• Energy Research

Renewable energy planners in developing countries should be cautious in using analytical tools formulated in developed countries. Traditional energy consumption, economic and demography transitions, high-income inequality, and informal economy are some characteristics of developing countries that may contradict the assumptions of mainstream, widely used analytical tools. In this study, we synthesize the debate in previous review studies on energy models for developing countries and then extend the scope of the previous studies by highlighting emerging methods of system thinking, life cycle thinking, and decision support analysis. We then discuss how these tools have been used for renewable energy analysis in developing countries and found out that not all studies are aware of the emerging critical issues in developing countries. We offer here a guidance to select the most appropriate analytical tool, mainly when dealing with energy modeling and analysis for developing countries. We also suggest potential future improvements to the analytical tool for renewable energy modeling and analysis in the developing countries.

Integrating renewable energy sources (RES) into island microgrids is usually done to provide a cost-effective electricity supply. The integration process is carried out by scheduling generating unit operations with a unit commitment (UC) scheme to ensure low system operating costs. This article discusses developing a UC optimization method for integrating solar photovoltaic plants in Indonesia’s Eastern Sumba microgrid power system. The scope of this study is the optimization algorithm of the UC, which consists of a priority list (PL) for the UC stage and an economic dispatch (ED) that relies on a genetic algorithm (GA) to minimize total operating costs (TOC). The results show that the PL-GA algorithm performs better than the extended priority list (EPL), and combinations of genetic algorithm and Lagrange, by applying continuous problem dispatch and improved binary GA hourly dispatch to meet ramping constraints. The application of RES incentive programs, such as carbon taxes and incentives for RES generation in calculating the TOC, shows an improvement in the financial feasibility analysis of the internal rate of return (IRR) and net present value (NPV) of actual projects in Indonesia.