Optimized Design of Mini-Grid System for Hilly Region

In order to provide a continuous and reliable power to rural areas where grid extension is either very costly or not possible, formation of a Mini-grid will be very effective solution. In hilly regions of India, hydro power potential is available, but it is not being completely utilized for power generation till date due to unavailability of the grid. This paper presents an optimized design of a Mini-grid system where nine micro hydro power stations (MHPs) of Bageswar district are selected which are connected with two sub stations , load Centres ((because all MHPs are spread in two blocks Kapkote and Bagheswar so two substations are considered ). These MHPs work only for 8 hours in a day, and for remaining 16 hours, power generation is wasted. The excess generated power from these MHPs is transferred to available load centres or grid by interconnecting them. However, interconnection of MHPs and load centres is costly because of their demographic situations. These plants are situated in hilly area so the shortest path may put more mechanical stress on the line compared to the other possible path. That would affect the life of the line, and finally reliability of system. The other possible path would increase the line length and finally affect the cost of the project. Hence, an optimization needs between the cost of project and reliability of the system. This paper is an effort to develop a method for optimization of interconnecting lines between MHPs/SHPs for hilly areas by u