Bekele, Getachew(PhD)Kiros, Solomon2018-07-092023-11-282018-07-092023-11-282014-07http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/12345678/7391So far the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) has been electrifying the remote rural areas of the country by extending the national grid. Despite the tremendous efforts exhibited during the past few years, there are still exceedingly many people without access to electricity services. Some among them is rural populations living in the historically important district of Axum. However, the district has renewable energy resources, such as Wind and solar, with the capability of providing the needed service without requiring the extension of the national grid. But little studies investigating the value of such alternatives exist. This thesis work focuses on comparing the economic performance of using various scenarios of stand-alone PV-Wind hybrid system,- with battery storage and diesel as a backup,- for electrifying Kutur village of Awlio kebele of the Axum district (which is 30 kms away from the closest national grid) to - the possibility of extending the grid. Axum district which is located at latitude of 14° 07' N and longitude of 38° 43' E is found to have 4.28 m/s wind speed at a height of 10m, and 6.19KWh/m2/day solar radiation. Two electric load scenarios are estimated by considering set of incandescent and efficient lamps for lighting for the existing 120 households. The over mentioned solar radiation and wind speed are then used as an input to simulate the hybrid setup for the high and low load estimation using HOMER. Simulation result shows that the NPC corresponding to high and low load scenarios were $278,856and $194,174, respectively. In addition, a simple load forecasting is done by considering 2013 G.C as a reference year to see the effect of the increase in electric demand of the community on the required investment to install stand alone hybrid setup. The NPC after load forecasting is found to be more than three folds of the NPC required for the reference simulation result. In both cases the results of the simulation indicates that using standalone PV/wind hybrid system with battery storage and diesel generator as a backup for electrifying Kutur village is cost effective and comparable against the cost required for electrifying the village by extending the grid. Key words: national grid, hybrid PV-Wind, battery storage, diesel and HOMER.enNational GridHybrid PV-WindBattery StorageDiesel and HomerThesis