-
Community load input
- Several typical standardized demand profiles have been developed from roughly 3600 energy appliance
- ownership and usage surveys that were conducted across Nigeria in 2020 in 3 prioritized geopolitical zones.
- Survey details can be found in the following publication:
-
PeopleSuN (2023) Electricity supply quality and
- use among rural and peri-urban households and small firms in Nigeria
- Since the toolbox uses standardized demand profiles from electrified regions, the aggregated demand estimated in this
- step is assumed to be able to cover future demand, and thus does not include a growth factor over time. To address concerns regarding
- system oversizing, the household coverage parameter was introduced
- In this step, the user should input all households, enterprises and public facilities present in the community.
- All enterprise load profiles only include typical low power appliances in their respective demand profiles. As such,
- if machinery responsible for large loads should be included, this needs to be done separately by adding "Machinery"
- consumers to the list. As such, the user filling out the community demand should not only have information about
- the general community size and consumers, but also about specific large load related to existing enterprises. If a
- specific demand profile is not found on the list, the user may default to the generic load profiles included in the list.
-
SHS Threshold
- Typically, not all households would be connected to the mini-grid. Instead, for households for which the grid connection
- cost is too high, a Solar Home System might provide a more feasible alternative. Normally, both spatial distribution
- and estimated demand play a part in defining these households. Since the spatial component is not included in this
- toolbox, households can instead be excluded from the simulation based on their estimated demand. By default,
- all households assumed to belong to the "Very Low Consumption" tier are assumed to be served by Solar Home Systems
- instead. For the toolbox, this means that the demand belonging to these households is not included when sizing the mini-grid.
- By de-selecting the "Served by SHS" trace in the given graph, the total demand used to size the mini-grid can be seen.
- If the SHS Threshold is set to the highest demand tier, the demand is equivalent to only considering enterprises and public facilities.
+
General Information
+
+ Several typical standardized demand profiles have been developed from roughly 3600 energy appliance
+ ownership and usage surveys that were conducted across Nigeria in 2020 in 3 prioritized geopolitical zones.
+ Survey details can be found in the following publication:
+ PeopleSuN (2023) Electricity supply quality and
+ use among rural and peri-urban households and small firms in Nigeria. Within this toolbox, the standardized
+ load profiles are aggregated based on user input to create an estimated demand profile for the community. To construct
+ this profile, you should have information about households, public facilities and enterprises (including specific machinery) available.
+
+
+
+ Households:
+
+
+ Enterprises: Please input the enterprises in the community.
+ The standardized demand profiles for enterprises only include typical low power appliances. If the enterprise
+ employs high power appliances, these should be added separately by adding additional consumers with the
+ Consumer Type "Machinery". If a specific demand profile is not found,
+ you may default to the generic load profiles included in the list.
+
+
+
+ Example: The community has a car repair shop. Apart from basic appliances, such as lighting, the shop
+ also has a welder and two angle grinders. For this, three consumer groups need to be input:
+
+
+
+ - Enterprise - Trades_Car or Motorbike Repair - 1
+ - Machinery - Welder - 1
+ - Machinery - Angle Grinder - 2
+
+
+ Public facilities: Please input the public facilities in the community. If a
+ specific demand profile is not found, you may default to the generic load profiles included in the list.
+
+
Adding consumers
+
+ To add a consumer, first select its Consumer Type from the drop-down menu. The possible
+ consumer types are Household, Public facility, Enterprise and Machinery. After selecting the consumer type,
+ you can select the specific Demand Profile from the next drop-down menu. Finally,
+ you can input the number of consumers.
+
+ Example: The community has three restaurants. First, we select "Enterprise" from the Consumer Type menu.
+
+
+ 
+
+
Next, we select "Food_Restaurant" from the Demand Profile menu.
+
+ 
+
+
+ Finally, we input the number "3" in the Nr. of consumers field.
+
+ 
+
+
+ To add more consumer groups, we click on the Add Consumer Group button.
+
+
+ 
+
+
+
Advanced Options
+
+ Since the toolbox uses standardized demand profiles from electrified regions, the aggregated demand estimated in this
+ step is assumed to be able to cover future demand, and thus does not include a growth factor over time. To address concerns regarding
+ system oversizing, two advanced options are available.
+
+
+ Threshold for SHS users:
+ Typically, not all households would be connected to the mini-grid. Instead, a Solar Home System might provide a
+ more feasible alternative for households where the grid connection
+ cost would be too high. Normally, both spatial distribution
+ and estimated demand play a part in defining these households. Since the spatial component is not included in this
+ toolbox, households can instead be excluded from the simulation based on their estimated demand. By default,
+ all households assumed to belong to the "Very Low Consumption" tier are assumed to be served by Solar Home Systems
+ instead. For the toolbox, this means that the demand belonging to these households is not included when sizing the mini-grid.
+ If the SHS Threshold is set to the highest demand tier, the demand is equivalent to only considering enterprises and public facilities.
+
When changing the Solar Home Threshold, the corresponding demand is displayed as hashed in the demand graph.
+ By de-selecting the "Served by SHS" trace in the graph legend, the demand to be covered by the mini-grid can be displayed.
+
+
+ Minimal percentage of demand to fulfill:
+ To avoid oversizing the mini-grid, it may make sense to size a system to only reliably satisfy a percentage of the future demand.
+ The percentage given in this factor indicates what percentage of the household demand should be satisfied by the mini-grid.
+ Demand from enterprises and facilities is always 100% satisfied.
+
+
+
+ Example: The community has been added into the tool represented by its consumer groups. To simulate
+ an alternative system, we want to consider a mini-grid that only consumers with a Middle Consumption Estimate
+ or higher will be connected to. Additionally, we want to size the initial system to only
+ satisfy 80% of the estimated demand. To accomplish this:
- Household demand coverage
- To avoid oversizing the mini-grid, it can sometimes be helpful to size a system not according to the total demand
- (which in the case of this toolbox represents future demand), but to only reliably satisfy a percentage of the total demand.
- The percentage given in this factor indicates what percentage of the household demand should be able to be satisfied by the mini-grid.
- Demand from enterprises and facilities is always 100% satisfied.
+
+
+
+ - We set the Threshold for SHS users to "Middle Consumption Estimate"
+ - We set the Minimal percentage of demand to fulfill to 80%
+
