86 Int. J. Energy Technology and Policy, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2019 Copyright © 2019 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Renewable energy-based hybrid model for rural electrification Priyanka Anand* Department of Electrical Engineering, I.K. Gujral Punjab Technical University, 144601, Kapurthala, India Email: anand_priyanka10@yahoo.co.in *Corresponding author Sarbjeet Kaur Bath Department of Electrical Engineering, Giani Zail Singh Campus College of Engineering and Technology, 151001, Bathinda, Punjab, India Email: sjkbath77@gmail.com Mohammad Rizwan Department of Electrical Engineering, Delhi Technological University, 110042, Delhi, India Email: rizwan@dce.ac.in Abstract: The distributed power generation is playing an important role for the rural electrification in developing countries like India. In this work, a hybrid model based on renewable energy sources has been developed on the basis of availability of the resources at the proposed site. This paper present the hybrid model based on biomass-biogas-solar PV to supply the electric power in rural areas of Sonipat, Haryana, India where grid supply is not available or rarely available. The hybrid system is modelled by considering various parameters associated with each system component. Different models are developed on the basis of available resources and optimised for total annualised cost (TAC) using particle swarm optimisation (PSO) approach. Obtained results shows that the TAC of the optimal configuration at 0% unmet load is $ 64,109 and the cost of energy is $ 0.065 per kWh. The results at various unmet loads are also presented and found satisfactory. The results of the proposed approach are compared with harmony search (HS) algorithm and found in the desired limits. Keywords: biomass; hybrid modelling; renewable energy; solar energy; total annualised cost; unmet load. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Anand, P., Bath, S.K. and Rizwan, M. (2019) ‘Renewable energy-based hybrid model for rural electrification’, Int. J. Energy Technology and Policy, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp.86–113.