Solar photovoltaic self-consumption in the UK residential sector: New estimates from a smart grid demonstration project

The economic incentive to install a solar photovoltaics (‘PV’) system depends increasingly on using PV generation on-site (‘self-consumption’) rather than receiving payments from generating solar energy and exporting it to the grid. There is, however, remarkably little empirical evidence on self-con...

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Main Authors: McKenna, E, Pless, J, darby, S
Format: Journal article
Published: Elsevier 2018
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author McKenna, E
Pless, J
darby, S
author_facet McKenna, E
Pless, J
darby, S
author_sort McKenna, E
collection OXFORD
description The economic incentive to install a solar photovoltaics (‘PV’) system depends increasingly on using PV generation on-site (‘self-consumption’) rather than receiving payments from generating solar energy and exporting it to the grid. There is, however, remarkably little empirical evidence on self-consumption. This paper begins to address this gap by analysing one-minute electricity monitoring data for 302 households that participated in a UK smart grid demonstration project. We calculate annual self-consumption levels and find that they are 855 kWh/year per household on average, or 45% of PV generation. We conduct a simple regression analysis to estimate self-consumption and use the results to show that self-consumption for an average UK household with electricity demand of 4000 kWh/year and 2.9 kWp PV system would be 966 ± 38 kWh/year, equivalent to a 24% reduction in average annual electricity demand from the grid. Our methodology can be readily applied to measure and predict self-consumption in other solar markets as well, which has increasingly important implications for valuing solar investments, setting feed-in tariffs, and examining the impacts of PV on networks and retail sales.
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spelling oxford-uuid:5caa035a-ff99-4d62-8dd1-d6780510c1be2022-03-26T17:29:33ZSolar photovoltaic self-consumption in the UK residential sector: New estimates from a smart grid demonstration projectJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:5caa035a-ff99-4d62-8dd1-d6780510c1beSymplectic Elements at OxfordElsevier2018McKenna, EPless, Jdarby, SThe economic incentive to install a solar photovoltaics (‘PV’) system depends increasingly on using PV generation on-site (‘self-consumption’) rather than receiving payments from generating solar energy and exporting it to the grid. There is, however, remarkably little empirical evidence on self-consumption. This paper begins to address this gap by analysing one-minute electricity monitoring data for 302 households that participated in a UK smart grid demonstration project. We calculate annual self-consumption levels and find that they are 855 kWh/year per household on average, or 45% of PV generation. We conduct a simple regression analysis to estimate self-consumption and use the results to show that self-consumption for an average UK household with electricity demand of 4000 kWh/year and 2.9 kWp PV system would be 966 ± 38 kWh/year, equivalent to a 24% reduction in average annual electricity demand from the grid. Our methodology can be readily applied to measure and predict self-consumption in other solar markets as well, which has increasingly important implications for valuing solar investments, setting feed-in tariffs, and examining the impacts of PV on networks and retail sales.
spellingShingle McKenna, E
Pless, J
darby, S
Solar photovoltaic self-consumption in the UK residential sector: New estimates from a smart grid demonstration project
title Solar photovoltaic self-consumption in the UK residential sector: New estimates from a smart grid demonstration project
title_full Solar photovoltaic self-consumption in the UK residential sector: New estimates from a smart grid demonstration project
title_fullStr Solar photovoltaic self-consumption in the UK residential sector: New estimates from a smart grid demonstration project
title_full_unstemmed Solar photovoltaic self-consumption in the UK residential sector: New estimates from a smart grid demonstration project
title_short Solar photovoltaic self-consumption in the UK residential sector: New estimates from a smart grid demonstration project
title_sort solar photovoltaic self consumption in the uk residential sector new estimates from a smart grid demonstration project
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AT darbys solarphotovoltaicselfconsumptionintheukresidentialsectornewestimatesfromasmartgriddemonstrationproject