THE VIABILITY OF SOLAR/MICRO HYDRO HYBRID POWER GENERATION FOR SELECTED RURAL SITE OF ETHIOPIA

Currently in Ethiopia from the total population, more than 80 % live in rural areas. Among them, the accessibility of electric power is less than 2%. The lack of electric power in rural area is significantly affecting day to day life, health and economic development of people. To resolve the problem, this thesis studied the viability of solar/ micro-hydro hybrid power generation for selected rural site of Ethiopia.
The selected rural sites are Abrajit dam site, Bete-Meskel and Kesham sites. Depending on since in Abrajit dam site there is available of micro earth dam as well as all sites have a huge amount of both solar and hydropower energy resources. The viability study is done through collecting necessary data, estimated load demand then the energy potential is assessed using analytical method, analyzed, and simulate with the help of Hybrid Optimization modeling for Electric Renewable (HOMER) software.
The input data for micro hydropower is collected through direct measurement at the site as well as the flow rate data from Ethiopian Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE).in addition the solar radiation data was collected from National Meteorological Agency of Ethiopia, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and analytically calculated for comparison. The total daily load demand is 261.09 kWh/d, 266.048 kWh/d, 245.31 kWh/day, the micro-hydro power potential was estimated to be 19.62 kW, 15.69 kW and 4.42 kW respectively and there is 6.4 kWh/m2/day solar resources available.