Photovoltaic Rooftops in Smart Energy Systems

Distributed energy generation will dramatically grow and renewable energies together with information and communication technologies (ICT) will promote Smart Homes, Buildings and Industries. These systems will not only generate electricity to face both residential and industrial consumption on site but they will also use information obtained through smart sensors in order to manage energy flows and provide a reliable energy management. This chapter will provide a method based on the self-consumption and self-sufficiency curves to illustrate the role that self-consumption photovoltaic systems, also called PV rooftops, may play in Smart Energy Systems. The aforementioned method is based on a matching analysis between load and photovoltaic generation profiles. Moreover, as this analysis is based on monitored data provided by smart sensors, the influence of the recording interval when estimating the self-consumed energy will be shown, providing a proper performance analysis. Although the analysis focuses on the residential sector, the performance of a PV rooftop installed in an industrial refrigeration company will be also illustrated. In the residential sector, direct photovoltaic self-consumption (i.e., without storage systems) may cover more than 40% of the electricity load consumption. This percentage may be considerably increased with the use of different strategies such as demand side management and batteries, which may be a path toward nearly Zero Energy Buildings.