Analysis of self-sufficiency and self-consumption for PV installations for different locations

Abstract

In this paper the performances of self-consumption facilities for different locations are evaluated. The four cities that have been analysed are Berlin, Madrid, Paris and Rome. The consumption profile corresponds to a residential consumption of 20 kWh/day. We propose to use two parameters to this evaluation: the percentage of self-consumption (PV directly consumed / total PV produced) and the percentage of self-sufficiency (PV directly consumed / total consumption). Several hypotheses have been checked attending to the size of the installation and the availability of solar resource. The size corresponding to a zero energy building has been proposed as reference power; for this reference size, the energy supplied by the PV system is approximately equal to the consumption for a one-year period of time. Using this size as a reference, several different PV sizes ranging from 0.5 to 3 times this reference size have been analyzed. For all of them, the self-sufficiency and self-consumption factors have been estimated. We have found that the values of peak power necessary to get ZEB range from 4.8 to 7.2 kW and that the self-consumption and self-sufficiency factors are of 40 and 36 % respectively. For each location it has been analyzed the best PV size depending on the applying regulation, basically depending on whether it is possible to do net metering or it is possible to sell the energy injected to the grid.