Analyses of Photovoltaic System Output, Temperature, Electricity Loads and National Electricity Market Prices–Summer 2003-04 (original) (raw)
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Electricity demand has increased rapidly in Australia over the past decade, accompanied by a significant shift to summer peaks, driven largely by increased air conditioner usage. Recent summer peaks in several States have resulted in supply disruptions and, on some occasions, extremely high spot prices on the National Electricity Market. This is now a major issue for the Australian electricity industry, which is set to spend over AUD 10 billion over the next decade in new generation plant, including significant expenditure on peak load plant, and on new and upgraded network assets. There may be opportunities for PV and other demand side measures to contribute to point of use energy supply, thereby reducing the need for central generating plant and for costly network upgrades. This paper examines the potential matching of PV generation to summer peak loads, using data from PV systems and electricity substations in three States. Preliminary results indicate that PV output on clear days can be a good match to overall system load and to electricity spot prices on peak summer days and for feeders with a high proportion of commercial load. For residential feeders, west facing PV arrays provide a better match to summer load than do north facing arrays.
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Disclosure: Data used in the report has been provided for research purposes to the Victoria Energy Policy Centre (VEPC) by CHOICE TRANSFORMER. These data are derived from analysis of electricity bills and retail market offers using MISwitcher software that Carbon and Energy Markets (CME) licences for CHOICE TRANSFORMER's use. Bruce Mountain is the Director of CME and the VEPC and the principal author of this report. Disclaimer: The Victoria Energy Policy Centre and Victoria University advise that the information contained in this publication comprises general statements based on scientific research. The reader is advised and needs to be aware that such information may be incomplete or unable to be used in any specific situation. No reliance or actions must therefore be made on that information without seeking prior expert professional, scientific and technical advice. To the extent permitted by law, the Victoria Energy Policy Centre and Victoria University (including its employees and consultants) exclude all liability to any person for any consequences, including but not limited to all losses, damages, costs, expenses and any other compensation, arising directly or indirectly from using this publication (in part or in whole) and any information or material contained in it.
The Contribution of Photovoltaics to Commercial Loads
Whilst photovoltaics (PV) is an increasingly popular technology for residential application, PV ouput is often better matched to commercial load patterns. This has ramifications for both placement of PV and for support policies. Commercial buildings provide the potential for larger scale PV installations which in turn can be valuable in stimulating market growth, developing new financial arrangements and driving price reduction through economies of scale. Market entry by the commercial sector has been instrumental in the rapid market increase experienced in countries such as Germany, while the Japanese PV industry and government, which previously focussed support on residential applications, has now moved to development of this larger scale market. Through the Australian Government Renewable Energy Commercialisation Program (RECP), a number of commercial scale projects were completed as showcase examples, notably in Sydney (Kogarah Town Square), Melbourne (Melbourne University Research Building) and Brisbane (Hall Chadwick Centre). These projects focused on whole building design outcomes and demonstrating PV integration technologies. This research takes an important step further by investigating the value of PV electricity generation to the commercial sector in the Australian context. Specifically, this paper examines PV output and load profiles from a number of substations which service areas with a significant portion of commercial load. The cost-effectiveness of PV is then examined for commercial customers, based on current tariffs, depreciation allowances and Renewable Energy Certificates. Possible strategies to stimulate commercial sector uptake of PV are discussed.
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New Zealand’s electricity infrastructure was designed to support the flow of energy from large centralised power stations toward end users, including households and businesses. However, a shift to a more distributed supply may be beginning with the growing interest in small-scale photovoltaic (PV) solar generation. In the last 2 years alone the quantity of grid-connected small-scale PV systems in NZ has grown by at least 330%. . Although PV installations to date are relatively few, such that the current installed capacity is about one-tenth that of Meridian’s West Wind power station near Wellington, a continuation of the growth that can be seen in this market (Figure 1) could have substantial impact. While the current installed PV capacity per capita is still relatively low compared to some other countries3 (most likely due to the subsidies through attractive feed-in tariffs), the rate of uptake is of great interest given the absence of Government incentives for small-scale PV installations, along with the relatively high cost to implement4. It is important to understand the drivers of PV uptake (i.e. the reasons for the rapid increase in PV installations), and whether PV is likely to remain niche or become even more widespread. To investigate these issues we have undertaken three separate research streams. We have carried out interviews5 with people who have already purchased (or who have a strong interest to purchase) PV systems both nationally (20 people) and within Blueskin Bay (18 people), a small region of the country with relatively high interest in PV. We have run an online questionnaire and choice modelling experiment6 with 2000 people (1000 of whom we questioned about PV), and we have responses to a national household energy survey of 2700 households around New Zealand. This report draws from all three studies to provide an update of our high-level findings to date. This is an early-stage report and further detailed analysis and reporting will follow.
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New Markets for Solar Photovoltaic Power Systems
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Over the past five years solar photovoltaic (PV) power supply systems have matured and are now being deployed on a much larger scale. The traditional small-scale remote area power supply systems are still important and village electrification is also a large and growing market but large scale, grid-connected systems and building integrated systems are now being deployed in many countries. This growth has been aided by imaginative government policies in several countries and the overall result is a growth rate of over 40% per annum in the sales of PV systems. Optimistic forecasts are being made about the future of PV power as a major source of sustainable energy. Plans are now being formulated by the TEA for very large-scale PV installations of more than 100 MW peak output. The Australian Government has announced a subsidy for a large solar photovoltaic power station of 154 MW in Victoria, based on the concentrator technology developed in Australia. In Western Australia a proposal has been submitted to the State Government for a 2 MW photovoltaic power system to provide fringe of grid support at Perenjori. This paper outlines the technologies, designs, management and policies that underpin these exciting developments in solar PV power.
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Now in its ninth edition, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)'s Tracking the Sun report series is dedicated to summarizing trends in the installed price of grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in the United States. The present report focuses on residential and non-residential systems installed through year-end 2015, with preliminary trends for the first half of 2016. An accompanying LBNL report, Utility-Scale Solar, addresses trends in the utility-scale sector. This year's report incorporates a number of important changes and enhancements from prior editions. Among those changes, LBNL has made available a public data file containing all non-confidential project-level data underlying the analysis in this report. 1 Installed pricing trends presented within this report derive primarily from project-level data reported to state agencies and utilities that administer PV incentive programs, solar renewable energy credit (SREC) registration systems, or interconnection processes. Refer to the text box to the right for several key notes about these data. In total, data were collected and cleaned for more than 820,000 individual PV systems, representing 85% of U.S. residential and non-residential PV systems installed cumulatively through 2015 and 82% of systems installed in 2015. The analysis in this report is based on a subset of this sample, consisting of roughly 450,000 systems with available installed price data. Key findings from this year's report are as follows, with all numerical results denoted in real 2015 dollars and direct current (DC) Watts (W): Installed Prices Continued to Decline through 2015 and into 2016. National median installed prices in 2015 declined year-over-year by 0.2/W(50.2/W (5%) for residential systems, by 0.2/W(50.3/W (7%) for non-residential systems ≤500 kW, and by $0.3/W (9%) for non-residential systems >500 kW. This continues the steady downward trend in PV system pricing, though the pace of decline is somewhat slower than in recent years. Preliminary data for the first half of 2016 show a mixed picture, but generally suggest that installed prices have continued to fall at a modest pace, at least within a number of key states and market segments. The slowing rate of decline may partly reflect a number of confounding factors could be offsetting underlying cost reductions. These include, for example, the increasing prevalence of solar loans with origination fees embedded in the installed price, greater use of module-level power electronics, module import tariffs, and a shift in the underlying geographical mix of the data sample towards more-expensive states (e.g., California). Recent Installed Price Reductions Have Been Driven Primarily by Declines in Soft Costs. A period of rapidly falling installed prices, starting in 2009, was initiated by a steep drop in global prices for PV modules. Since 2012, however, module prices have remained relatively flat, while installed prices have continued to fall. Reductions in inverter and racking equipment costs constitute 1 The file can be downloaded through NREL's Open PV Project.