The growing demand for electricity and the reconstruction of poor areas in Africa require an effective and reliable energy supply system. The construction of reliable, clean, and inexpensive microgrids, whether isolated or connected to the main grid, has great importance in solving energy supply problems in remote desert areas. It is a complex interaction between the level of reliability, economical operation, and reduced emissions. This paper investigates the establishment of an efficient and cost-effective microgrid in a remote area located in the Djado Plateau, which lies in the Sahara Ténéré desert in northeastern Niger. Three cases are presented and compared to find the best one in terms of low costs. In case 1, the residential area is supplied by PVs and a battery energy storage system (BESS), while in the second case, PVs, a BESS, and a diesel generator (DG) are utilized to supply the load. In the third case, the grid will take on load-feeding responsibilities alongside PVs, a BESS, and a DG (used only in scenario 1 during the 2 h grid outage). The central objective is to lower the cost of the proposed microgrid. Among the three cases, case 3, scenario 2 has the lowest LCC, but implementing it is difficult because of the nature of the site. The results show that case 2 is the best in terms of total life cycle cost (LCC) and no grid dependency, as the annual total LCC reaches about $2,362,997. In this second case, the LCC is 11.19% lower compared to the first case and 5.664% lower compared to the third case, scenario 1.

In this study, we evaluated three renewable-based microgrid configurations designed to strengthen energy security and long-term sustainability. Configuration 1 integrates a photovoltaic (PV) array and wind turbines (WT) with a battery energy storage system (BESS). Configuration 2 replaces BESS with a hydrogen energy storage system (HESS), offering extended storage capacity and improved energy availability. Configuration 3 combines BESS and HESS, leveraging the advantages of short-term and long-term storage to create a more resilient energy system. The objective function was formulated to minimize the total annual cost (TAC) while optimizing energy generation, storage efficiency, and overall system reliability. A robust and efficient transient search algorithm (TSA) was employed to determine the optimal capacity of the microgrid configurations. A comprehensive cost analysis revealed that configuration 1 was the most cost-effective. However, incorporating HESS in configuration 2 resulted in a 41.3% increase in cost due to the investment required for electrolyzers, storage tanks, and fuel cells. Configuration 3, which integrates battery and hydrogen storage, incurred an additional 3.2% cost compared to configuration 2 and 45.8% compared to configuration 1. Despite the higher cost, this hybrid system enhances energy resilience by efficiently balancing short-term and long-term storage solutions.