Cost-reliability trade-offs for grid-connected rooftop PV in emerging economies: A case of Indonesia's urban residential households

Abstract

This study explores the potential of grid-connected rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems in terms of how they can be better planned and utilised by understanding possible trade-offs between cost and reliability while acknowledging challenges to utility supply security in the context of emerging economies. The study particularly examines the implications of unserved energy targets, PV capacity, and billing deduction factors on grid-connected rooftop PV's trade-offs in terms of total net present cost and unserved energy. This study considers four residential household segments in Indonesia's urban area as a case study, with four cases applied in each segment representing scenarios on PV capacities and billing deduction factors. Using HOMER software, the analyses highlight the role of cost components in trade-offs involving potential PV capacity cases. Systems with maximum PV capacity exhibit cheaper total net present costs than those of half PV capacity within the same unserved energy. While the optimisations pushed PV capacity up to the maximum size across all unserved energies, higher unserved energy resulted in lower grid capacity required to meet demand associated with the system's maximum unserved energy limit. This study provides residential customers and stakeholders with insights to better plan and implement grid-connected rooftop PV systems and policies.