This report documents the creation of NREL's Balance of System model for Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems (HybridBOSSE). Balance of System (BOS) costs account for approximately 30% of the capital expenditure required to install a land-based wind plant, and as much as 40% of the cost of installing a solar PV plant. Hybrid Renewable Energy systems present an opportunity to combine balance of system components to achieve cost savings, and HybridBOSSE aims to provide a component-level model to determine the associated BOS costs in a hybrid renewable energy system. Prior BOS models for hybrid systems (at NREL and elsewhere) have relied on empirical curve fits of legacy industry data, limiting their utility and their predictive ability for new technology combinations and configurations, such as those found in Hybrid Plants. Hybrid plants at the utility scale have considerably more interest in the last number of years, with ever-growing capacities in the interconnection queues, and many large developers pivoting to only consider hybrid plants going forward. As these plants become a commercial reality, the need for a detailed analysis of costs in a hybrid plant to fully exploit the available cost savings grows. The tool developed and documented in this work, HybridBOSSE, provides an open-source, python-based method of assessing the costs in hybrid plants. This analysis capability unlocks greater certainty in hybrid plant costs, as well as the ability to examine scenarios of hybridization and glean combinations that offer the greatest flexibility and cost reduction.

This study presents options to fully unlock the world’s vast solar PV potential over the period until 2050. It builds on IRENA’s global roadmap to scale up renewables and meet climate goals.

This guidebook documents the experiences and lessons learned from developing 12 pilot mini-grid systems for off-grid energy access in Myanmar. Unelectrified rural communities typically located 10 kilometers from the national grid and without prospects of being connected to the grid in the next 5 to 10 years have been chosen for the project. This guidebook shares training materials and knowledge on the major aspects of minigrid development for rural electrification. Further, it highlights the importance of community participation and discusses the main renewable energy technologies that are suitable for mini-grid development in Myanmar including solar, hydro, and biomass. This guidebook is intended to serve government officials, renewable energy developers, and potential investors in the development of mini-grid projects in Myanmar.