Technical Economic Study for the Implementation

of Autonomous Photovoltaic Systems in the

Residential Sector of Colombia
Ivan Enrique Zuñiga, Student Member, IEEE, and Yenny Fernanda Botina

Abstract—This article is based on dimensioning of autonomous

photovoltaic systems in the residential sector of Colombia using
HOMER software.
The simulations were performed for each of the capitals
of Colombia, which were grouped according to their levels of
solar radiation, thus ensuring the distribution over the entire
geographic area of the country.
The system load was determined taking as a reference non-
interconnected areas because they represent a large part of
national territory.
The selection of the devices comprising the system was
performed using a methodology that takes into account certain
criteria that improve the viability of implementing the system.
Finally, comparative results are presented in technical and
economic terms according to the radiation levels required to
implement the system. The results serve as an approach to
implement these systems in areas with similar characteristic.
Index Terms—Autonomous photovoltaic systems, solar radi-
ation, HOMER energy modeling software, non interconnected
zones of Colombia.

I. I NTRODUCTION
OLOMBIA is a tropical country that is located in one
C zone with higher amount of solar radiation per year in
the world according to data taken by the colombian Insti-
tute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies
(IDEAM in Spanish), indicating that this is a favorable place
to implement new systems of power generation such as solar Fig. 1. Geographical distribution of Colombia ZNI.
photovoltaic systems.
Non Interconnected Zones (ZNI in spanish) are those places
where is not installed electric power system. In Colombia, the Nowadays is easy to find available solar resource informa-
ZNI represent 66% of the national territory with 5% of the total tion, for example, the UPME (Unidad de Planeación Minero
population [1], a large percentage that is not supply by power Energética de Colombia in spanish) [2] and NASA [3] provide
system. In figure 1 you can see the geographical distribution solar maps, however, are few studies that reveal how to
of ZNI in Colombia. leverage this resource in Colombia.
The Autonomous Photovoltaic Systems (APVS) are an This paper presents a comparative study using HOMER
excellent alternative of solution to provide electrical energy (energy modeling software), taking as reference the ZNI to
for residential sector of the ZNI. The implementation of these determining the feasibility of implementing APVS in each of
systems has made great progress in recent years, however, are the capital cities of Colombia. The results will be compared
still expensive and difficult to recover the economic investment in technical and economic terms by the average annual solar
in the short term. radiation of each city, which serve as a approach to implement
APVS in places of the resindencial sector with similar levels
Ivan Enrique Zuñiga is a research assistant in the Grupo de Investigación en of solar radiation.
energı́as GIEN at the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente. www.uao.edu.co
Email: ivanenzu@ieee.org
II. S OLAR R ESOURCE S TUDY IN C OLOMBIA
Yenny Fernanda Botina is a research assistant in the Universidad Autónoma
de Occidente. www.uao.edu.co In Colombia there have been few studies of the solar re-
Email: yenny fer.botina@uao.edu.co source available and have not conducted research to determine
978-1-4673-2673-5/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
 TABLE I
L OADS OF R ESIDENTIAL C ONSUMPTION BASIC FOR ZNI

Equipment Qty Power Volt Hours Daily Monthly

load load
[W] [V] [h/day] [Wh/d] [kWh/m]
Efficient lamps 5 15 110 4 300 9
Refrigerator 1 80 110 12 960 28.8
Color TV 1 60 110 4 240 7.2
Radio 1 35 110 8 280 8.4
Blender 1 80 110 0.1 8 1.92
Other devices 100 110 10 1000 30
Total 370 2788 85.32
Source: R. Rengifo. Energias renovables en la electrificación rural
Fig. 2. Classification of solar radiation levels.
Taken from: UPME and IDEAM. Atlas de radiación solar de Colombia, 2005. descentralizada. [5]
[2]

Fig. 3. Distribution of the capital of Colombia, according to the average

annual solar radiation.
to what extent can exploit this resource in the residential sector
through APVS. In the solar atlas published by the UPME in
2005 [2] are categorized levels of solar radiation into nine
groups as shown in Figure 2. In this work compares the
radiation data of UPME with data from NASA [3]. It was
determined that in 87% of the 32 capitals of Colombia solar
radiation values ranging between 4.5 and 5.5 kWh/m2, which
are sufficient to implement APVS.
Figure 3 shows how to distribute the number of capitals
of Colombia acording the annual average radiation data taken
from the NASA website, is observed that most cities has high
radiation levels.
III. S YSTEM D IMENSIONING USING H OMER
There are many methodologies for the dimensioning of
APVS, among which is the possibility of dimensioning
through simulation software, providing diverse advantages like
power to evaluate the prospective behavior of the system in
technical and economic terms during a lifetime useful of the
same one [4], and also take into account the variability of solar
resources during the months of the year among others.
This work is directed towards the ZNI of the residential
sector, therefore the simulations are carried out according to
the load that is displayed in the table I, which was determined
in [5], in which it describes the different energy options to
Fig. 4. Curve average of the demanded load in per unit.
Source: Document CREG-075 of 2007. [6]
which you can access in isolated areas for supplying energy
needs.
Figure 4 shows the average curve of demand for the ZNI,
this curve was determined by CREG (Comisión Reguladora de
Energı́a y Gas in Spanish) by resolution 075 of 2005, which
speaks of the regulatory framework for rural electrification[6].
Figure 5 shows the daily load profile for a residence located
in a ZNI, certain starting from the load in the table I and the
curve of behavior of the figure 4.
The architecture of the APVS is shown in figure 6, this is
formed basically of solar photovoltaic modules, battery bank,
inverter and load.
For the selection of the devices that compose the system,
was first created a database with more than 50 alternatives
from solar panels, inverters and batteries, subsequently, was
applied the eigenvector method, which consists of a decision
process based weights associated with certain pre-established
criteria. In this method the weights associated with each
criterion are the components of eigenvector and they determine
the dominant value in a matrix of pairwise comparison among
criteria [7], as shown in Table II.
The selection criteria were established taking into account
the particular characteristics of Colombia, for example, was
considered important to those countries that have good busi-
 TABLE III
C RITERIA FOR THE SELECTION OF DEVICES IN THE APVS

CRITERION WEIGHT (%)

Cost 18,2%
Power 22,7%
Tension 9,1%
Current 13,6%
Weight 4,5%
Warranty 27,3%
country 4,5%
Manufacturer
TOTAL 100,0%

TABLE IV
S ELECTED COMPONENTS TO FORM THE APVS

Fig. 5. Curve average of the demanded load in kW. PARMETER PV INVESTOR BATTERY
Manufacturer Scott Solar Salmex America Vision
Model Perform Poly 245 PST-60S-12 6FM200D
Power [kW] 0,245 600 -
Currient [A] 8,02 0,85 10
Capacity [Ah] - - 200
Tension DC [V] 30,6 12 12
Tensin AC [V] - 115 -
Efficiency [%] 14,6 85 -
Price [$] 330 260 839
Warranty [years] 10 2 10
Weight [kg] 41,5 2,5 65
Country USA USA USA
Manufacturer
Fig. 6. Basic architecture of the APVS.

TABLE II
W OMB OF VALUATION

w1 w2 wn
C1 C2 ... Cn
A1 x11 x12 ... x1n
A2 x21 x22 ... x2n

Am xm1 xm2 ... xmn

C: Decision criteria
w: Weight associated with each criterion
A: Alternative of solution

ness relations or free trade agreements to reduce import costs.
The relevant criteria for selection of devices comprising APVS
and the weights associated with each are shown in Table III.
From the results obtained did determined devices that
comprise the APVS, which are shown in Table IV with their
technical data.
IV. RESULTS
The results are the product of the APVS in HOMER
simulations for each of the selected cities. The behavior of the
APVS was analyzed according to the average solar radiation
levels in each city, classified according to the conventions of
UPME.
Fig. 7. Quantity of panels required by the APVS for different levels of solar
radiation averages yearly.
Figure 7 shows that although the data distribution is random
due to the variability of the resource, this tendency has a
negative slope, which means that the required number of solar
panels decreases as the solar radiation increases, and may
require on average between 2 and 5 modules in cities with
less radiation levels ranging between 5.0 and 5.5 kW/m2.
In a same way it is observed in the figure 8 that the quantity
of required batteries diminishes with the increment of the
radiation solar average. In this case they are required two less
batteries on the average in the cities that have the biggest
Fig. 8. Quantity of batteries required by the system for different levels of
annual average solar radiation.
Fig. 9. Initial capital required by the system for different levels of solar
radiation averages yearly.
radiation levels.
In the figure 9 are shown like it diminishes the required
cost of the system as the radiation is increased, here the slope
of the trend line is greater because this represents the rate of
change of the cost for each component, that which represents
an important reduction of around US$2.000 for system for the
cities with the biggest radiation levels.
In figure 10 the cost average of each component of the
system is presented in function of the solar radiation, shows
that for cities with the lowest levels of solar radiation the
cost of batteries is higher than that of solar panels, and this
it diminishes the same as the cost of the panels as the solar
radiation is increased.
V. C ONCLUSION
Due to their geographical location, Colombia is a country
with the enough resource to implement APVS for residential
loads located in the ZNI.
In view of the ZNI represents 66% of the territory in
Colombia, the APVS are a good option for reducing reliance
Fig. 10. Cost average for each component of the system.
on electricity generation based on fossil fuels.
Although the APVS is expensive, these they represent a
long term good option due to the readiness of the resource.
Applying a good process of selection of the devices that you
conform the system can decrease the cost of the system in a
considerable way, it is also of to be expected that the prices
of this technology diminish with the development of the same
one.
In ranking the cities according to levels of radiation, the
results can serve as a first approach to study implementation
of APVS in areas with similar characteristics of resource.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The Authors wish to tank for the financial support to
Universidad Autónoma de Occidente and to the GIEN (Grupo
de Investigación en Energı́as in spanish).
Also give thanks to Paul Andres Manrique and to Yuri
Ulianov Lopez for the academic advices.
R EFERENCES
[1] J.A. Benavides, Foro de Normalización y Contexto Nacional en Energı́a
Solar y Eólica. Instituto de Planificación y Promoción de Soluciones
Energéticas para las Zonas no Interconectadas, 2008.
[2] UPME and IDEAM, Atlas de radiación solar de Colombia. Bo-
gotá, Colombia: Unidad de Planeación Minero Energética; Instituto de
Hidrologı́a, Metereologı́a y Estudios Ambientales. Ministerio de Minas y
Energı́a, 2006.
[3] NASA, Surface meteorology and Solar Energy. Available at:
http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/sse/.
[4] Rodriguez-Borges, G. Ciaddy and A. Sarmiento-Sera, Dimensionado
mediante simulación de sistemas de energı́a solar fotovoltáica aplicados
a la electrificación rural. Ingenierı́a Mecánica (online), vol 14, no 1,
pp 13-21, 2011. Available at: http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?
[5] R. Rengifo, Energı́as renovables en la electrificación rural descentral-
izada. Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Sede Medelln. Available at:
http://www.censat.org.
[6] CREG, Documento CREG-075: Marco regulatorio para la prestación del
servicio de energı́a eléctrica en las zonas no interconectadas. Comisión
de Regulación de Energı́a y Gas, 2007.
[7] M. Cascales, Métodos para la comparación de alternativas mediante un
Sistema de Ayuda a la Decisión (S.A.D.) y Soft Computing. Doctoral
thesis, Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena, 2009.
Ivan Enrique Zuñiga was born in Cali Colombia,
in 1986. He is a student of electrical engineering in
the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente and he is
student member of IEEE.
From 2009 is a member of Grupo de Investigación
en Energı́as GIEN, where he has participated in var-
ious projects as a research assistant, mainly, projects
related with energy efficiency in the industry sector.
His current research interests include electrical
machines, energy management, renewable energies
and artificial intelligence applied to energy systems.
Yenny Fernanda Botina was born in Cali Colom-
bia, she is a student of electrical engineering in
the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente and she is
currently a Research assistant in this university.
Their fields of interest are energy management,
renewable energies and cost analysis in hybrid sys-
tems.