Impact Of Cooking Appliances Shifting Hours In Rural Mini-Grids: Case Study In Ethiopia

Cooking is an essential aspect of daily life in any community. Electric cooking appliances have high power ratings and cyclic operations and thus contribute strongly to a system peak load. Optimal component sizing and cost are highly impacted by the peak loads. Thus, this study investigates how shifting hours of operation may impact mini-grid component sizing and their cost in a village in Ethiopia. The results indicate that shifting hours of electric cooking impacts the size of battery energy storage and solar PV, resulting in a system cost reduction. The results show that cooking appliance shifting to mid-day has a minor impact on optimal component sizing and the cost of mini-grids (total present cost reduced only by 3%).