Open AccessCost–benefit analysis of rooftop photovoltaic systems based on climate conditions of Gulf Cooperation Council countries
Author(s) -
Saker Nathalie,
AlQattan Ayman,
AlOtaibi Ahmad,
AlMulla Ahmad
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
iet renewable power generation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.005
H-Index - 76
ISSN - 1752-1424
DOI - 10.1049/iet-rpg.2017.0309
Subject(s) - photovoltaic system , calculator , scope (computer science) , renewable energy , monocrystalline silicon , environmental economics , solar resource , photovoltaics , engineering , computer science , environmental science , systems engineering , electrical engineering , economics , operating system , materials science , silicon , metallurgy , programming language
The objective of this study is to present an economic analysis (EA) of actual installed photovoltaic (PV) projects considering Gulf Cooperation Council countries climate conditions. The two analysed PV systems are commissioned in Kuwait and they were chosen to be the scope of this study since the availability of their characteristics. The first system is installed on a school and equipped with thin film (copper indium gallium selenide) solar modules of efficiency equal to 14% and the other system is installed on a commercial building and equipped with monocrystalline solar modules of efficiency equal to 17%. The EA consists of studying the financial parameters related to the two previous projects using two different calculation tools. One tool is developed and presented in this study that is the EA calculator and the other tool is the existing solar advisory model software. The two calculation tools’ results almost match with slight differences considered negligible, so the developed EA calculator is considered validated. As a conclusion, the impact of renewable energy (RE) costs on future investments in RE technologies and especially on PV projects is being evaluated.