How to simulate scheduled grid power cuts

Hi,

I am trying to simulate a situation in a developing country whereby the government schedules regular power cuts since it cannot meet national demand.  Some affluent power consumers who can afford it have their own diesel generator setup for their own microgrid to operate when the power is cut from the national grid.  There is monthly cost associated with operating the generator that needs to be factored in monthly cost for electricity.  How can I simulate such situation in SAM to show cost savings for PV system in the long run, in addition to the added benefit of system resiliency and reliability?
Thank you....

Hi Ahmed,

SAM is limited it its ability to model this kind of situation. You might consider a model like HOMER that can compare different system configurations with different combinations of diesel generator, PV system, and batteries for a grid that has periodic outages.

The next version of SAM, due to be released in a few weeks, has some new features to model resiliency under different grid outage scenarios for PV-battery systems, but it does not calculate cost savings from reducing diesel generator usage.

Best regards,
Paul.