Creating Resilient Sustainable Microgrids through Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems

普遍获得负担得起的现代清洁能源是联合国可持续发展目标（SDG）的目标7。可持续发展目标指出：“能源是当今世界面临的几乎所有重大挑战和机遇的核心。无论是就业、安全、气候变化、粮食生产还是增加收入，人人获得能源都至关重要。"在撒哈拉以南非洲，超过6.25亿人无法获得现代能源服务。大多数非洲国家（总共42个）是净能源进口国，化石燃料发电厂占总发电量的81%，其中大部分在南非。大多数大型基础设施项目是由国家预算供资的公共投资。将非洲能源基础设施提高到现代标准的估计成本为每年930亿美元。在非洲和其他发展中国家，能源供应与需求之间存在着巨大差距，连续的努力都未能弥合这一差距。所设想的整体混合MG将为离网地点创建可持续和弹性配电网络提供原型模型。这种方法有可能使数百万家庭电气化。坦桑尼亚和乌干达都是低收入的"最不发达"国家，农村贫困程度高，电网连接非常有限。刚果共和国因其丰富的矿产资源而被归类为中低收入国家，但其远离城市的电网连通性较低，其研究部门在研究能力建设方面投资不足。我们的非洲项目伙伴建议这一规模是实施的实际最佳规模。该研究采用了一种综合方法，以确保系统的设计是可维护的，具有良好的寿命和低成本，满足不同的社区能源需求，并能抵御自然灾害。总体目标是在坦桑尼亚、乌干达和刚果共和国等中低收入国家的农村社区发展可持续和有弹性的能源分配网络，目前这些国家最多只有10%的农村人口能用上电。我们将通过设计一个可扩展的低成本MG基础设施来实现这一目标，该基础设施基于一种新颖的规划方法，该方法在系统设计阶段结合了实时运营策略和可持续发电的灵活性，以降低投资要求并提高可持续性。MG范式将确保研究成果也适用于零星电网连接的社区。在PI的五年120万英镑皇家学会可再生能源能力建设项目创建的现有合作伙伴关系平台的基础上，目前的赠款将使我们能够实现并实验验证一个独特的综合设计平台，该平台将电网要求与混合可再生能源发电源以及社会经济和当地社区驱动的考虑因素相结合。这种整体方法是基于这样一种认识，即建立一个真正可持续、可靠和当地可维护的能源分配基础设施需要关注实际需求和当地现实，而不仅仅是纯粹的电力角度。这将提供创新的配电系统配置，旨在支持我们三个伙伴国家农村社区的可扩展和自我可持续的电气化。由EPSRC全球挑战研究项目的合作伙伴组成的顾问小组将确保研究结果也适用于全球的LMIC。

Universal access to affordable modern clean energy is goal 7 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs state that "Energy is central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today. Be it for jobs, security, climate change, food production or increasing incomes, access to energy for all is essential." In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 625 million people have no access to modern energy services. Most African countries - 42 in all - are net energy importers and fossil-fuel-fired plants account for 81% of total electricity generation, which is mostly in South Africa. Most large infrastructure projects are public investments financed by national budgets. The estimated cost of bringing Africa's energy infrastructure to modern standard is 93 billion USD/ year. There is a huge gap between energy supply and demand in Africa, and other developing countries, that successive efforts have failed to bridge. The envisioned holistic hybrid MGs will lead to a prototype model for the creation of sustainable and resilient distribution networks for off-grid locations. This approach has the potential to enable electrification of millions of households. Both Tanzania and Uganda are low income 'least developed' countries with a high level of rural poverty and very limited grid connectivity. The Republic of Congo is classed as a lower middle income country due to its mineral wealth, but has low grid connectivity away from cities and its research sector suffers from under-investment in research capacity buildingThis proposal focuses on energy distribution in off-grid communities with a population of around 4000 inhabitants, a size that has been recommended by our African project partners as being the practical optimum for implementation. The research has an integrated approach to ensure that the design of the system is maintainable, has good longevity with low cost, meets diverse community energy needs and is resilient to natural hazards. The overall goal is to enable the development of sustainable and resilient energy distribution grids in rural communities of the low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) Tanzania, Uganda and Republic of the Congo, where currently at most 10% of the rural population has access to electricity. We will achieve this by designing a scalable low-cost MG infrastructure based on a novel planning methodology that incorporates real-time operational strategies and sustainable generation flexibility at the system design stage to reduce the investment requirements and increase sustainability. The MG paradigm will ensure that the research outcomes are also applicable to communities with sporadic grid connections. Building on the existing partnership platform created by the PI's five year £1.2M Royal Society renewable energy capacity building project, the present grant will enable us to realise and experimentally validate a unique, integrated, design platform that incorporates electrical network requirements with hybrid renewable energy generation sources as well as socio-economic and local community-driven considerations. This holistic approach is driven by the understanding that the creation of a truly sustainable, reliable, and locally maintainable energy distribution infrastructure needs to be focused on actual needs and local realities, beyond a purely electrical perspective. This will provide innovative distribution system configurations targeted at supporting the scalable and self-sustainable electrification of rural communities in our three partner countries. An advisory panel drawn from partners of our EPSRC Pump Priming for Global Challenge Research project will ensure that the results are also applicable to LMICs globally.