Technical and economic feasibility of a 50 MW grid-connected solar PV at UENR Nsoatre Campus Michael Obeng a, * , Samuel Gyamfi a , Nana Sarfo Derkyi a , Amos T. Kabo-bah a , Forson Peprah b a School of Engineering, University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), P. O. Box 214, Sunyani, Ghana b Volta River Authority, P. O Box MB 77, Accra, Ghana article info Article history: Received 7 August 2018 Received in revised form 29 October 2019 Accepted 3 November 2019 Available online xxx Handling Editor: Prof. Jiri Jaromir Kleme s Keywords: Ghana Electricity demand Photovoltaic Grid-tied Energy yield Electricity export rate abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the technical and economic feasibility of a 50 MW grid-tied solar photovoltaic plant at UENR Nsoatre Campus. The suitability of the site for PV plant development is initially examined with site assessment criteria. PVsyst software is then used to model, simulate and estimate the performance of three PV technology plants. Economic analysis is conducted on the three PV systems with RETScreen software. NASA SSE solar irradiation data set from NASA website were used for the assessments. Site assessments results showed that mono-crystalline silicon, poly-crystalline silicon, and thin film (CdTe) systems would occupy 9%, 10%, and 13% respectively of the 2000 acres acquired for the campus. The performance analysis showed that monocrystalline silicon, poly-crystalline silicon and thin film (CdTe) systems would export 67315 MW h, 67506 MW h, and 68991 MW h respectively to the grid annually while meeting more than 48% of campus electricity needs. The costs of the energy pro- duced by the systems are 12.4 cents/kWh, 12.3 cents/kWh and 10.9 cents/kWh for mono-crystalline, polycrystalline and thin film systems respectively. The determined costs of energy for the systems are lower than the set feed-in tariff of 14 cents/kWh. NPV was positive for all the systems while; benefits to cost ratios were greater than 1.0 with reasonable payback periods of 7.2 years for crystalline silicon technology systems and 6.4 for thin film technology system. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The power sector in Ghana, like many others in sub-Saharan Africa, is facing a number of challenges. The perennial low water levels of Ghana’s hydroelectric dams occur due to variability in rainfall patterns and are among the main challenges of the sector. In 2016, a 33% drop in total generation output of the installed hydro dams in Ghana was due to low water levels (Energy Commission, 2017). These hydro dams account for more than 41% of the total installed electricity generation capacity in the country (Kumi, 2017). The demand for electricity has been steadily increasing, at an estimated 12% per annum due to expanding economy, rapid urbanization, industrialization and rural electrification (Gyamfi et al., 2017). These challenges have resulted in power supply deficits, which have accounted for past perennial power outages. It is estimated that Ghana loses between 2% and 6% of its annual gross domestic product (GDP) due to inadequate and unreliable power supply (Eshun and Amoako-Tuffour, 2016). The government’s efforts to address the power supply deficit have been towards capacity additions, which are mainly based on fossil fuels and demand high capital investments. Karpowership and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) signed a power pur- chase agreement in June 2014. The purpose of the agreement was to help address a power supply challenge that has resulted in loading scheduling. The AMERI Power Purchasing Agreement was also signed in 2016 to provide 300 MW of emergency power to manage the debilitating energy crisis of that year (Gyamfi et al., 2017). Power plants based on fossil fuels now represent more than 57% of the total electricity generation capacity (Kumi, 2017). The use of these power plants to address the electricity supply deficit has also been restrained by fuel supply constraints. This has adversely affected the power generation of the installed thermal power plants (Sakah et al., 2017). * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: mikeobokjs@yahoo.com (M. Obeng), samuel.gyamfi@uenr. edu.gh (S. Gyamfi), nana.derkyi@uenr.edu.gh (N.S. Derkyi), amos.kabobah@uenr. edu.gh (A.T. Kabo-bah), peprahforson@vra.com (F. Peprah). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119159 0959-6526/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Cleaner Production xxx (xxxx) xxx Please cite this article as: Obeng, M et al., Technical and economic feasibility of a 50 MW grid-connected solar PV at UENR Nsoatre Campus, Journal of Cleaner Production, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119159