Abstract:
Substantial proportions of the world’s poor live in remote areas that are geographically isolated and are often sparsely populated or have a comparably low electricity demand to justify the extension of the main electricity grid. Botswana with an average national electrification rate of 65.4% and 58.6% in rural areas as per December 2018 is no exception. Against this background, renewable energy is identified as a key enabler for increasing physical access to electricity to off-grid communities. The government of Botswana through its Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) action and its Vision 2036 intends to increase the use of renewable energy sources for electrification purposes in Botswana with a mainstream to solar energy.
The core of a solar energy project for rural electrification is an energy requirement analysis which is critical for purposes of site selection, sizing and scaling of a solar-photovoltaic (PV) system. This paper conducts an energy requirement analysis of the unelectrified off-grid village called in the Central District of Botswana. The gained knowledge forms a basis to accommodate the load demands of the village I the course of the development of a PV micro-grid. The analysis at hand is based on the estimated daily load demand of government premises, commercial premises and residential buildings. Residential buildings were categorised into low-income, middle-income and high-income household as the amount of energy consumption is assumed to correlate with the disposable income. The user’s basic energy need and their daily energy usage was obtained through a preliminary in-situ energy demand survey characterised by questionnaires, verbal interviews and on-site visits to the village. An aggregate load requirement profile for the community is derived from daily load profiles of the individual users. Hence, the total electricity demand of the community has been established to be 174kWh with a peak load and average demand of 16kW and 8kW respectively.