Impact of Using Renewable Energy on the Cost of Electricity and Environment in Northern Cameroon

This paper determines and compares the cost of energy (COE) of various hybrid systems for several off-grid facilities in North and Far North regions of Cameroon by integrating renewable sources and/or storage with diesel generators. The estimated annual energy production by solar PV systems and wind turbines is also discussed. The aim is to study the application of a high penetration renewable energy system to be used as backup in case of failure of the electrical network. Based on meteorological data provided by NASA, a hybrid system using photovoltaic panels, wind turbine, diesel generator, batteries and converter was designed using HOMER software to supply electricity to these loads. It is shown that the use of renewable energies (wind and photovoltaic), despite the fact that it requires large investments initially, is the most economical, most profitable and least polluting system.