On the Economic Effects of Metering Schemes in Community Owned Residential PV Systems
Abstract
Community-owned, grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in multi-family housing offer the potential for large scale installations with favorable costs as compared to single family systems. However, traditional utility metering schemes often define boundaries which result in high sales of PV generation to the grid, lowering the economic value for the cooperative. This study explores two alternative metering schemes which better represent the interests of cooperative as a single PV owner by aggregating meters within and across buildings. Measured communal load data from a cooperative in western Sweden is combined with modeled PV generation and apartment load data to calculate the net present value (NPV) of the various meter schemes under several subsidies policies. The results show that under a traditional metering scheme, 40% of the PV generation is considered sold to the network, even though only 3% of the electricity physically leaves the buildings and none leaves the estate. Reclassifying this sold electricity as self-consumed results in an increase in NPV by as much as €60,000, which is €15,000 more than the value added by subsidies. The results of this paper are useful for community organizers, PV installers, utilities, and lawmakers interested in next generation electricity markets based on distributed generation.
Keywords
Community solar, Cooperative, Self-consumption, Techno-economic, Utility 2.0