IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v260y2026ics0960148125028332.html

Impact of growing national solar power capacity on the profitability of residential solar energy production in northern conditions

Author

Listed:
  • Jouttijärvi, Sami
  • Seppälä, Simeon
  • Karttunen, Lauri
  • Ranta, Samuli
  • Syri, Sanna
  • Miettunen, Kati

Abstract

This study examines the effect of increasing solar photovoltaic (PV) production on electricity market prices and analyzes how this development affects the profitability of residential PV systems. The key novelty is a comprehensive techno-economic analysis of the profitability of differently oriented residential PV systems under different electricity price scenarios. The novel approach combines PV system simulation, a large set of real electricity consumption data, and two electricity price estimation methods: linear regression and aggregated bidding curve modification. Nordic conditions with long summer days and low solar elevation angles enable the efficient use of different PV system designs, such as vertical bifacial PV, offering versatile production profiles. This study identifies how rapidly PV capacity growth cannibalizes the value of the different residential PV systems, what systems are resilient toward cannibalization, and how the national PV deployment strategy affects cannibalization in Finland. The results show that even 500 MW addition to the national PV production capacity in Finland compromises residential PV profitability in the worst-case scenario. Electricity-powered heating solutions make PV more profitable. Overall, maximizing self-consumption is crucial to maintaining the economic profitability of residential PV systems in different electricity price scenarios.

Suggested Citation

  • Jouttijärvi, Sami & Seppälä, Simeon & Karttunen, Lauri & Ranta, Samuli & Syri, Sanna & Miettunen, Kati, 2026. "Impact of growing national solar power capacity on the profitability of residential solar energy production in northern conditions," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:260:y:2026:i:c:s0960148125028332
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2025.125169
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148125028332
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2025.125169?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

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:renene:v:260:y:2026:i:c:s0960148125028332. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    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.