Abstract
Access to cheap, clean energy has a significant impact on a country's ability to develop sustainably. Fossil fuels have a major impact on global warming and are currently becoming less and less profitable when used to generate power. In order to replace the diesel generators that are connected to the university of Debre Markos' electrical distribution network with hybrid renewable energy sources, this study presents optimization and techno-economic feasibility analyses of proposed hybrid renewable systems and their overall cost impact in stand-alone and grid-connected modes of operation. Metaheuristic optimization techniques such as enhanced whale optimization algorithm (EWOA), whale optimization algorithm (WOA), and African vultures' optimization algorithm (AVOA) are used for the optimal sizing of the hybrid renewable energy sources according to financial and reliability evaluation parameters. After developing a MATLAB program to size hybrid systems, the total current cost (TCC) was calculated using the aforementioned metaheuristic optimization techniques (i.e., EWOA, WOA, and AVOA). In the grid-connected mode of operation, the TCC was 4.507 x 10(6) EUR, 4.515 x 10(6) EUR, and 4.538 x 10(6) EUR, respectively, whereas in stand-alone mode, the TCC was 4.817 x 10(6) EUR, 4.868 x 10(6) EUR, and 4.885 x 10(6) EUR, respectively. In the grid-connected mode of operation, EWOA outcomes lowered the TCC by 0.18% using WOA and 0.69% using AVOA, and by 1.05% using WOA and 1.39% using AVOA in stand-alone operational mode. In addition, when compared with different financial evaluation parameters such as net present cost (NPC) (EUR), cost of energy (COE) (EUR/kWh), and levelized cost of energy (LCOE) (EUR/kWh), and reliability parameters such as expected energy not supplied (EENS), loss of power supply probability (LPSP), reliability index (IR), loss of load probability (LOLP), and loss of load expectation (LOLE), EWOA efficiently reduced the overall current cost while fulfilling the constraints imposed by the objective function. According to the result comparison, EWOA outperformed the competition in terms of total current costs with reliability improvements.