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Projecting battery adoption in the prosumer era

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  • Barbour, Edward
  • González, Marta C.

Abstract

Solar photovoltaic (PV) has the potential to make an important contribution to global sustainability, however, the misalignment between solar production and residential demand presents challenges for widespread PV adoption. Combining PV and storage is one way that this challenge can be overcome. In this work, we use one year of smart meter data from 369 consumers in three different US regions and calculate their economic benefits from both PV and coupled PV-battery systems. We consider a range of different electricity pricing schemes from the consumer regions, including both Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) and Net-Energy-Metering (NEM) policies. Significantly, our work uses real demand data, real PV generation data and optimizes each individual consumer’s battery operation to minimize their electricity bill. Furthermore, we study the effect of batteries on consumer self-sufficiency, which is important because increasing self-sufficiency is a primary motivating factor behind battery adoption. We find that PV is profitable for the majority of consumers with most current pricing scenarios but PV-battery systems are always less profitable. However, batteries can provide very significant increases in self-sufficiency and we find that a majority of consumers can exceed 70% self-sufficiency with a 20 kW h battery and a PV system that produces the equivalent of their consumption. This is compared to an average self-sufficiency of 35% with PV only. Finally, recognizing that a number of factors could lead to profitable batteries in future, we study the sensitivity of battery profitability to future electricity prices in a FIT scenario, also accounting for future decreases in PV and battery costs. We find that if PV-battery systems are to become better investments than PV-only for the majority of consumers, retail electricity prices above $0.40/kW h and FIT rates below $0.05/kW h are a likely requirement.

Suggested Citation

  • Barbour, Edward & González, Marta C., 2018. "Projecting battery adoption in the prosumer era," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 356-370.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:215:y:2018:i:c:p:356-370
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.01.056
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    3. Wang, Wenting & Yang, Dazhi & Huang, Nantian & Lyu, Chao & Zhang, Gang & Han, Xueying, 2022. "Irradiance-to-power conversion based on physical model chain: An application on the optimal configuration of multi-energy microgrid in cold climate," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    4. Alejandro Pena-Bello & Edward Barbour & Marta C. Gonzalez & Selin Yilmaz & Martin K. Patel & David Parra, 2020. "How Does the Electricity Demand Profile Impact the Attractiveness of PV-Coupled Battery Systems Combining Applications?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-19, August.
    5. Say, Kelvin & John, Michele & Dargaville, Roger, 2019. "Power to the people: Evolutionary market pressures from residential PV battery investments in Australia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    6. Zhang, Yijie & Ma, Tao & Yang, Hongxing, 2022. "Grid-connected photovoltaic battery systems: A comprehensive review and perspectives," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).
    7. Pena-Bello, A. & Barbour, E. & Gonzalez, M.C. & Patel, M.K. & Parra, D., 2019. "Optimized PV-coupled battery systems for combining applications: Impact of battery technology and geography," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 978-990.
    8. Kelvin Say & Michele John, 2020. "Molehills into mountains: Transitional pressures from household PV-battery adoption under flat retail and feed-in tariffs," Papers 2012.00934, arXiv.org.
    9. Martínez-Jaramillo, Juan Esteban & van Ackere, Ann & Larsen, Erik R., 2022. "Transitioning towards a 100% solar-hydro based generation: A system dynamic approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PD).
    10. Gržanić, M. & Capuder, T. & Zhang, N. & Huang, W., 2022. "Prosumers as active market participants: A systematic review of evolution of opportunities, models and challenges," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    11. Codina, Eloi & Domenech, Bruno & Juanpera, Marc & Palomo-Avellaneda, Leopold & Pastor, Rafael, 2023. "Is switching to solar energy a feasible investment? A techno-economic analysis of domestic consumers in Spain," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    12. Sofiane Kichou & Nikolaos Skandalos & Petr Wolf, 2020. "Evaluation of Photovoltaic and Battery Storage Effects on the Load Matching Indicators Based on Real Monitored Data," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-20, May.
    13. Milad Afzalan & Farrokh Jazizadeh, 2021. "Quantification of Demand-Supply Balancing Capacity among Prosumers and Consumers: Community Self-Sufficiency Assessment for Energy Trading," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-21, July.
    14. Parra, David & Patel, Martin K., 2019. "The nature of combining energy storage applications for residential battery technology," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(C), pages 1343-1355.
    15. Heleno, Miguel & Sehloff, David & Coelho, Antonio & Valenzuela, Alan, 2020. "Probabilistic impact of electricity tariffs on distribution grids considering adoption of solar and storage technologies," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).

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