Terence Goh
National University of Singapore, Singapore
Title: Microgrid Configuration for Bankability
Biography
Biography: Terence Goh
Abstract
The project team conducted a site visit following the review of information provided by the customer to conclude a particular location as the preferred site for the first development of solar power plant on an island in the Philippines. This was concluded based on the assessment of four potential sites visited previously, taking into consideration energy reliability, future demand trend, generation capital and O&M cost, and tax and tariff structure as the evaluation criteria for bankability. The solar Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) was significantly lower for the recommended site compared to the other sites for a plant size up to 8MW over a span of 25 years.
Based on the preferred location, a preliminary solar energy production assessment (EPA) using a representative block of 1 MWDC ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV) plant was conducted, to generate a site-specific, hourly time series energy production profile. The technical modelling assumptions for the EPA was a 1 MWp system of polycrystalline silicon (p-Si) PV modules installed in 3 rows, connected to either one 880 kW central inverter (configuration C1) or forty 20 kW string inverter (configuration C2). Based on the high level long-term global horizontal irradiance (GHI) assessment conducted by the team.
The team performed an exhaustive simulation that covered a wide range of energy configurations – over 50 combinations of Solar / Bunker / Energy storage – over a lifespan of 25 years. Simulation inputs were based on demand load trends, the local power supply agreement (PSA) as well as carefully taking into account customers’ comments and their feedback.
The simulation study found that it is economically favourable to first install a 5MW solar farm that is progressively upgraded at 0.5MW per annum until the total power generation reaches 8MW so as to achieve the client’s targets of a minimum 16% IRR and an electricity tariff of 11.2295 PhP/kWhr. Based on the load profile of all the 4 feeders in the island and information provided for the 3 HFO low-speed generators and other information provided by the client multiple configurations of energy mixes were simulated.