Techno-economic review of rooftop photovoltaic systems: Case studies of industrial, residential and off-grid rooftops in Bangalore, Karnataka

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe objective of this study is to assess the financial feasibility of setting up Rooftop Photovoltaic (RTPV) systems in Bengaluru which is in the state of Karnataka, India. The Renewable Energy Policy of the state mandates the installation of 250 MW of RTPV systems by 2014, while research shows that the domestic RTPV potential in Bengaluru alone is around 560 MW. To achieve this potential, the Karnataka Renewable Energy Development Limited (KREDL) and the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) formulated policy incentives in the form of net metering at rates of Rs. 9.56/kWh (without the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) capital subsidy) and Rs. 7.2/kWh (with MNRE capital subsidy). Techno-economic assessment of RTPV systems show that these rates lead to viable business cases for the consumers. However, due to Bangalore Electricity Supply Company's (BESCOM) poor finances, a cap of 75% on the capacity of any installed RTPV system based on rated load has been set for all interested parties. Unless this cap is removed, the net metering scheme can never gain momentum in Karnataka because the power generated from the RTPV system will not exceed the monthly consumption. An additional amount of Rs. 81.6 crores per annum is required to reach the 250 MW target. BESCOM can tap the proposed State Clean Energy Fund (SCEF) to pay RTPV project developers. Other revenue models such as feed in tariffs (FiT) and the Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) schemes have been considered for analysis of larger RTPV systems on industrial and commercial rooftops.

A feasibility study of a residential photovoltaic system in Cameroon

“…The unit cost of PV generated electricity in Cameroon obtained for the different building types from this study is quite high compared to: 12.5€c/kWh (PKR 14.8kWh -1 ) obtained for a tropical region in Pakistan (Abdul and Anjum, 2015); €c13/kWh (Rs. 9.56 kWh -1 ) obtained for Bangalore, India (Ghosh et al, 2015); €c24(27 USc) obtained for Kenya (Ondraczek, 2014); and €c15.7 (0.7 R$) to €c21.1 /kWh (R$ 0.94) obtained for Brazil (Miranda et al, 2015). The high unit cost of PV generated electricity in Cameroon could be associated to the high cost of solar PV modules (Mbaka et al, 2010).…”

“…Hence, the total life cycle cost of a PV-system is the sum of the present worth (PW) of the PV modules, charge controllers, storage batteries, inverter, installation, operation and maintenance cost (Shaahid and Elhadidy, 2008). With the exception of the storage batteries that possesses a life span of 10 years, the PV system is assumed to have a useful service life of 25 years as adopted in other studies by IEA/NEA (2015), Ghosh et al (2015), Ma et al (2015), Ayompe and Duffy (2014) and Bouabdallah et al (2015) among others. Therefore, the batteries needs to be replaced after every ten years and its cost adjusted taking into account inflation (i) and the discount rate (d).…”

Market dynamics, innovation, and transition in China's solar photovoltaic (PV) industry: A critical review

“…Based on the above analysis of blocking mechanisms, PV enterprises should focus on industry alliances or industrial clusters [60,61]. The leading enterprises in the midstream industry that present advantages of technology and scale should integrate the resources of small-scale enterprises and join with other enterprises in the industry chain to build an information sharing platform [49].…”

Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) Based Economic Analysis of Solar PV System with Respect to Performance Investigation for Indian Market

“…Figure 5 represents the annual net cash flow (in INR) of ten categories (Cases 1-10 10,20,25,30 years, respectively. Thus, there exist no uniform relationship between LCOE and CAPEX.…”