Photoelectric Plant of the Day

"Recently, we have a typical factory operation equipped with a 94-kilowatt system, in Stuhr near Bremen. The customer is a mold maker, which consumes around 200,000 kilowatt hours per year. The main consumers are the motor of the machine. The system was installed on an east-west roof, it was the end of April.Without memory we've been putting reaches a self-consumption rate of more than 90 percent. In mid-year, we expect a consumption rate of about 70 percent. The pre-planning was only four weeks."

"This requires a high degree of complexity."

This system probably produces about 900 to 1000 kWh per kW installed - AKA: 900 kWh/kWp. 94 kW * 900 kWh/kWp = 84,600 kWh/year. If 90% of this electricity is consumed onsite that's 76,140 kWh/year out of their total consumption of 200,000 kWh/year. This means this factory will be 38% self-sufficient... Because of a rooftop photoelectric system... That's incredible. The article goes on to mention that the generation costs from a typical system are 13 to 14 cents/kWh while the costs of electricity to Commercial entities is around 21 cents/kWh. If you use these numbers it means a system like this is saving (21 - 13) * 76,140 = 6000ish Euros per year. This system would also be earning money on the 10% of electricity they export which is another 1000 Euros. The 7000 Euro/year cash flow expected in year 1 would actually improve over time as the price of retail electricity goes up. I ran a plant cost of 1250 Euro/kWp through my own LCOE model and came up with generation costs of 9 cents/kWh. Assuming these lower production costs your cashflow would be a little over 10,000 Euro/year. The system likely costs close to 120,000 Euros so it doesn't pay off overnight. Still, over its lifetime a system like this will pay for itself several times over. If you can swing the financing you can start saving money from day one.

Here's another zinger in the article...

"Up to 50 percent of domestic consumption and 50 percent self-sufficiency ratio should be no problem. Sometimes arise also interesting combinations with cogeneration. Then we establish contacts with the manufacturers. Or combining photovoltaics with heat pumps."

 I like it... I love it... Gimme some more of it.

"Surpluses that are not consumed or stored in the building, we continue to feed into the grid. But the purely grid-linked systems are no longer a priority from today's perspective. The goal of the investment is to reduce operating costs."

 
This guy clearly gets it...