV module strings given by
  
DðkÞ=Zstri Zmppt
N pvp ¼ max int (7)
N pvs W ðkÞ
and Npvs the serial connection number of PV modules defined by
N pvs ¼ V op =V np , (8)
where h is the number of generator hours required per year, D(k) is the energy demand in
the kth month, Zstri is the efficiency of the string inverter, Zmppt is the efficiency of MPPT,
Vop is the operating voltage of the PV array, Vnb the nominal output voltage of PV
module, q is the load factor of the diesel generator, and Pg is the power rating of the
selected diesel generator.
The expression for the computation of the minimum parallel connection number of
battery cell strings in a battery bank that can provide autonomy for a desired number of
days is of the form
" !#
d X12 X12
N bp ¼ int DðkÞ= dðkÞ , (9)
N bs C batt DODZdch Zinv k¼1 k¼1

with
N bs ¼ V ob =V nb , (10)
where Nbp is the minimum parallel connection number of battery cell strings, d is the
number of days of autonomy, Nbs is the serial connection number of battery cells, Cbatt is
the nominal capacity of battery cell, DOD is the maximum depth of discharge of the
battery bank, Zdch is the discharge efficiency of battery bank, Zinv is the efficiency of
battery inverter, Vob is operating voltage of battery bank, and Vnb is the nominal output
voltage of battery cell. In this paper, the efficiencies of the string and battery inverters are
assumed to be 0.90, while the discharge efficiency of the battery bank and the efficiency of
the MPPT are 0.85 and 0.99, respectively. A 50% maximum depth of discharge was chosen
for the battery bank with a nominal output of 24 V. These values have been used by other
authors [6,21,22]. In accordance with the results obtained by Muselli et al. [6], two days of
autonomy were used.
Since the minimum power rating for low-voltage (single-phase, 220 V, 50 Hz) grid-
connected households in Cameroon is 2.2 kW, two diesel generators rated 2.5 and 5 kW
were considered in the generator database of the code that was written in Matlab. The
diesel generators are selected based on the daily energy demand of the customer and the
number of solar modules that would produce renewable energy fraction of at least 80% in
the solar/diesel/battery hybrid power system. In this simulation, the desired renewable
energy fractions were obtained with a maximum of 8 solar modules in the photovoltaic
arrays with a nominal output voltage of 24 V. The annual hours of diesel generator
operation required in the solar/diesel/battery hybrid power systems for the customers
shown in Fig. 2 were computed using a generator load factor of at least 70%, as proposed
by Newnham and Baldsing [23] for generators less than 12 kW.The generator operating
hours and the energy generation of the backup generator in the solar/diesel/battery system
are shown in Table 3. Table 3 also includes the number of batteries and the battery bank
capacity for two days of autonomy computed for each customer. The battery bank was
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Table 3
Generator generation, generator hours and renewable fraction in solar/diesel/battery hybrid power system

C Pmp m Ppv Pr n Cbank D Epv h Eg E RF

1 50 2 100 2.5 0 0 65.1 140.6 0 0.0 140.6 1.00

2 125 2 250 2.5 4 5.4 246.5 360.7 0 0.0 360.7 1.00
3 125 2 250 2.5 4 5.4 256.7 360.7 7 12.3 373.0 0.97
4 175 2 350 2.5 4 5.4 314.7 546.7 0 0.0 546.7 1.00
5 180 3 540 2.5 4 5.4 607.9 843.0 0 0.0 843.0 1.00
6 180 5 900 2.5 8 10.8 1079.9 1405.0 1 1.8 1406.8 1.00
7 180 8 1440 5.0 20 27.0 2027.2 2247.3 23 80.5 2327.8 0.97
8 180 8 1440 5.0 24 32.4 2585.1 2247.3 136 476.0 2723.3 0.83

formed using Trojan T-105 deep-cycle battery with a rated battery voltage of 6 V and a
battery capacity of 225 A at the 20-h rate.
In Table 3, C is the customer number, Pmp is the peak power of selected solar module, m
is the number of selected solar modules, Ppv is the peak power of photovoltaic array, n is
the number of battery cells in battery bank, Cbank is the battery bank capacity, D is the
annual energy demand of customer, Epv is the annual energy production of solar array, h is
the annual hours of generator operation, Eg is the annual energy production of selected
diesel generator, E is the total annual energy production of solar modules and diesel
generator, and RF is the renewable energy fraction in the hybrid system.
It is observed in Table 3 that a 100 Wp solar array without battery storage can be used
by households with an annual energy demand less than 70 kWh. Households with annual
energy demand in the range 245–600 kWh can be powered with solar/diesel/battery hybrid
systems consisting of a solar array in the range 250–540 Wp, 5.4 kWh battery storage and a
2.5 kW diesel generator that can be used for at most 7 h/yr. Households with an annual
energy demand up to 1000 kWh required a 900 Wp solar array, 10.8 kWh battery storage
and a 2.5 kW diesel generator that can be operated only for 1 h/yr. It is observed in Table 3
that a 1440 Wp solar array with 32.4 kWh battery storage and a 5 kW diesel generator
could meet annual energy needs in the range 2027–2585 kWh with generator hours in the
range 23–136 h/yr. The renewable energy fraction attained in the different configurations
of the solar/diesel/battery system was in the range 83–100% depending on the size of diesel
generator that was selected. It is observed in Table 3 that the solar/diesel/battery hybrid
power system for the secondary school requires the generator to operate only for 136 h/yr.
The results obtained are comparable with those obtained with hybrid systems that were
evaluated using the wind and solar resources of Inner Mongolia. It was found in [2] that
small wind/solar hybrids comprising a 300 W wind turbine and a 35 Wp or 60 Wp solar
module could satisfy annual energy demands in the range 400–750 kWh, while large wind/
solar hybrids consisting of a 300 W wind turbine and a 100 W or 120 W solar array could
meet annual energy demands in the range of 560–870 kWh. The maximum installed
capacity obtained in the small and the large wind/solar hybrids for Inner Mongolia were
360 and 420 Wp, respectively. It is observed in Table 3 that the annual energy demand of
the fourth customer could be supplied by the large hybrids evaluated for Inner Mongolia.
The solar/diesel/battery hybrid evaluated for this customer consists of a 350 Wp solar
array and a 2.5 kW diesel generator that is not used. The installed photovoltaic capacity
for this household is slightly less than the maximum capacity of the large wind/solar hybrid
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power systems evaluated for households in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region due to
the high solar resource that is received by latitude-tilted and south-facing modules at
Garoua. Furthermore, the renewable energy fraction obtained in the solar/diesel/battery
system for the secondary school is higher than that of the hill-tribe village in Thailand that
uses a 1950 Wp solar array, a 5 kW diesel generator and 20 kWh of battery storage [21].
The difference in the renewable energy fractions can be explained by the lower solar
insolation of 4.91 kWh/m2/day [21] that is received by the hill-tribe village in Thailand.
This comparative analysis shows that the solar potential of Garoua and other locations
in the far north province could be used by solar/diesel/battery hybrid powers systems to
supply electricity to remote herder families, rural schools and clinics where the annual solar
insolation values are greater than those measured at Garoua.

5. Results and discussion

An important element of a hybrid power system is the load/demand profile which is

application dependent. In the absence of hourly load profiles for remote areas in
Cameroon, the monthly energy consumptions of some typical rural low-voltage-grid-
connected customers were used to simulate energy demand in the far north province. A
typical load profile for rural households equipped with a television set is shown in Fig. 1.
To model hybrid power systems for different energy demands, the solar resource for
Garoua and manufacturer’s data for some selected BP solar modules was used to compute
the monthly energy production of latitude-tilted and south-facing solar modules. A
computer program written in Matlab computes the number of solar modules in the solar/
diesel/battery hybrid power system based on the daily energy production of solar modules
available in a solar module database and the maximum number of modules that would
result in a renewable energy fraction of at least 80%. In this simulation, the desired
renewable fraction was obtained with a maximum of eight modules. The 2.5 kW diesel
generator was selected if the number of modules computed was less than eight, otherwise
the 5 kW diesel generator was chosen. The diesel generator selected supplied the energy
deficit each month at a load factor of 70% as proposed in [23].
It was found that households with annual energy demand up to 300 kWh could be
powered with a 350 Wp solar module, 5.4 kWh battery bank and a 2.5 kW diesel generator,
while annual loads up to 1000 kWh required a 900 Wp photovoltaic array, 10.8 kWh and a
2.5 kW diesel generator. For annual loads up to 2585 kWh, a 1440 Wp solar array,
32.4 kWh battery storage and a 5 kW diesel generator were required for 136 h/yr. The
renewable energy fraction in all the solar/diesel/battery hybrid power systems that were
evaluated was found to be in the range 83–100%.

6. Conclusion

It has been demonstrated that the solar resource of Garoua can be used to model solar/
diesel/battery hybrid power systems for the electrification of typical rural households and a
secondary school with energy demands in the range 70–2585 kWh/yr. These results show
that there is a possibility to increase the access rate to electricity in the far north without
recourse to grid extension or more thermal plants in the northern grid or more independent
diesel plants supplying power to remote areas of the province. However, the hourly state of
charge of the battery bank that determines the number of start/stop cycles of the diesel
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generator was not computed due to the lack of hourly load profiles. Also, the unit cost of
energy produced by the modelled systems has not been computed. An economic analysis of
power supply options involving grid extension, a conventional diesel generator plant, and
solar/diesel/battery hybrid power system is yet to be done to encourage the use the solar/
diesel/battery hybrid power systems that have been modelled in this paper for far north
Cameroon.

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