IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v183y2023ics0301421523004196.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is switching to solar energy a feasible investment? A techno-economic analysis of domestic consumers in Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Codina, Eloi
  • Domenech, Bruno
  • Juanpera, Marc
  • Palomo-Avellaneda, Leopold
  • Pastor, Rafael

Abstract

Grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) facilities are more attractive than ever due to the electricity price surges and the reduction of solar energy generation costs. This paper develops a solving procedure including a simulation model to analyze the techno-economic performance of PV-battery facilities, taking into account the latest Spanish regulatory framework. The procedure finds the best facilities for multiple objectives, maximum profitability and maximum self-sufficiency, in different locations, load profiles and economic scenarios. The results indicate that PV modules are profitable without subsidies, with installations between 1 and 6 kWp. Meanwhile, batteries are only convenient when seeking maximum independence from the grid, with capacities up to 9 kWh. The findings suggest that the economic feasibility of facilities is influenced by the location and compensation rate surplus electricity, while the facility is mainly determined by the load profile. A sensitivity analysis shows that a variation in grid tariffs and technology prices has a limited impact on the facility's size but modifies the system's profitability. Finally, an analysis of the latest unprecedented grid price surges indicates that self-consumption facilities help become a more resilient society against unexpected events. Therefore, policymakers should keep promoting the adoption of these technologies and keep the current advantageous regulations.

Suggested Citation

  • 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).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:183:y:2023:i:c:s0301421523004196
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113834
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421523004196
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113834?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Talavera, D.L. & Muñoz-Rodriguez, F.J. & Jimenez-Castillo, G. & Rus-Casas, C., 2019. "A new approach to sizing the photovoltaic generator in self-consumption systems based on cost–competitiveness, maximizing direct self-consumption," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 1021-1035.
    2. Han, Xuejiao & Garrison, Jared & Hug, Gabriela, 2022. "Techno-economic analysis of PV-battery systems in Switzerland," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    3. Ogbomo, Osarumen O. & Amalu, Emeka H. & Ekere, N.N. & Olagbegi, P.O., 2017. "A review of photovoltaic module technologies for increased performance in tropical climate," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 1225-1238.
    4. D'Adamo, Idiano & Gastaldi, Massimo & Morone, Piergiuseppe, 2022. "The impact of a subsidized tax deduction on residential solar photovoltaic-battery energy storage systems," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. Nyholm, Emil & Goop, Joel & Odenberger, Mikael & Johnsson, Filip, 2016. "Solar photovoltaic-battery systems in Swedish households – Self-consumption and self-sufficiency," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 148-159.
    6. Hassan, Masood Ul & Saha, Sajeeb & Haque, Md Enamul, 2021. "PVAnalytX: A MATLAB toolkit for techno-economic analysis and performance evaluation of rooftop PV systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    7. Tongsopit, Sopitsuda & Junlakarn, Siripha & Wibulpolprasert, Wichsinee & Chaianong, Aksornchan & Kokchang, Phimsupha & Hoang, Nghia Vu, 2019. "The economics of solar PV self-consumption in Thailand," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 395-408.
    8. López Prol, Javier & Steininger, Karl W., 2020. "Photovoltaic self-consumption is now profitable in Spain: Effects of the new regulation on prosumers’ internal rate of return," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    9. Suntiti Yoomak & Theerasak Patcharoen & Atthapol Ngaopitakkul, 2019. "Performance and Economic Evaluation of Solar Rooftop Systems in Different Regions of Thailand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-20, November.
    10. Bruno Domenech & Gema Calleja & Jordi Olivella, 2021. "Residential Photovoltaic Profitability with Storage under the New Spanish Regulation: A Multi-Scenario Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-17, April.
    11. Vieira, Filomeno M. & Moura, Pedro S. & de Almeida, Aníbal T., 2017. "Energy storage system for self-consumption of photovoltaic energy in residential zero energy buildings," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 308-320.
    12. Bertsch, Valentin & Geldermann, Jutta & Lühn, Tobias, 2017. "What drives the profitability of household PV investments, self-consumption and self-sufficiency?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 1-15.
    13. Zhang, Yang & Campana, Pietro Elia & Lundblad, Anders & Yan, Jinyue, 2017. "Comparative study of hydrogen storage and battery storage in grid connected photovoltaic system: Storage sizing and rule-based operation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 397-411.
    14. Khan, Khalid & Su, Chi-Wei & Zhu, Meng Nan, 2022. "Examining the behaviour of energy prices to COVID-19 uncertainty: A quantile on quantile approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PE).
    15. Reza Reisi, Ali & Hassan Moradi, Mohammad & Jamasb, Shahriar, 2013. "Classification and comparison of maximum power point tracking techniques for photovoltaic system: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 433-443.
    16. A. Stephan & B. Battke & M. D. Beuse & J. H. Clausdeinken & T. S. Schmidt, 2016. "Limiting the public cost of stationary battery deployment by combining applications," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 1(7), pages 1-9, July.
    17. Barbour, Edward & González, Marta C., 2018. "Projecting battery adoption in the prosumer era," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 356-370.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schopfer, S. & Tiefenbeck, V. & Staake, T., 2018. "Economic assessment of photovoltaic battery systems based on household load profiles," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 229-248.
    2. Han, Xuejiao & Garrison, Jared & Hug, Gabriela, 2022. "Techno-economic analysis of PV-battery systems in Switzerland," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    3. Bruno Domenech & Gema Calleja & Jordi Olivella, 2021. "Residential Photovoltaic Profitability with Storage under the New Spanish Regulation: A Multi-Scenario Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-17, April.
    4. 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.
    5. Luthander, Rasmus & Nilsson, Annica M. & Widén, Joakim & Åberg, Magnus, 2019. "Graphical analysis of photovoltaic generation and load matching in buildings: A novel way of studying self-consumption and self-sufficiency," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 748-759.
    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. Ollas, Patrik & Sigarchian, Sara Ghaem & Alfredsson, Hampus & Leijon, Jennifer & Döhler, Jessica Santos & Aalhuizen, Christoffer & Thiringer, Torbjörn & Thomas, Karin, 2023. "Evaluating the role of solar photovoltaic and battery storage in supporting electric aviation and vehicle infrastructure at Visby Airport," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 352(C).
    8. Olivella, Jordi & Domenech, Bruno & Calleja, Gema, 2021. "Potential of implementation of residential photovoltaics at city level: The case of London," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 577-585.
    9. 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.
    10. Ramallo-González, Alfonso P. & Loonen, Roel & Tomat, Valentina & Zamora, Miguel Ángel & Surugin, Dmitry & Hensen, Jan, 2020. "Nomograms for de-complexing the dimensioning of off-grid PV systems," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 162-172.
    11. Ahsan, Syed M. & Khan, Hassan A. & Hassan, Naveed-ul & Arif, Syed M. & Lie, Tek-Tjing, 2020. "Optimized power dispatch for solar photovoltaic-storage system with multiple buildings in bilateral contracts," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).
    12. Beuse, Martin & Dirksmeier, Mathias & Steffen, Bjarne & Schmidt, Tobias S., 2020. "Profitability of commercial and industrial photovoltaics and battery projects in South-East-Asia," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 271(C).
    13. Fernando Echevarría Camarero & Ana Ogando-Martínez & Pablo Durán Gómez & Pablo Carrasco Ortega, 2022. "Profitability of Batteries in Photovoltaic Systems for Small Industrial Consumers in Spain under Current Regulatory Framework and Energy Prices," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-19, December.
    14. Mulleriyawage, U.G.K. & Shen, W.X., 2021. "Impact of demand side management on optimal sizing of residential battery energy storage system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 1250-1266.
    15. Gallego-Castillo, Cristobal & Heleno, Miguel & Victoria, Marta, 2021. "Self-consumption for energy communities in Spain: A regional analysis under the new legal framework," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    16. Hirschburger, Rafael & Weidlich, Anke, 2020. "Profitability of photovoltaic and battery systems on municipal buildings," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 1163-1173.
    17. Vasileios Papadopoulos & Jos Knockaert & Chris Develder & Jan Desmet, 2020. "Peak Shaving through Battery Storage for Low-Voltage Enterprises with Peak Demand Pricing," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-17, March.
    18. Alessandro Burgio & Daniele Menniti & Nicola Sorrentino & Anna Pinnarelli & Zbigniew Leonowicz, 2020. "Influence and Impact of Data Averaging and Temporal Resolution on the Assessment of Energetic, Economic and Technical Issues of Hybrid Photovoltaic-Battery Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-26, January.
    19. Bertsch, Valentin & Geldermann, Jutta & Lühn, Tobias, 2017. "What drives the profitability of household PV investments, self-consumption and self-sufficiency?," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 1-15.
    20. Nina Munzke & Felix Büchle & Anna Smith & Marc Hiller, 2021. "Influence of Efficiency, Aging and Charging Strategy on the Economic Viability and Dimensioning of Photovoltaic Home Storage Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-46, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:183:y:2023:i:c:s0301421523004196. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.