Electrical Power Demand Assessment of a Rural Community and the Forecast of Demand Growth for Rural Electrification in Ghana

Abstract

Electricity demand aggregation and demand forecast are prerequisites for establishing any electrical power project, especially for an off-grid power system. Some rural places in Ghana require the use of renewable resources for power generation, thus, must be carefully planned to avoid oversized or undersized systems. This research was carried out to aggregate the power demand of Buoya community in Ghana and a five-year forecast modeled in MATLAB using an inverse matrix method was made. Load aggregated through survey and appliance end-use method was used to calculate the demand for the community for a possible future bio-power electrical system. Different power supply scenarios were modeled for possible adoption to ensure a cost-effective supply of bio-power to the community. In the first year of implementation, a daily capacity of 45.37 kW was realised with an energy demand of 373.55 kWh. This is expected to grow to 72.1 kW with the energy demand of 718.6 kWh in five years. This growth is estimated at 70% over the period due to the lifestyle changes of the people. In the interim, as the community’s productive use of power is low coupled with lower demand factor, this research proposes a plan of periodic daily power supply to cut down on fuel resources and cost of power. A scenario of 3-hour morning supply, a 2-hour mid-day supply, and a 4-hour evening supply plan is recommended for the first year of power system implementation before a full daily supply plan can be rolled out later. This finding is seen as applicable to most rural places that lack grid power supply and yet abound in renewable energy resources.