Estimating national and local low-voltage grid capacity for residential solar photovoltaic in Sweden, UK and Germany

Elias Hartvigsson,Mikael Odenberger,Peiyuan Chen,Emil Nyholm

doi:10.1016/j.renene.2021.02.073

Elias Hartvigsson, Mikael Odenberger + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2021.02.073

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Abstract

The electric grid’s available capacity to accommodate solar photovoltaic on national scales is currently uncertain. This makes decisions about grid capacity expansion, which can be very costly for local grid operators, difficult to make. Yet, knowledge of national solar photovoltaic grid capacity is central in order to formulate realistic solar PV targets and strategies. We present a methodology based on publicly available data to estimate the grid’s hosting capacity of residential solar photovoltaic at both the national and local scale. The model is applied to Sweden, Germany and the UK and shows that low-voltage grid capacity for residential solar photovoltaic is very large, 33 (+5/-7) GW (Sweden), 248 (+5/-24) GW (Germany) and 63 (+1/-14) GW UK, and similar to current total generation capacity. Based on our estimations, we find that with the capacity of the present grid Sweden can supply 24%, Germany 60% and UK 21% of their current annual net electricity consumption from residential solar photovoltaic. In addition, we find that the grid-supported individual solar PV system sizes increase as population density decreases. Finally, our work highlights the importance of implementing sizing incentives for customers when installing their solar PV systems.

Highlights

Solar photovoltaic (PV) is expected to play an important role in the transition towards a climate neutral energy system
In this paper we present a methodology and an analysis of solar PV hosting capacity of residential customers on national and local scales for Sweden, Germany and the UK
Our model provides a national spatial map of low-voltage hosting capacity in Sweden, Germany and the United Kingdom (Fig. 5 and Fig. 6) using European local administrative units [47]

Summary

Introduction

Solar photovoltaic (PV) is expected to play an important role in the transition towards a climate neutral energy system. Solar PV has shown annual growth between 22 and 76% and has consistently exceeded growth expectations [1]. And Greece have reached high penetration levels, and produced 7e8% of their annual electricity demand from solar PV in 2018 [2], and up to 40% during specific days [3]. Most of the current solar PV capacity is installed at residential or commercial properties. In Germany, 70% of the current solar PV capacity is installed in the low-voltage grids [4] and in Italy 98% of installations are found in the low-voltage grids [5]. Even though the costs for small-scale solar PV are higher than for utility-scale systems, smaller-scale solar PV is expected to account for about 40% of total PV capacity in 2050 [2,6]. During the last 18 years, the average individual solar PV system size for residential customers has increased from 2.4 kW to 6.4 kW [7], voltage grids, reinforcements until 2030 due to distributed solar PV are estimated to be 28e42 billion euro [14]

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