Techno Economic Comparative Analysis of Off Grid and ON Grid PV System

Electricity is the second form of energy which makes our life convenient. It also plays an important role in the GDP of Pakistan. After the industrial revolution and due to the increase in human population, the demand of electricity increases. As oil, coal and gas are the natural resources also call

Project Title

Techno Economic Comparative Analysis of Off Grid and ON Grid PV System

Project Area of Specialization

Electrical/Electronic Engineering

Project Summary

Electricity is the second form of energy which makes our life convenient. It also plays an important role in the GDP of Pakistan. After the industrial revolution and due to the increase in human population, the demand of electricity increases. As oil, coal and gas are the natural resources also called fossil fuels are mainly used to produce electricity. These fossil fuels are the main cause of greenhouse gas emissions and disrupt earth’s climate equilibrium. Now-a-days energy crises is the main issue of Pakistan. There are many reasons of these energy crisis but the main reason is the continuous reduction of the fossil fuels from the country which will cause the complete unavailability of these fossil fuels after few decades. Another is that as the consumers get electricity from grid through transmission and distribution system and these systems causes losses which are more than 15%. Overall Pakistan is struggling with a large gap between electricity supply and a demand of about 5 GW due to which there is load shading problem 6-8 hours in Urban areas and 12 hours or even more in rural areas. In these cases, renewable energy resources are reliable in terms of environmental pollution and will not reduce in amount. These resources are solar, wind, biomass, thermal, tidal etc. The percentage of electricity production from fossil fuels is very high whereas from renewables is negligible (around 5-6%). Since last few decades’ Solar Photovoltaic which is renewable energy resource is emerging a lot in small and large applications. It converts light energy directly into electricity. Rooftop PV installations have picked up pace as a means to avoid frequent power shutdowns and save on electricity costs. Pakistan has a high solar potential. Irradiation across the country is around 4.5-7.0 kWh/m²/day. The literature review suggests that due to decrease in prices of solar PV and batteries, there is a lot of social and academic discussion about possibilities of installing solar PV system and leaving the grid completely. A lot of different strategies and software have been used to find out optimized size and cost of solar PV system. The literature review shows that Solar PV System can be installed either for “Backup Supply”, “Off-Grid” or “On Grid with or without Net Metering”. The Per unit cost of electricity and payback time period were the main objectives in the literature. The literature results suggest that installation of Solar PV system along with Grid connection will be more cost effective and feasible because the life cycle cost of an Off-Grid System becomes higher due to the batteries required for backup at night. In the project, for comparative analysis of Off Grid and On Grid System HOMER software will be used for modelling such system.  

Project Objectives

Following are the objectives on which research is based.

1. To estimate the feasible size and cost for an Off Grid Solar PV System.
2. Techno-Economic comparative analysis of an Off-Grid Solar PV System with an On-Grid Solar PV System.

Project Implementation Method

For techno-economic comparative analysis HOMER software will be used.

Load Profile

 At the first step, a load profile will be prepared by using data from previous monthly bills and by calculating the connected load of a domestic house.

Economic data

In which initial and Replacement costs of PV panels, Batteries and Inverter will be determined.

Meteorological data

In which NREL data will be used for solar irradiance and wind speed of particular location of the city.

Equipment Characteristics

In which ratings, capacity,  Lifetime of equipment will to be determined.

Search Space

In which we can use different combinations according to the ratings to find out multiple results.

Simulation and Optimization

After all of this, simulation and optimization will be carried out for a feasible model to meet the demand of domestic house.

Benefits of the Project

Roof top Solar PV System has many benefits like,

1. Power generation from Solar PV System will not produce greenhouse gas emissions.
2. No noise pollution
3. Load Shedding problem will be solved.
4. Per unit cost of electricity will be reduced
5. Recovery of whole investment on such system in few years.
6. Very low Maintenance cost.
7. Implementation time is very less.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

The HOMER software will be used for Techno-economic comparative analysis.

This software requires different Types of data.

1) Load profile

2) Economic data

3) Meteorological data

4) Equipment Characteristics

Final Deliverable of the Project

Software System

Core Industry

Energy

Other Industries

Core Technology

Clean Tech

Other Technologies

Sustainable Development Goals

Affordable and Clean Energy

Required Resources

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