Abstract
The objective of this study was to examine the effect of
production-based support schemes on the economic
feasibility of residential-scale PV systems (1-10. kW) in
Finland. This was done by calculating the payback time
for various sizes of newly installed PV systems for a
Finnish detached house with district heating. Three types
of economic support schemes (guaranteed selling price,
fixed premiums and self-consumption incentives) were
tested in an hourly simulation. The load of the building
was based on real-life measurements, while PV output was
simulated with TRNSYS software. The energy results were
post-processed with economic data in MATLAB to find the
payback time. Hourly electricity prices from the Nordic
energy market were used with PV system prices from
Finnish companies.Unsubsidised residential PV systems in
Finland had payback times of more than 40 years. The
production-based support for PV generation needs to be
two to three times the buying price of electricity, to
make it possible to pay back the initial investment in 20
years. Low capacity systems with more than 50%
self-consumption (under 3. kW) were favoured by
self-consumption incentives, while high capacity systems
with less than 40% self-consumption (over 5. kW) were
favoured by the FIT-type support schemes.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 72-86 |
| Journal | Energy Policy |
| Volume | 79 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |
| MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- feed-in tariff
- Finland
- on-site energy matching
- payback time
- photovoltaic system
- renewable energy support
