The Shading Influence on the Economic Viability of a Real Photovoltaic System Project

Abstract

Renewable resources for producing energy for self-consumption are growing, namely solar energy. This work focuses on the comparison of photovoltaic systems for energy production for self-consumption on a property in three different regions of Portugal using traditional and emerging technologies, without batteries’ implementation. According to Portuguese law, there is no stipulated value for selling surplus energy produced by a self consumption unit, to the public grid. In order to analyse the economic viability of the project, two scenarios are studied: the delivery, at zero cost of the surplus energy produced to the grid, and its sale. Furthermore, the same analysis is carried out considering partial shading on the photovoltaic generator. The results show that if there is no surplus production sale to the grid, the project becomes economically unviable for the four PV technologies. Otherwise, for the traditional technologies, the project is economically viable, presenting a payback time lower than 10 years. Using emerging technologies, the project becomes economically unviable. When applying partial shading on the generator, the project becomes, in all the scenarios under study, economically unviable. It can be concluded that introducing nanostructures in solar cells to power an infrastructure is not, for now, the best solution from an economic point of view, considering the current legislation. In addition, the shading makes the projects under study unviable, as it is a factor that cannot be controlled in its entirety.