Helionomics: Utility-Scale PV Plants in Italy: A Sustainable Way Towards Low Price Electricity? Demonstration of the possibility to get definitely low cost electricity by means of utility scale photovoltaic installations due to their intrinsic value (from reduction of peak power cost) and the huge reduction of components' and turn-key costs. Presented at the SuNEC 2011 Conference near Palermo, Italy: www.solar-conference.eu

1. FRANCESCO
MENEGUZZO
HELIONOMICS
Utility-Scale PV
Plants in Italy: A
Sustainable Way
Towards Low Price
Santa Flavia (PA) Electricity? July 7 th, 2011

2. HOW TO GET LOW PRICE
ENERGY TODAY???

3. TOMORROW ???

4. WHAT I’M SPEAKING ABOUT…
UTILITY SCALE PV
ECONOMIC OPTIMIZATION FROM SUN-TRACKING SYSTEMS

5. WHAT I’M SPEAKING ABOUT…
UTILITY SCALE PV
ECONOMIC OPTIMIZATION FROM SUN-TRACKING SYSTEMS

6. WHAT I’M SPEAKING ABOUT…
UTILITY SCALE PV
ECONOMIC OPTIMIZATION FROM SUN-TRACKING SYSTEMS

7. 1st QUESTION
How much is the energy topic urgent?
SHORT-TERM
ENERGY SECURITY
RISK
ITALY 13th out
171 Countries!!!

8. ITALY’S BAD POSITION
PIIGS
MOREOVER, ITALIAN ELECTRICITY GENERATION RELIES ON NATURAL GAS >60% !!!

9. 2nd QUESTION
Are EROEI constraints matched?
SOCIAL COMPLEXITY IS PROPORTIONAL TO
AVAILABLE NET ENERGY
• COMPLEXITY = EVERYTHING BEYOND PURE SURVIVAL
(social assistance, health care, education, infrastructures
maintenance, etc)  equality and opportunities!
• AVAILABLE NET ENERGY: energy available after
extraction, transport, transformation and concentration
ENERGY COST:
PROPORTIONAL TO THE NET AVAILABLE FRACTION

10. • “QUALITY” OF FOSSIL SOURCES IS QUICKLY WORSENING
• SOLAR PV AND WIND POWER OK
• NUCLEAR NO - BIOMASSES NO (with exceptions)
40 YEARS PV
NO
OK

11. FOSSIL FUELS BAD FATE
PEAKS OF FOSSIL FUELS / AVAILABLE ENERGY PER CAPITA

12. NUCLEAR “FUEL” BAD FATE
around year 2020
235URANIUM PEAK

13. 3rd QUESTION
Is PV energy manageable? (intermittency)
Recent IEA Report
"Harnessing Variable Renewables: a
Guide to the Balancing Challenge”
• Europe, present grid shape
• Intermittent (PV and Wind) power
manageable from 27% - Spain and
Portugal – up to 60% - Denmark
• Italy around 50% - far from such target!

14. PREDICTABILITY IS FEASIBLE:
• HOURLY ERRORS < 10%
• UP TO 48 HOURS IN ADVANCE

15. 4th QUESTION
FUNDAMENTAL!!!
Is utility-scale sun-tracking PV
a low cost energy?
Basic derived questions:
A. How much can we pay such PV electricity still
offsetting the “weight” on energy bills?
B. Is such remuneration enough to enable
investments?

16. A) – PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET

17. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
GRID CONNECTED PV POWER “PUSHES” OUT OF THE MARKET THE
MOST COSTLY POWER PLANTS (OPEN CYCLE “TURBOGAS”) DURING
AND AROUND “PEAK HOURS”, SO DOING “CUTTING” THE MARKET
ELECTRICITY PRICE !!!
“PEAK SHAVING”: HOURLY ELECTRIC LOAD ON THE “TRASMISSION” GRID (GREEN AND
RED CURVES) AND DIFFERENCES ON THE SAME DAYS IN 2010 AND 2011, AS WELL AS
ESTIMATED PV GENERATION (2011, DOTTED CURVE)

18. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
PEAK SHAVING: ANOTHER EXAMPLE

19. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
ELECTRICITY PRICES ON THE EUROPEAN MARKETS
(data: ITALIAN AUTHORITY FOR ELECTRICITY AND GAS)
PV
EFFECT?
SUSPECT OR REALITY?

20. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
EMPIRICAL ESTIMATION OF THE “PRICE EFFECT”
Basic data and assumptions:
• Period: March 1st, 2011 to June 24th, 2011
• Only “working days” considered (Monday to Friday)
• About 1,800 hours data sample
• PV hourly generation estimated from TERNA (high voltage grid
manager) data (HV connected PV) combined with GSE (Energy
Services Manager) installed PV power data (about 4.600 MWp to 6.800 MWp
during the period)
• Total needed electricity load drawn from GME (Electric Market
Manager) data + PV hourly self-use (not to grid) in turn estimated from
comparisons of GME and estimated PV generation data (around 20% of
total PV generation)

21. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
EMPIRICAL ESTIMATION OF THE “PRICE EFFECT”
Basic data and assumptions (continues):
• Electricity price assumed as the “non-constrained” PUN (National
Unique Price), also denoted as “NAT”
• Any hour was classified as “no PV” or “PV” according to a simple PV
generation threshold: in order to retain sufficiently large and
overlapping samples the 2,000 MWh threshold was chosen
• As a result, more than 600 “PV” hours and about 1,200 “no PV” hours
constituted the data sample
• The diurnal hourly price (“NAT”) structure was derived on a
monthly basis (March to June) from the observed relationships
“NAT vs Load” during the “No FV” hours

22. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
EMPIRICAL ESTIMATION OF THE “PRICE EFFECT”
Diurnal hourly price (“NAT”) vs Load (standardized data)

23. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
EMPIRICAL ESTIMATION OF THE “PRICE EFFECT”
Basic Methods:
• The electricity price (NAT) observed in every
“PV” hour was compared with the
corresponding estimated NAT in the “no PV”
hours at the total (observed + PV self-use)
estimated load

24. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
EMPIRICAL ESTIMATION OF THE “PV PRICE EFFECT”
The PV “price effect” unfolded !!!

25. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
EMPIRICAL ESTIMATION OF THE “PV PRICE EFFECT”
In agreement with our previous estimates (March 1st to April 14th)

26. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
COMPUTATION OF THE “PV SAVINGS”
Basic Methods:
• The “saving” in every “PV” hour was computed as
the difference between the total hourly observed
electricity cost and the cost that would have been
paid in a “no PV” hour for the total load
• Additional “PV Savings” were estimated in the “No
PV” hours due to the avoided cost of the “self-
use” residual PV generation

27. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
COMPUTATION OF THE “PV SAVINGS”
“PV HOURS” – the PV “SAVINGS” vs Total Electric Load

28. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
COMPUTATION OF THE “PV SAVINGS”
“PV HOURS” – the PV “SAVINGS” vs Estimated PV Generation

29. PV IMPACT ON THE ELECTRICITY MARKET
COMPUTATION OF THE “PV SAVINGS”
Basic Results:
• The “PV Savings” grow with the combined growth of
electric load and PV generation
• THE LOWEST ESTIMATE OF THE “PV SAVINGS” FOR
THE ~ 80 CONSIDERED DAYS WAS about € 360
million, out of about € 850 million feed-in tariffs (> 40%)
• THE LOWEST ESTIMATE OF THE “UNIT PV SAVING”
WAS about 125 €/MWh (PV generation around 2,9 TWh)
UNIT OF PV GENERATED ELECTRICITY

30. THE “RIGHT PRICE” FOR THE UTILITY
SCALE PV PLANTS GENERATION
THE (LOWEST!) “RIGHT PRICE” OF THE
PV ELECTRICITY TO OFFSET ANY
ADDITIONAL CHARGE ON THE END
USERS’ BILLS IS:
125 €/MWh

31. B) – UTILITY SCALE SUN-TRACKING PV INSTALLATIONS
Basic data and assumptions:
ANNUAL INFLATION 2.50%
ANNUAL ELECTRIC INFLATION 3.00%
POWER (kWp) 10,000
STILL (“S") OR TRACKING (“T") T
CELL TECHNOLOGY (Mono-Si, Poly-Si, a-Si, other) Mono-Si
GEOGRAPHIC REGION – NORTH ("N"), CENTER ("C"), SOUTH ("S") S
ANNUAL GENERATION [kWh/kWp] - TRACKING = +45% 2,175
ANNUAL EFFICIENCY LOSS (%/year) 0.50%
OWN CAPITAL (Y/N) N
CAPITAL INTEREST RATE IN LOAN PERIOD [%] 5.00%
LOAN PERIOD (years) 20
PRESENT UNIT COST (€/kWp) 2,200.00
“TURN-KEY” INSTALLATION COST *€] 22,000,000.00

32. UTILITY SCALE SUN-TRACKING PV INSTALLATIONS
Basic data and assumptions (continues):
GUARANTEE PERIOD (years) 10
INVERTER REPLACEMENT FREQUENCY (years) 10
INVERTER UNIT COST(€/kWp) 192.11
INSURANCE COST [yearly % of PV COST - constant] 0.60%
O&M COST [yearly % of PV COST (+ inflation)] 1.00%
TERRAIN AREA [hectares] 40.00
TERRAIN COST [(€/hectare/year) + inflation] 1,000.00
TAX ON TERRAIN COST (first year, applied on total cost) 18.00%
OTHER COSTS - personnel (guard, etc)
60,000.00
[€/year + inflation]
NET PRESENT VALUE (NPV) RATE [%] 5.00%
PV INSTALLATION LIFE-TIME [years] 40

33. UTILITY SCALE SUN-TRACKING PV INSTALLATIONS
A POSSIBLE UTILITY-SCALE PV TRACKING REMUNERATION SCHEME:
• CONSTANT TARIFF AT 125 €/MWh DURING THE FIRST 20 YEARS
• SINCE YEAR 21, FREE MARKET COMPETITION, e.g. AT PRESENT
MINIMUM PRICE (NAT) 50 €/MWh + INFLATION (2.5% per year)
STABILITY + POWER COST LOWERING

34. UTILITY SCALE SUN-TRACKING PV INSTALLATIONS
IS SUCH SCHEME SUSTAINABLE?

35. UTILITY SCALE SUN-TRACKING PV INSTALLATIONS
IS SUCH SCHEME SUSTAINABLE?
YES – APPARENT FROM PREVIOUS CHART !!!
TOTAL COSTS € 57,4 million
TOTAL INCOME € 91 million
NET PRESENT VALUE OF TOTAL COSTS € 29,8 million
NET PRESENT VALUE OF TOTAL INCOME € 41,5 million
+ 39%

36. FRANCESCO
MENEGUZZO
THANK YOU!!!