Economic Viability of Solar PV for Domestic Applications in a Middle-Income Country: A case Study of Sri Lanka

Abstract

This study focuses on the economics of using solar Photovoltaics for residential in a middle-income country like Sri Lanka. It considers solar irradiance in the Colombo district to estimate the power generation potential by a selected 2.16kWp solar PV system throughout the year. It used solar irradiance data by NASA Surface Meteorology and Solar Energy (SSE), satellite solar insolation values for Sri Lanka and used the Liu and Jordan (LJ) method. Furthermore, it considered the economics of four different scenarios as model houses depending on appliance usage with net accounting. It was seen that without net accounting the Levelized cost of electricity could be as high as US0.69/kWh.However,withmechanismslikenetaccounting,itcouldbereducedtoUS 0.12 /kWh with full owners' contribution. Under the net accounting scheme houses that consume above 300 kWh/month will have the lowest payback period of 2 years and 9 months.