Case Study of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Power System Installed at Monthly Optimum Tilt Angles for Different Climatic Zones in India

Abstract

Elevated price of renewable energy (RE) systems slowed its adoption in many countries. Hence, it is important to select an optimal size of the system in order to decrease cost, excess energy produced by RE system. The RE system is used to minimize air pollution and energy security. The aim of this study is to evaluate and compare the techno-economic performance of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) power systems for a rooftop solar PV building containing 14 families in six regions with different climate zones in India. For this purpose, grid connected PV (Grid-PV) is installed at optimum tilt angles (OTA). Then, techno-economic performance of these systems is performed in the six climatic zones in India, which is the novelty of this study. RE resources and ambient temperature for different seasons are considered during analysis. The load is fixed for all the sites for a better comparison in the study. The results show that using OTA in Grid-PV system reduces greenhouse gas emissions, e.g. COx, SOx and NOx, decreases payback time while increasing overall PV production and other project productivity parameters. These include specific yield, PV penetration, return on investment, Internal Rate of Interest, Net Present Value, Annualized Saving, Energy sold to the grid for all climatic zones in India proving useful for industry. Using these metrics and results in this paper, researchers and project developers, policy makers can promote better use of renewable energy. Therefore, it is necessary to use Grid-PV with OTA for different climatic zones.