Abstract
Despite large amounts of available roof space, long pay-back periods for investments in photovoltaic (PV) power plants often hinder PV installations in industrial parks. Photovoltaic citizen participation initiatives (PV-CPI) are an alternative way of financing PV power plants that add non-financial benefits to these investments. This paper analyzed the feasibility of the installation of PV power plants focused on high rates of self-consumption financed by citizen participation initiatives on the roofs of five companies located in the Austrian Ennshafen industrial business park based on the net present value and the discounted pay-back period and compared it to a standard financing scheme, assuming a predetermined interest rate for participants as well as economies of scale with respect to the specific installation costs due to a joint purchase of the PV power plants. To calculate the feasibility, site-specific data and literature input have been used. The results show that despite an interest rate above the current interest rates of conservative forms of investments provided to (small-scale) investors, a payback-period of 17–23 years can be reached while the joint purchase can lead to a competitive feasibility of the PV-CPI compared to an individual purchase of PV power plants.
Highlights
By the end of 2019, Austria featured grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) power plants with a total power capacity of approximately 1702 Megawatt peak (MWp), generating approximately one percent of the electricity production in Austria [1].The objective of the Austrian Government Program stipulated within the National Energy and Climate Plan is to produce 100% of the electricity consumed in Austria from renewable energy sources by 2030 [2]
Even though regional/Austrian levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) of PV-generated electricity will differ from the global weighted average LCOE shown in Figure 5, studies by the Fraunhofer-Institut ISE indicate that LCOE decreases of PV power plants in Germany have taken place over the last few years, having reached an LCOE range of between 0.0371 €/kWh and 0.1154 €/kWh in 2018 down from a range of 0.078 €/kWh to 0.142 €/kWh in 2013 [36,47]
Between 2015 and 2017—with deviations depending on specific situations—it has become more economically feasible to invest in PV power plants on company roofs with a strong focus on self-consumption as opposed to feeding all of the generated PV electricity into the grid
Summary
The objective of the Austrian Government Program stipulated within the National Energy and Climate Plan is to produce 100% of the electricity consumed in Austria from renewable energy sources by 2030 [2]. To reach this objective, it will be necessary to: 1. Considering the physical, technical, and economic requirements to install PV power plants, the feasible potential for PV power plants on Austrian buildings is considered to amount to 4 Terawatt-hours (TWh; equaling roughly 4 GWp), 1.8 TWh (equaling roughly 1.8 GWp) of which is the feasible technical potential on industrial and commercial building roofs, which amounts to 12 % of the necessary capacity increase by 2030 [5]. Essential impediments for extensive installations of PV power plants on buildings go along with comparably long pay-back periods (especially when compared to the usual payback periods in the industry) and high upfront costs in combination with the current low interest rates for classical forms of savings [6], PV-CPIs can be an alternative method of financing PV power plants on company roofs while at the same time integrating small (local) investors
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