Techno-economic assessment of off-grid PV systems in Eritrean buildings : A case study about apartment buildings in Asmara

Abstract: Eritrea is experiencing difficulties as a result of its low rate of electricity, together with its expanding population and the significance of green energy in today's world. Due to poor infrastructure and capacity, Asmara's electricity grid is well known for being unreliable, with frequent power outages and load shedding. Due to its location in an area with high solar irradiance, Asmara has a lot of potential for PV. Using a reference hotel building that is based on a case study of a current construction project in the capital Asmara, this thesis has chosen to analyze if implementing PV systems with storage can produce sustainable electricity for residential homes in Asmara. Through a study visit to the current construction project, a load profile is designed. The reference hotel building's 96 apartments had an average daily energy consumption of 1828 kWh and a peak power demand of 207 kW based on the designed load profile. The PV system results showed that none of the PV systems was feasible or economical to implement on the reference hotel building. The PV-hydrogen system required less inverter capacity than the PV-battery system, however the PV-battery system was less expensive and needed less installed PV capacity. The COE for the PV-battery and PV-hydrogen systems was 580 respectively 226 times bigger than Eritrea's existing COE, which is not feasible from an economic standpoint. Additionally, both systems' installed PV capacities were greater than the maximum possible capacity on the reference hotel building.