The economic reality of home PV systems: Matching consumption to generation

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide an economic viewpoint of the benefit of the installation of a home Photo Voltaic system. An hourly daily consumption and generation profile is created for every calendar month and the cost saving is applied to calculate the IRR and payback period. Different systems options are evaluated as well as feed in tariff options. The study was performed for two sample homes located in South Africa. The result suggests the optimum size for the PV system needs to be matched to the consumption in the peak generation month such that no excess power is generated. Therefore, home owners should not base the value of a system on the generation potential thereof but rather the savings potential matched to the consumption profile.