Payback Period and Life Cycle Emissions of a Commercial Solar Carport with a Virtual Case Study

Abstract

The solar carport is a significant technology-oriented infrastructural concept for facilitating electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS). The EVCS predominantly utilise the onsite solar photovoltaic energy for the charging of EVs. Moreover, EVCS can act as multipurpose CS to enable Grid to Vehicle (G2V) and Vehicle to Grid(V2G). Photovoltaic Electric vehicle charging station (PEVCS) can feed both EVs, traditional consumer loads, and can also feed power to the grid. Thus, enabling PEVCs across the various organisations and institutions can meet the local as well as dynamic demands incurred during charging of EVs. In this paper, a detailed economic and system analysis for the PEVCS is carried out using PVSyst and Helioscope for the area planning and shadow analysis. The normalised results of PEVCS is analysed along with the payback period and life cycle emissions are calculated for a virtual case study in Taylor’s University. At the end of the 25th year, based on the analysis, the overall payback and revenue for 25 years is 2,653.6 kMYR will be generated by selling energy at 0.58 MYR / kWh.