Gilutongan Island Solar Off-Grid Microgrid
Gilutongan Island is an island village in the municipality of Cordova, province of Cebu in the Central Visayas, Philippines. The island has a land are of 0.1126 km² and is about 5.5 km by sea from Mactan Island (Sotto et al., 2001). As of the year 2017, the community in Gilutongan Island has a population of 1875 living in 342 households (Lozano et al., 2019).
The Mactan Island is connected to the Philippine national grid; however, due to the economic unviability of connecting to the centralized grid through submarine cables, the Gilutongan Island is still an off-grid island. To provide an electricity access to the community, a solar off-grid microgrid was installed to the island which was commissioned in March 2020.
For more information, view publsihed articles here: (Rabuya et al., 2021)
Specifications for the main components of the solar microgrid
| Component | Capacity | |
|---|---|---|
| Solar PV panel | 7.92 kWp | Divided into 2x3.96 kWp arrays for installation in two rooftops, each array having 12 units of 330 Wp solar panels |
| (March,2020) Battery energy storage |
28.8 kWh | Consisted of 12 units of 12 V, 200 Ah get-type lead acid batteries, connected in 3 parallel strings with each strings having 4 batteries in series |
| (December,2020) Battery energy storage |
38.4 kWh | An additional of 4 units of 12 V, 200 Ah get-type lead acid batteries were added. As of December 2020 the energy storage system has a total of 16 units (total capacity of 38.4 kWh) connected in 4 parallel strings with each strings having 4 batteries in series |
| Charge/inverter | 10 kVA | Consisted of 2 units of 5 kVA charger/inverters connected in parallel with one charger/inverter |
| Number of connected households | 11 households are connected to the microgrid (locations shown on the map) | |
| Project lifetime | The installation has an expected lifetime of 25 years | |
Microgrid location
Map of 11 Households Connected to the Microgrid
Description of the electricity access on Gilutongan Island based on the multi-tier framework before and after the solar microgrid
| Attribute | MTF Tier (Pre-Microgrid) |
MTF Tier (Post-Microgrid) |
Microgrid Electricity Supply Characteristics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peak Capacity | 3 | 4 | The microgrid can power loads beyond 800W The system is capable of supplying loads above 2kW (tier 5), but such loads are not used on the island |
| Availability | 2 | 5 | Electricity is available 24h daily |
| Reliability | 4 | 5 | One-year operations' data (from April 2020 to March 2021) showed an average disruption frequency of only 0.33 times per week with an average disruption duration of 1.93h/week |
| Quality | 0 | 5 | One-year operation's data showed an average voltage of 229.1 V with an average total harmonic distortion (THD) of 1.71% |
| Affordability | 0 | 0 | Electricity costs 0.40 USD/kWh The cost of a standard consumption package of 1kWh/day is 6% of the average household income on Gilutongan Island |
| Legality | 0 | 5 | Households pay the microgrid sustainability fee to its own organitation's treasurer The household organization keeps formal financial records |
| Health and safety | 0 | 5 | The microgrid is compliant with technical standards |
Multi-tier matrix for measuring access to household electricity supply
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| Attributes | Tier 0 | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 | Tier 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
(in W or daily Wh) |
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lmhr/day |
air circulation, television |
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Electricity consumption and daily household electricity cost
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| Household | Avg. Daily Consumption, kWh |
Avg. Daily Payment for Consumption, Php |
Previous Daily Payment for the Diesel Generator, Php |
|---|---|---|---|
| HH1 | 0.56 | 11.11 | 25.25 |
| HH2 | 6.61 | 133.82 | 20.20 |
| HH3 | 0.84 | 40.90 | 15.15 |
| HH4 | 0.81 | 16.16 | 40.40 |
| HH5 | 1.63 | 32.82 | 10.10 |
| HH6 | 1.57 | 31.81 | 15.15 |
| HH7 | 0.51 | 10.10 | 7.07 |
| HH8 | 1.41 | 28.28 | 15.15 |
| HH9 | 0.55 | 11.11 | 7.07 |
| HH10 | 0.56 | 11.11 | 21.21 |
| HH11 | 0.39 | 8.08 | 7.07 |