Feasibility Study and Simulation of Optimal Power System for Off-Grid Voter Registration Centres

Abstract

There are cases of disenfranchising eligible voters during registration exercises due to unreliable power supply or no access to electricity in powering the Direct Data Capturing Machines (DDCMs) that is used for the registration of voters in polling stations or registration centres. This paper proposes to design an optimized PV-Battery energy system with an energy management system that will be used to control the operations of power supply (supply the load and charge the Battery) at the registration centres in Nigeria. This research is focused on the simulation of Photovoltaic power generation system with energy storage and management system for off-grid voter registration centres in two locations - Nkanu-West (Enugu State – which covers the southern part of the nation) and Kaura (Kaduna State – covering the northern part of the nation). The developed power control system was used to study the operations of the PV-Battery energy system. From the control output results, it was shown that the load and the supplied energy is efficiently and rationally utilized. A simulation analysis was performed using hybrid optimization model for electric renewables (HOMER) software and the results indicate that the most optimized PV-Battery power system for energy consumption of 2.3kWh/day with a 235W peak demand load consists of 0.9 kW solar PV array, 9 Hoppecke 24 OPzS 300 Battery and a 1kW DC/AC inverter. This energy system can be used in any other registration exercises such as the National Identity Registration or Examination registration etc., and may also be applied to other regions of the country.