Abstract
The study investigates a bottom-up concept for microgrids. A financial analysis is performed through a business model approach to test for viability when replacing a researched energy expenditure baseline in Bangladesh. A case study of Bangladesh illustrates the potential for building on the existing infrastructure base of solar home systems. Opportunities are identified to improve access to reliable energy through a microgrid approach that aims at community-driven economic and infrastructure development. Network effects are generated through the inclusion of localized economies with strong producer-consumer linkages embedded within larger systems of trade and exchange. The analyzed approach involves the linkage of individual stand-alone energy systems to form a microgrid that can eventually interconnect with national or regional grids. The approach is linked to the concept of swarm intelligence, where each individual node brings independent input to create a conglomerate of value greater than the sum of its parts.
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Notes
- 1.
40 % loss consisting of 20 % due to battery conversion losses, 13 % due to temperature and maximum power point mismatch, 5 % due to maintenance interruptions and 2 % due to cabling losses (Kirchhoff 2014).
- 2.
Underlying data from Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Development (RERED) II Project Report from the World Bank 2012.
- 3.
Values based on ten year historical data of the Bangladeshi SHS program.
- 4.
This is higher than in the economic analysis in Fig. 1.3 (30 %), as well as that the purchaser consumes now 40 Wh (instead of 20 Wh per day). This is in line with a trend where excess energy will tend to increase due to appliances with higher efficiency built into existing systems as well as consumption will.
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Acknowledgments
A previous version of this study was presented at the MES-BREG 2014 Conference Innovating Energy Access for Remote Areas: Discovering untapped resources in Berkeley, California, in April 2014. Thank you to all participants who provided valuable feedback. You all contributed to the improvement of this study. We thank Hans-Böckler Foundation for their continuous financial support of the Postgraduate School Microenergy Systems. We thank Raluca Dumitrescu and Daniel Ciganovic from MicroEnergy International for their support in the financial analysis.
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Groh, S., Philipp, D., Lasch, B.E., Kirchhoff, H. (2015). Swarm Electrification: Investigating a Paradigm Shift Through the Building of Microgrids Bottom-up. In: Groh, S., van der Straeten, J., Edlefsen Lasch, B., Gershenson, D., Leal Filho, W., Kammen, D. (eds) Decentralized Solutions for Developing Economies. Springer Proceedings in Energy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15964-5_1
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