Technical-economic feasibility of installing a photovoltaic generation plant: a case study in a public university

Abstract

The energy compensation system has attracted the interest of several sectors, including the public sector. In this context, this work presents a technical dimensioning and techno-economic feasibility of installing a photovoltaic generation plant, considering the service to a Brazilian public university campus. Four systems were designed using NREL's PVWatts and SAM tools with the NSRDB database, analyzing 6 economic viability situations. The results show a payback of 6 years and 3 months for a 545kWp system without energy storage and 10 years and 5 months for a 180kWp system with energy storage. The variations in the results depend on the implementation considerations of each of the proposed systems, such as the energy availability demand contract and the savings on the bill made possible by the implementation method.