Techno-economic assessment of a hybrid connected PV solar system

Abstract

The current work was performed a techno-economic analysis of a 5-kWp capacity hybrid-connected solar system installed on the roof of a house at Diyala province, Iraq (33.77° N, 45.14° E, elevation 44 m). The rooftop PV solar system consists of 18 polycrystalline PV modules of 355 W each, an energy storage system consisting of 8 batteries of 150 Ah, 12 V, and an intelligent inverter of 5-kWp capacity. The PV string output energy and the load sharing between the PV output, the grid, and the discharging energy from the energy storage system are studied. While the economic assessment of the PV system is performed by calculating the net present value (NPV) depending on the discount cash flow method, from the results, the payback time is found. The PV system’s annual results showed that the PV system’s energy yield is 8.9 GWh/year, and the array efficiency, performance ratio, and load efficiency were 0.126, 0.66, and 0.92, respectively. The reference, array, and final yields were 6.1, 3.88, and 3.99 h/day, respectively. The minimum energy feed to the grid was in summer, and the maximum was in winter. On the other hand, the results showed that the maximum purchasing energy was in summer, and the less was in winter. The economic assessment showed that the minimum tariff for Iraq should not be less than 0.1 $/kWh with a PB time equal to PV lifetime; a tariff of 0.12 $/kWh is profitably for Iraq, as the PB time is 10 years.