1 Hierarchical methodology to optimize the design of stand- 1 alone electrification systems for rural communities 2 considering technical and social criteria 3 4 5 Domenech B* ac , Ferrer-Martí L bc , Pastor R ac 6 7 a Department of Management (DOE) 8 b Department of Mechanical Engineering (DEM) 9 c Institute of Industrial and Control Engineering (IOC) 10 Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC); Av. Diagonal 647, 08034, Barcelona (Spain) 11 Contact (*): bruno.domenech@upc.edu; (+34) 934.016.579 12 13 14 Abstract 15 Stand-alone electrification systems based on the use of renewable energies are suitable to electrify 16 isolated rural communities in developing countries. For their design several support tools exist, but they 17 do not cover some of the technical and social existing constraints and they do not consider the project 18 detail. In this context, this research aims to develop a methodology to optimize the design of such 19 systems, combining the wind and solar generation technologies as well as microgrids and individual 20 systems as distribution scheme, and including economical, technical and social considerations. The design 21 methodology is divided in three stages. First, the characteristics of the target community are gathered. 22 Second, the design process is realized in three decision levels, ordered according to the importance of the 23 decisions taken. At each level several electrification alternatives are generated and then the most 24 appropriate is selected. Third, the final solution cost can be optionally tried to be improved, maintaining 25 the decisions previously taken. The design methodology has been applied to a community to show its 26 suitability to assist rural electrification promoters to design socially adapted and sustainable projects. 27 28 Keywords: design methodology; stand-alone electrification; wind-PV energies; microgrids. 29 30 1. Introduction 31 32 Nowadays around 1.3 billion people lack of access to electricity [1]; mainly in rural 33 areas of developing countries [2]. To electrify this population, systems based on the use 34 of wind and photovoltaic (PV) energies are a suitable option [3]. Both technologies 35 complement to each other and allow attaining a great reliability of supply [4]. Due to the 36 typical dispersion between houses in rural communities, usually individual systems are 37 implemented [5]. As an alternative, projects that combine individual systems with one 38 or more microgrids are increasingly being used, since microgrids have many advantages 39 [6, 7]. However, this combination entails a higher design difficulty, being necessary to 40 plan the structure and connections of microgrids and to study a good compromise 41 between their extension and possible cost increases when linking points [5]. 42 43 Additionally, social considerations have proven to be a key issue to consider in the 44 design of electrification projects [8, 9, 10]. For attaining a better projects’ sustainability, 45 the way they are carried out needs to be changed promoting high community 46 participation during the design process [11, 12]. Moreover, when considering several 47 technical options inside a single community (such as wind, PV, microgrids and 48 individual systems) a higher analysis of the social characteristics (as the community 49 organization or the representative authorities) is particularly necessary to respect 50 population preferences, and avoid social conflicts [13]. However, including social 51 considerations in the systems design, in addition to economic and technical ones, 52 significantly adds complexity to the projects’ design process. 53