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As an alternative, cleaner energy source, solar power is becoming a much bigger player in how electricity is generated and consumed. To assess how economically-viable solar power is in comparison to other forms of electricity, factors such as the return on investment (ROI) can be calculated. In addition, based on the average lifetime of an average photovoltaic (PV) system, energy purchase reduction, and revenue that can be generated by selling excess electricity back to the power grid, the economic viability of solar energy can be determined. The capital and commissioning cost of a PV system will continue to be a major factor in how viable a PV system will be. Thus, observing the trend in PV system costs over the past years will yield a point of grid parity, when solar becomes competitive with existing forms of energy generation, and show the most beneficial time frame for the customer to install the PV system. This paper seeks to provide some insight on how economic using solar energy can be.
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On the Feasibility, Cost, and Carbon Emissions of Grid Defection
Distributed solar generation is rising rapidly due to a continuing decline in the cost of solar modules. Nearly all of this solar generation feeds into the grid, since battery based energy storage is expensive to install and maintain. Unfortunately, accommodating unlimited intermittent solar power is challenging, since the grid must continuously balance supply and demand. Thus, governments and public utility commissions are increasingly limiting grid connections of new solar installations. These limitations are likely to become more restrictive over time in many areas as solar disrupts the utility business model. Thus, to employ solar without restrictions, users may increasingly need to defect from the grid. Unfortunately, batteries alone are unlikely to become cost-efficient at enabling grid defection for the foreseeable future. To address the problem, we explore using a mixture of solar, batteries, and a whole-home natural gas generator to shift users partially or entirely off the electric grid. We assess the feasibility and compare the cost and carbon emissions of such an approach with using grid power, as well as existing “net metered” solar installations. Our results show that the approach is trending towards cost-competitive based on current prices, reduces carbon emissions relative to using grid power, and enables users to install solar without restriction.
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- PAR ID:
- 10163747
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- IEEE International Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing Technologies for Smart Grids (SmartGridComm)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 7
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/SmartGridComm.2019.8909691
