Impact of photovoltaic self-consumption curtailment on building-to-grid operations

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) self-consumption curtailment is believed to be one of the effective techniques to mitigate the effects of high PV penetration on the power system operation. This study investigates the impact of PV self-consumption curtailment on Building to Grid (B2G) operations based on a parameter “g”. The performance parameters of B2G system include; building’s electricity cost, PV Self-consumption Ratio (PV-SCR), grid’s Load Factor (LF), ramp rate control and voltage regulation. In this regard, two strategies, (1) PV self-consumption curtailment with Demand Response (DR) and, (2) PV self-consumption curtailment without DR are compared. These strategies represent optimized and un-optimized B2G frameworks, respectively. In optimized framework, model predictive based optimization is performed that uses the synergy of Energy Storage System (ESS) and Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system to extend its demand flexibility to provide DR service. Furthermore, this study introduces a B2G index (IB2G) which is a weighted sum of building’s electricity cost and grid’s LF, and is used as a metric for compromising distinct objectives of building and grid. To investigate how selection of g effects the B2G performance parameters, case studies were conducted based on three different values of g, i.e., 100%, 60% and 40%. Simulation results of optimized B2G framework revealed that g at 60% is more appropriate with cost saving up to 20.34%, IB2G minimization beyond 17.7% and PV-SCR improvement of 46% compared to un-optimized framework.