THE CONTRIBUTION OF RENEWABLES ON REDUCING THE ELECTRICITY
GENERATION COST IN AUTONOMOUS ISLAND NETWORKS
Kavadias K.A., Zafirakis D., Kondili E.*, Kaldellis J.K.
Lab of Soft Energy Applications & Environmental Protection, TEI of Piraeus
*Optimisation of Production Systems Lab, Mechanical Eng. Dept., TEI of Piraeus
Abstract
The Aegean Archipelago is a remote Hellenic area, including several hundreds of scattered islands of various sizes. The electricity demand in the Aegean Archipelago islands has up to now been covered by the existing Autonomous Power Stations (APS) at very high electricity production cost. In order to face the continuous load demand increase an integrated solution based on the exploitation of the available renewable energy sources potential in collaboration with appropriate energy storage systems is investigated. According to the results obtained, the proposed solution is clearly more cost-effective than the operation of the existing thermal power stations, while remarkable environmental and macroeconomic benefits are also expected.
Keywords: Electricity Generation Cost; Energy Storage; Remote Islands; Renewable Energy Sources