The viability of battery storage for residential photovoltaic system in Egypt under different incentive policies

As a global common trend for fossil fuels independence, renewable energy plays a great role to save a clean source of energy. As a result of the high solar energy potential in Egypt, successive incentive polices had been introduced by the Egyptian electricity authority to encourage the deployment of small-scale residential rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems. This paper explores the impacts of installing a grid-connected PV battery system from both technical and economic point of view under the existing incentive policy and energy purchasing and selling price in Egypt. The Egypt case is considered as a case study. The study investigates the current Egyptian Incentive Policy situation and criteria for high electricity load profile. The economic evaluation of various sizes of the PV battery system is carried out based on different economic measures such as net present value (NPV), self-sufficiency (S-S), and electricity bill savings. The methodology is based on the assessment of different technical and economical indices as well as on performing sensitivity analysis. A MATLAB code was purposely developed and implemented to evaluate the economic effect of the installed system considering the effect of battery capital cost and discount rate variations. A net energy metering (NEM) incentive policy is suggested to increase and maximize the financial profits from installing PV battery system and increase the independency from the utility grid. The results showed that doubling the sellback power price to $0.089/kWh instead of $0.04/kWh will decrease the profitable PV system size to the half and will increase the NPV to the double. Under FiT incentive policy, installing 25 kW(p) PV system can achieve 50% of S-S and adding 12.5 kWh of batteries will increase it to 75%, while under the NEM incentive policy, installing 15 kW(p) PV system can achieve 47% of S-S and the 75% S-S can be achieved by adding 15 kWh of batteries.

Automated summary

This study examines the impacts of Egyptian incentive policy on grid-connected PV battery systems, with results showing that increasing the sellback power price can decrease the profitable PV system size while doubling the NPV. The NEM incentive policy is suggested to maximize financial profits and increase independency from the utility grid.