Impacts of electricity pricing on techno-economic performance of photovoltaic-battery centered microgrid

The energy management technique in a microgrid, plays very crucial role for making it more economic viable during the electricity energy pricing dynamics. It is vital to investigate the impact of electricity energy pricing dynamics on operation and techno-economic performance of a micro-grid for maximizing the local energy participation with grid constraints. This paper has considered, a common PV-battery-based microgrid from Norway for assessing technical and economic performance with electricity energy pricing dynamics. In this work, energy management strategy has presented, for minimization of annual energy generation cost with maximization of battery energy throughput with grid constraints as network demand limits. It has been observed that grid buying price has more impacts on the cost of energy generation (CoE) as compare the grid selling price. While doubling the grid buying price, CoE is increased by 14% whereas doubling the grid selling price, CoE is reduced by 2%. This paper also included sensitivity analysis and analyzed that battery cost has highest impacts on CoE followed by PV cost and then grid tariffs. It has been noticed that doubling the cost of battery, PV and grid (one at a time) has increased CoE by 53, 31, and 27%, respectively. The operational energy management strategies presented in this paper, will certainly contribute for PV-battery-based micro-grid developments and evaluating operational performance under electricity energy pricing dynamics.

Automated summary

The paper investigates the impact of electricity energy pricing dynamics on the operational and economic performance of a PV-battery-based microgrid in Norway. It is found that grid buying price has a greater impact on the cost of energy generation compared to the grid selling price. Additionally, sensitivity analysis shows that battery cost has the highest impact on the cost of energy generation, followed by PV cost and grid tariffs.