Solar PV-Battery-Electric Grid-Based Energy System for Residential Applications: System Configuration and Viability

Distributed renewable energy share increase in electricity generation is creating challenges for the whole power system, due to its intermittent and nonprogrammable nature. Energy storage has the potential to solve those issues although its technical, economic, and environmental impact is up for debate. The paper presents a study about a PV-battery energy storage system installed in a grid-connected residential apartment in the Green Energy Laboratory at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. Daily experimental results show how the presence of energy storage reduces the midday feed-in of excess PV power and the evening peak demand, providing benefits to the distribution network in terms of reduced voltage swings and peak load. Considering the Chinese context, an economic analysis is carried out to assess the profitability of residential PV-battery systems, using the net present value as the economic indicator of an 18-year investment in which the battery pack is replaced twice (6 life years). The analysis shows that such system is not economically viable due to a combination of low electricity prices, valuable PV incentives, and high technology costs. However, considering a future scenario of doubled electricity tariff, halved export tariff, and falling technology costs (-66% battery and -17% PV and inverter), PV-battery investment becomes profitable and shows more resilience to future scenarios than PV-only investment.