Technical and economic feasibility assessment for a solar PV mini-grid for Matekenya village

Malawi is one of the sub-Saharan African countries with a low electrification rate. Its electrification rate is at 18% which is far below Africa’s average electrification rate which is 44%. One of the solutions to improve the electrification rate is to promote Mini-grid development in rural areas that are far from the national grid. This paper aims at finding out if it is technically and economically feasible to supply electricity using a solar PV Mini-grid to Matekenya village located in the Dowa district in the central region of Malawi. Data was collected using the android tool Kobo Collect and simulations were made using HOMER software and other data was analyzed using SPSS. The results without sensitivity cases showed that the Net Present cost of the system is $21,170,640. The Levelized Cost of Energy of $0.1334, the operating cost was $380,215.40 and the initial capital cost was $14,290,444.84. optimization results with sensitivity analysis showed that the NPC was $11,744,020, LCOE was 0.074, the operating cost was213036 and the initial cost was $7,890,000. Based on the Malawi feed-in tariff policy, the feed-in tariff for solar PV energy is $0.10/kWh. The results showed that it is economically feasible to supply Matekenya village with electricity using a solar PV Mini-grid. The area also showed more potential for productive use of electricity and willingness to be connected if the electricity is available.