Various non-conventional energy sources, viz. solar, wind, hydro, and biomass, have become the most encouraging environmentally friendly power sources fulfilling world energy needs. But, due to climate change and the uncertainty of wind and solar energy sources, hybrid microgrid systems have become very common in India. In the present paper, a solar biomass-based hybrid microgrid system coupled with EFGT (Externally Fired Gas Turbine) and ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle) is framed to attain the total electricity demand of a village in the Indian context. We carry out energy-exergy-based analyses to investigate the system’s performance. A fixed bed downdraft type gasifier is used with EFGT to increase the system’s thermal performance. A PTC (Parabolic Trough Collector) and Therminol-VP1 are used in the solar circuit as the solar collector and heat transfer fluid, respectively. Furthermore, six working fluids, viz. o-xylene, toluene, ethylbenzene, n-octane, and n-nonane are scrutinized based on their thermochemical properties, and availability in the Indian market to conduct the parametric analyses. The operating temperatures of the system are 265 and 290 for solar and biomass-assisted circuits, respectively. The parametric studies reveal that o-xylene gave the best performance, while n-heptane gave the worst performance. We also observe that EFGT-based downdraft gasifier and PTC are the prime sources of exergy destruction.

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