COST OF ELECTRICITY GENERATED AND FUEL SAVING OF AN OPTIMIZED WIND-DIESEL ELECTRICITY SUPPLY FOR VILLAGE IN TANGIER-AREA (MOROCCO)

In several of the remote areas of Morocco, diesel generators are used to provide electrical power. Such systems are often characterized by p oor efficiency and high maintenance costs. The integration of wind tur bine with a diesel/battery hybrid system is becoming cost-effective in windy locations. In previous works (Nfaoui et al,1990,1994a,1994b), t he wind characteristics in Tangier-area were studied on the basis of 1 2 years (1978-1989) of hourly average wind speed data. A wind/diesel e nergy system with battery storage has been modelled using the Tangiers wind regime over a one year period (1989), and synthesized consumer l oad data based on the characteristics of typical usage of domestic app liances, along with the estimated working patterns of a local isolated community. In this work, we use a more realistic hourly consumer load , which is the result of an experiment realized in a Maroccan village using a diesel engine to provide electricity for lighting and audio-vi sual. The 1989 wind data were reworked for a large series of measureme nts (12 years). The optimum wind turbine size and the benefits of a st orage system on fuel saving are also reviewed. This work is concerned with diesel fuel consumption : an optimum design of the considered sys tem is to be found which minimises the cost energy generation over the equipments' lifetime. Given the economic assumption made(the most imp ortant being a fuel price of 4.5 Dh/litre and an interest rate of 5% n et of inflation), the wind/diesel energy system has been shown to be c ompetitive with diesel-only generation in the wind regime of the Tangi er location for the cost per unit wind turbine swept area less than 30 00 Dh/m(2) (8Dh = 1$).