Techno-economic feasibility analysis of a grid-interactive solar PV system for South African residential load

The rapid depletion of fossil fuel resources and the need to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission level have resulted into worldwide concerns. Such concerns demand an urgent consideration of renewable energy sources as a means of addressing carbon emission challenges. Very limited research studies have been carried out to demonstrate/analyze the techno-economic benefits of battery storage coupled directly to a grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) generation system. However, none of the studies demonstrates the benefit of operating PV-battery based system with a feed-in-tariff (FiT) incentive, especially in South Africa. This paper contributes to the ongoing studies about grid-connected PV-battery based system. It draws attention to the optimal design and sizing by considering techno-economic factors such as net present cost and cost of energy under time-ofuse (TOU) and FiT incentive. The annual real-time load demand data from a typical residential consumer, has been used in this study. The data was acquired using Energy monitoring system. HOMER (Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Energy Resources) Pro Version 3.6.1 software is employed to model the energy system. Based on the optimal sizing results, it was found that the annual average electricity production from PV is about 70% (6,514 kWh/year) of the total generation, while the remainder of the necessary power is purchased from the grid. Therefore, the major share of the power is obtained from the PV to meet the load requirement and to keep zero unmet energy by the system.