Description
The widespread deployment of photovoltaic (PV) systems in the state of California has led to a steep increase of electricity drawn from the electrical grid in the evening hours, during which solar radiation availability starts to decrease. In an effort to flatten this rapid demand increase and ensure grid stability, utilities have implemented new rate structures with high electricity costs during these times of high demand. To investigate the impact of these new rate structures on the economics of PV installations for industrial facilities in Southern California, a Python simulation framework based on computation modules included in the software package PySAM was developed. The new simulation tool enables the user to utilize a variety of analysis approaches to study the influence of different electricity rates, facility load profiles, and other system parameters. The load profiles of 22 Southern California manufacturing plants, as well as 26 different rate schedules from the five biggest electric utilities in Southern California, were used to demonstrate the functionality of the developed framework and to provide insights into various aspects of the economics of PV installations for industrial facilities in Southern California. Simulations investigating the temporal resolution of load data were performed and show the importance of 15-minute interval data for the analysis of PV economics. Further, a Monte Carlo analysis to determine the optimum PV offset was conducted, which shows that an offset of 100% leads to the greatest economic benefit under most rates investigated in this work. Additional simulations demonstrate that the utility companies Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric provide the most economic electricity rate options. The differences between the collected load profiles were also analyzed and the most favorable load profiles were determined. Lastly, the effect of potential shifts of production hours was studied. The results indicate that more than half of all performed simulations lead to a greater economic benefit of the installed PV system if the load of a facility is shifted by two hours or less.
