Stakeholders’ Perspectives of Design Options for a Rooftop Solar PV Self-consumption Scheme in Thailand

Abstract

Adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation systems has been accelerating around the world, contributing to the debate about the future of policy and regulation in a high distributed energy resources future. As one of the leaders in solar investment in Southeast Asia, Thailand has recently shifted its policy framework for the support of small scale, distributed solar PV systems from subsidizing power export through feed-in tariff toward a policy that is focused on self-consumption. This paper investigates stakeholder perspectives of the detailed design options for self-consumption schemes for supporting rooftop solar PV installations. The research methodology employed questionnaires and focus group discussion in order to capture stake-holder perspectives for each element of rooftop solar PV self-consumption schemes. In all, the data derived from questionnaires and focus group discussion involved a total of 72 stakeholders. The results indicate that most stakeholder groups expressed a strong desire for compensation for excess generation of PV electricity from rooftop PV systems. While the majority of electric utilities prefer a system of net billing with real-time buyback, designed to minimize revenue losses, consumers and policymakers preferred a net-metering-based compensation scheme for supporting use of rooftop PV electricity in Thailand.

Drivers and Challenges of Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading Development in Thailand

“…In addition, the net metering scheme usually offers more economic benefits to customers than the NB scheme as excess electricity generation under the net metering scheme is valued at the retail electricity price, while that under NB is assigned by the policymaker, which could be lower than the retail electricity price [27]. Therefore, countries with an implementation of the net metering scheme are likely to experience high DPV penetration, which increases distribution grid charges or taxes [4]. This led to the phaseout of the net metering scheme in some countries [17,28,29], whereas net metering regulations were revised in others such as Mexico and Indonesia [17].…”

“…In the early stage of the market, the growth of solar PV installations had been driven through premium and regular feed-in tariff (FiT) programs under a single buyer market structure. With the continuous cost reduction of solar PV systems, prosumers have increased, although the recent government support program is not as attractive as in the past [4,5]. Currently, there is only a household solar program as a part of Thailand's power development plan (PDP) 2018 (Revision 1).…”

Decentralized P2P Electricity Trading Model for Thailand

“…Likewise, the buyers who own 𝑃 𝑏,𝑖+1 , 𝑃 𝑏,𝑖+2 ,..., 𝑃 𝑏,𝑖+𝑚 are unsatisfied to trade at 𝑃 𝑜,𝑗+3 because 𝑃 𝑜,𝑗+3 is higher than their offer prices. However, they can accept the results because the BS's clearing price (𝑃 𝐵𝑆 ) is better than buyback and retail prices in Traditional Mechanism (TM) [9]. As a result, the energy orders on the right of the energy balancing point represent supply surplus or supply deficit, which cannot operate in the Bill Sharing.…”

“…In the middle of 2016, the Self-Consumption Pilot Scheme was announced for Rooftop PV. For this scheme, the PV generation must be consumed onsite, then any excess will be fed back to the main grid without any monetary credits [9]. On 4 October 2017, the self-consumption program was developed for repurchasing the excess PV rooftop generation to the main grid.…”

“…The overall contract capacity is limited, and the incentive price is reduced due to the impact of repurchasing pass-through energy costs on customers' electric bills [9,12]. 4.…”