Market Potentials for Hybridization of Diesel-Grids on Islands with Renewable Energies

Due to the dramatic cost decline of photovoltaic (PV) modules in recent years, hybridization concepts for diesel grids become increasingly interesting from an economic point of view.Energy systems based on diesel generators and oil-based power plants experience high economic pressure due to increasing prices for diesel and oil. This applies to islands especially, where electricity generation is mostly based on diesel and oil. Since the fraction of renewable energies on islands is generally very low, they represent a large and economically interesting market that is presently barely developed. Solar technologies combined with wind turbines and battery systems allow energy supply scenarios with high fractions of renewables. The project aims to identify most interesting sites for the hybridization of diesel grids.

The principal goal of the study is creating a ranking of the economically most attractive islands, thus establishing a lead-list for a systematic market entry by Hanwha SolarOne. The basis for the analysis is a spatially resolved data set for population density and spatially and temporally resolved data sets for the two most essential resources: solar irradiation and wind speed. For this study all islands with more than 1.000 inhabitants, no connection to major electricity grids and no base load power plants are considered.