Author: Amandeep Kaur Kalsi
Kalsi, Amandeep Kaur, 2019 Energy Storage and Solar PV comparison for Grid-Connected Australian Households (Gas-Electricity against Electricity Consumption), Flinders University, College of Science and Engineering
Terms of Use: This electronic version is (or will be) made publicly available by Flinders University in accordance with its open access policy for student theses. Copyright in this thesis remains with the author. You may use this material for uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968. If you are the owner of any included third party copyright material and/or you believe that any material has been made available without permission of the copyright owner please contact copyright@flinders.edu.au with the details.
Increasing electricity prices and energy consumption, results in more and more attention towards photovoltaic (PV) system for electricity generation. This study investigates the impact of PV and battery sizes on price reduction for South Australian residential houses by comparing two cases, gas and electricity energy consumption and only electricity energy consumption. The optimal PV and battery capacities are determined for both cases. The aim of this study is to reduce the overall costs of the system and proposing most beneficial option for South Australian (SA) houses with reduced CO2 emissions. The load demand input data of a real Adelaide household is used in this study. The simulations are carried out in HOMER Pro in which different models are created namely grid tied PV, grid tied PV-battery for houses with gas and electricity energy consumption as well as only electricity consumption. In simulation, all the parameters are calculated including net present cost, replacement costs, capital costs, renewable fractions, operating costs, operation and maintenance costs, electricity purchased from grid and sold to the grid, CO2 emissions and energy produced by different PV sizes. The assumed feed-in tariff of $0.11 is taken in this study. The results pointed out that the house with electricity and gas is more economical option than only electricity in case of residential consumers. Moreover, grid and PV option has more economic benefits while with battery the purchase power from grid is least but has higher capital costs of the system with battery. The results of this research also outline the sensitivity analysis which shows the effect of volatility of gas and electricity prices over a period of 20 years by changing the prices and analysing the outcomes in HOMER Pro.
Keywords: Battery energy storage, Renewable fractions, CO2 emissions, grid-connected household, HOMER Pro, gas and electricity consumption, photovoltaic system, feed-in tariff
Subject: Engineering thesis
Thesis type: Masters
Completed: 2019
School: College of Science and Engineering
Supervisor: Amin Mahmoudi