Estudio de factibilidad de un sistema de energía renovable aplicado a un nodo de servicio de telecomunicaciones

Abstract

The present study was conducted in order to assess the technical and economic feasibility of a renewable energy generation scheme applied to a telecommunication system located at the outskirts of the city of Paute where there is no access to the public electrical grid. Reconnaissance of the site and literature review were conducted to define the most suitable energy source for the system. Solar energy was a promising candidate; therefore, a photovoltaic scheme was dimensioned according to the system requirements. For the design, numerical simulations were done with the help of computational tools: SAM2017 to evaluate the system performance and Simulink to analyse the effect of adding a battery bank to the photovoltaic system. These technical evaluations showed favourable results in terms of energy supply and life span of the batteries. Furthermore, the project resulted economically feasible as the values obtained for the economic- financial indicators VAN and TIR were 49,394.22 UDS and 11.17% respectively. Additionally, in terms of least cost analysis, the current solution also results more convenient compared to a direct connection to the grid through a cable length of 1050 m. Results from the social and environmental assessment were also beneficial as the project will not produce major adverse impacts; on the contrary, positive socio-cultural impacts will take place. This fact was evidenced by surveys conducted in the community where most of the people showed a positive attitude towards the use of renewable energy sources for productive activities. Overall, based on the results described above, the project can be considered feasible upon the conditions stablished in the report.