Operation and tariff for composite PV-battery system

Government of India has laid the foundation of national solar mission to establish the country as a global leader in solar energy. Tariff is a crucial factor for penetration of the solar energy across the country. This paper presents operational aspects & prevailing tariff structure of combined solar photovoltaic and battery (PV-Battery) energy system in a network. A 50 kWp solar PV-Battery system is considered for study. PVsyst software is used for PV-Battery system modelling and estimations of hourly energy generation from the PV array. Short term generation scheduling of PV-Battery system is done to study its operational aspects in network. Unit commitment (UC) problem is solved to determine optimal operating strategy of hybrid plant consisting of thermal generators and PV-Battery system. To analyse the effect of the PV-Battery system in network, a 6 bus system is considered and power flow problem is solved. Location of PV-Battery system is determined by doing exhaustive search such that minimum network losses occur. The estimated generation from the PVsyst software along with the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC) tariff guidelines are used for the tariff calculation of energy produced from PV-Battery system. Financial analysis is also done to check its viability.