Performance Assessment User Interface to Enhance the Utilization of Grid-Connected Residential PV Systems

Abstract

The share of renewable energy resources in modern electrical power networks is increasing in order to meet environmental and technical targets. Consequently, energy researchers and power providers have been focusing on optimizing the integration of renewable energy into existing power grids. One of the most significant growing applications of renewable energy resources is residential photovoltaic (PV) systems; therefore, this paper discusses a new methodology to enhance the utilization of small-scale and medium-scale PV systems. For this purpose, this study proposes a user-friendly interface to help novice users optimally design their own PV projects with the highest possible utilization of the installed panels. Unlike the commercially available design tools, the proposed interface in this paper provides a higher degree-of-freedom computational process, as well as the option of improving the generated power quality, while maintaining the simplicity of the required tools and inputs. The proposed methodology mainly relies on a deep mathematical analysis considering different generation and consumption aspects, such as the load profile, time of usage, ambient temperature, PV system specifications and location. Furthermore, the mechanism of integrating a small portion of Energy Storage Systems (ESSs), to improve the quality of the extracted power, is also discussed in this study. The user interface provides the ability to estimate optimal ESS usage versus the estimated price when energy is urgently required. The case study was conducted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the results showed an essential improvement in the efficiency, solar fraction and power quality of the studied PV project, which can be extended to other home and distributed generation (DG) scales.