Abstract
Lebanon suffers from daily electricity shortages. The country has paid much attention to renewable energy sources, particularly solar, to gradually replace conventional energy. Installing a photovoltaic (PV) system becomes increasingly attractive for residential consumers due to the rising electricity tariff rates while it reduces the dependency on domestic power generators. No known study has dealt with the investigation of potential grid-connected rooftop PV systems with various sun-tracking modes and PV technologies in Nahr El-Bared, Lebanon. Consequently, the main objective of the current paper is to investigate the feasibility of a 5kW grid-connected PV system of various technologies (mono-crystalline silicon and poly-crystalline silicon) and sun-tracking modes including fixed tilt and 2-axis systems for rooftop households in Lebanon. The Nahr El-Bared camp was the case study was of the paper. RETScreen Expert software was used to evaluate the techno-economic performance of the proposed systems. The results show that the annual electrical energy from a fixed 5kW PV panel tilted at an optimal angle ranged from 8564.47kWh to 8776.81kWh, while the annual electrical energy from the PV tracking system was within the range of 11511.67-12100.92kWh. This amount of energy output would contribute significantly to reduce the energy shortage in the country. A typical household was selected to establish a load profile and load supply during both grid availability and outage periods. The highest energy consumption that can be covered by the PV systems was recorded during the spring and summer seasons. Also, the average energy production cost ranged from 0.0239 to 0.0243$/kWh for all the proposed systems. It was concluded that a 5kW grid-connected rooftop PV system could be economically justifiable. Finally, this study tried to increase the awareness about utilizing PV sun-tracking systems and the feasibility of small-scale grid-connected rooftop PV systems in the selected regions. The results of this research can help investors in the energy and building sectors.
Highlights
Energy is an indispensable need, which, until quite recently, was met with the consumption of conventional fossil fuels
The results indicated that PV*SOL is an easy, fast, and reliable software tool for the simulation of the solar PV system in the selected region
The performance of the developed PV systems is estimated by 2 simulation tools, Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS) and RETScreen
Summary
Energy is an indispensable need, which, until quite recently, was met with the consumption of conventional fossil fuels. The use of fossil fuels has polluted the environment and led to climate change mainly due to greenhouse gas emissions [1]. The environmental problems resulting from the increasing consumption of fossil fuels have encouraged scientific researchers to search for alternative sources of energy that would affect less the environment [2, 3]. Many researchers found that renewable energy sources, like solar and wind, play a significant role in reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Solar power has been considered as a potential, economically viable, and environment friendly energy source. Authors in [8] compared the potential of utilizing wind energy and solar energy as power sources for a small household in three urban regions in Northern Cyprus. The results showed that the selected regions have huge solar
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
