A PV microgrid for remote communities

A microgrid system that could potentially provide power to the world’s most remote communities has been designed by a student at the Victoria University of Wellington.

Graduating with a PhD in Engineering — the first from Victoria’s Smart Power and Renewable Energy Systems Group — Daniel Akinyele’s research examined new energy systems for small communities that are not connected to a central power grid and which rely largely on petrol-powered generators as a power source. Akinyele focused on developing solar photovoltaic microgrids which capture energy from the sun and turn it into electricity.

“Microgrid systems are basically smaller versions of the big electricity grid,” he said. “Instead of waiting for the government to extend the main electricity grid to remote communities, which is usually not economically feasible and may not materialise in the short term, I wanted to create a customisable energy system that could be installed on-site and which would ensure these societies could meet their daily energy demands.”

Akinyele used his home country of Nigeria as a case study, stating, “I wanted to use my knowledge to help address the energy challenge in my country. I had the opportunity to visit several remote areas and interact with the people there, get to know them and their energy requirements, and what their preferences were. With that information I could create a solar power system that works for them.”

Akinyele said the beauty of his research is that the knowledge he’s developed can be applied to any setting, so long as he is supplied with the metrics and design parameters. “It could be suitable for some of New Zealand’s remote areas, or parts of the country cut off by an earthquake, for example,” he said. “I am currently researching photovoltaic microgrids for off-grid Māori communities in New Zealand.”

Akinyele’s thesis has so far been the basis of 15 scientific papers which have been published in some of the world’s top renewable energy technology journals — one of the papers is the Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments journal’s most downloaded and most cited article. And Akinyele says his PhD research is just the beginning.

“I’d love to design systems using other sources of renewable energy, such as wind, hydro or biomass,” he said. “The concept has got a lot of potential, and I’d like to examine the microgrid system from a more holistic perspective in the future.”