Analysis of the Impact of the Level of Self-Consumption of Electricity from a Prosumer Photovoltaic Installation on Its Profitability under Different Energy Billing Scenarios in Poland

Abstract

Renewable Energy Sources (RES) have been gaining popularity on a continuous basis and the current global political situation is only accelerating energy transformation in many countries. Objectives related to environmental protection and use of RES set by different countries all over the world as well as the European Union (EU) are becoming priorities. In Poland, after years of a boom in photovoltaic (PV) installations, the Renewable Energy Sources Act has been amended, resulting in a change to the billing system for electricity produced by individual prosumers. The change in the billing method, also in pursuance to the provisions of EU laws, has contributed to the inhibition of the PV installation market for fear of energy prices and investment payback time. In this paper, by using the Net Present Value (NPV) method, three mechanisms of billing of electricity from prosumer micro-installations—based on the net-metering principle and net-billing principle (using monthly and hourly prices)—have been analysed. Particular attention has also been paid to the aspects of electricity self-consumption and energy storages, which play a significant role in the economy of PV installations in the net-billing system.

Increasing Energy Self-Consumption in Residential Photovoltaic Systems

“…Annually, the individual systems produce 4 634 kWh for PV1, 6 178 kWh for PV2 and 7 723 kWh for PV3. This gave a value of 1 016.3 kWh per 1 kWp of PV installation capacity, a result similar to those presented in the paper [2]. Figure 5 shows the monthly and annual electricity production per unit surface of a PV panels.…”

“…It was designed to be mounted on a south-facing roof of the building inclined at 35°. The power of the three proposed installations PPV depended on the Ec presented in Section 2.2 and was determined from Equation 2 developed based on information in [2]: where: 3 has been entered into the component Type 103b appropriate for modeling the electrical performance of mono and polycrystalline PV panels in TRNSYS. In this model the PV array is assumed to be connected to its load through a maximum power point tracker.…”

“…The importance of the development of RES installations in the EU is confirmed by a number of actions, funds and policies [1]. The latest legislative changes in the EU assume the achievement of very ambitious goals, including the use of RES in the overall energy mix to at least 40% by 2030, reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 55% when compared to levels in 1990, and reaching climate neutrality by 2050 [2]. These activities are expected to have a remarkable impact on stimulating sustainable development in the UE countries, but also reduce energy-import dependency [3].…”

“…Germany is the leader, with a PV installed capacity of 58.5 GW, second is Italy with 22.7 MW and third France with 14.7 GW [6]. The development of the PV installations market is particularly visible in Poland, which was ranked 10th in the world in terms of investment in new PV generation capacity implemented in 2021 [2]. It is expected that there will be further growth of PV capacity in Poland, achieving about 7.3 GW in 2030 and 16 GW in 2040 [7].…”

“…In the literature some ways to grow SC parameter in PV systems can be found:  determining the appropriate size of the PV system,  installing a battery storage system which can store excess energy produced during the day for later use, increasing SC during non-sunlight hours,  shifting energy consumption devices (washing machines, dishwashers, dryers or electric vehicles) to daytime hours when energy from solar radiation is being generated,  installing a smart monitoring system for tracking energy usage patterns and identifying areas for improvement to maximize SC,  using energy management tools that adjust and optimize in real-time energy consumption and usage,  skillfully combining PV systems with RES-based electrical equipment, like HP, to produce heat and/or cooling,  producing green hydrogen during water electrolysis from solar-generated electricity [2,11,[14][15][16][17].…”