On the Profitability of Large-Scale PV Plants in Sweden
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DEGREE PROJECT IN ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT, SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2019 On the Profitability of Large- scale PV Plants in Sweden Site Selection, Grid Connection and Design ANNELIE WESTÉN KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE KTH Royal Institute of Technology School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Degree project in Sustainable Energy Engineering On the Profitability of Large-scale PV Plants in Sweden: Site Selection, Grid Connection and Design Author: Annelie West´en Supervisor: Abolfazl Khodadadi, KTH Royal Institute of Technology Supervisor: Mikael Ronge, Eneo Solutions Examiner: Assoc. Prof. Mikael Amelin, KTH Royal Institute of Technology Abstract The market for large scale PV plants in Sweden is growing, with six PV plants of 1 MWp or more being installed today. The size of the newly installed plants has increased from 1 MWp to 5.5 MWp during the last 5 years. As the market and size of the plants continue to grow, larger investments, risks and possible profits will be built into the project. The site selection will affect the project in terms of power production, grid connection, plant design, land lease, among many things. This report focuses on how these early choices in the development of the project affect the profitability of the PV plant. A literature study has been conducted for in-depth knowledge of PV plants as well as the most important aspects of a pre-feasibility study. The literature study has a specific focus on the components and design of a PV plant, the grid connection, economy and future changes of the electricity price in Sweden. One important conclusion from the literature study is that the company which develops a new PV plant should contact the grid company in the area of interest as soon as possible, due to the time-consuming process of getting an approval for the new connection as well as that a major reinforcement of the grid may ruin the prospect of the PV plant project. Another conclusion is that the site should be selected to maximize the solar irradiation, meanwhile minimizing the costs for upgrading or reinforcing the power grid. The economic case of a PV plant project can generally be improved by choosing a site in the southern part of Sweden. Benefits are gained from both higher solar irradiation compared to the northern part of Sweden as well as compensations from the grid company for reducing losses in the power grid. The land should preferably have a dual purpose, meaning that the same land can be used for both the PV plant and another purpose such as a wind farm, airport, landfill or feeding small lively stocks of sheep, etc. A case study has been conducted at three sites in the southern part of Sweden, located on Oland,¨ Skurup, and Stenungsund. The sites are compared by evaluating the prospect of two different sizes of PV plants. The PV plant performance is evaluated by a model developed in the program MATLAB. Hourly data of the solar irradiation is gatherer for the three sites for 2017 and 2018, using the system STRANG˚ which is given by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI). Hourly data of the temperature is gathered from the closest weather station to the site, also from SMHI. The sites are compared by power production and resulting LCOE values, including specific grid tariffs, land leasing costs and typical investment costs for PV plants. The investment costs are gathered from recent reports, cross-checked with costs for the largest PV plants built in Sweden. The case study results in the conclusions of the solar irradiation having a high impact on the power production from the PV plants, however lower than a 1:1 ratio of the power production and solar irradiation. The PV plants can have the same designed for similar sites, except for the distance between the rows which depends on the latitude of the site. Two different aspects of a possible future were investigated, the first one being highly fluctuating electricity prices with a low or zero price during midday. The investigation focuses on comparing if the PV plants would be more economically profitable with an east-west orientation instead of being oriented due south. The results showed that even with a four hour long period of a zero price during midday, the PV plants oriented due south were still more profitable. In the second future scenario, PV plants are profitable when selling electricity to the spot market in Sweden. The investigation focuses on how much the spot prices need to increase and/or the investment cost for the PV plants decrease. The results depend on assumptions of how much the spot price will increase during the lifetime of the PV plant. If the spot market could meet an LCOE value of 0.5 SEK/kWh, the investment cost would need to be reduced to 5000 SEK/kWp. 2 Sammanfattning Marknaden f¨orstorskalig solkraft v¨axeri Sverige. Idag finns det 6 stycken solparker av storleken 1 MWp eller st¨orre.Storleken av de nya solparkerna har v¨axtfr˚an1 MWp to 5.5 MWp under de senaste 5 ˚aren.Med en v¨axandemarknad och storlek p˚asolparkerna, v¨axer¨aven investeringskostnaden, risker och m¨ojligaf¨ordelar i projekten. Platsvalet f¨orsolparken p˚averkar produktionen, n¨atanslutningen,designen av parken samt markkostnader. Denna rapport fokuserar p˚ahur dessa tidiga val i projektet p˚averkar projektets l¨onsamhet. En litteraturstudie har genomf¨ortsf¨oratt ¨oka f¨orst˚aelsenav en solpark och de viktigaste delarna i en l¨onsamhetsanalys.Litteraturstudien fokuserar p˚akomponenter i en solpark, n¨atanslutning, platsval, ekonomi och framtida f¨or¨andringarav elpriset i Sverige. En viktig slutsats fr˚anlitteraturstudien ¨aratt ett f¨oretag som utvecklar en ny solpark b¨orkontakta n¨atbolaget s˚atidigt som m¨ojligt.Processen f¨oratt f˚aen godk¨and nyanslutning till n¨atetkan vara tidskr¨avande samt att en omfattande f¨orst¨arkningav n¨atetkan vara s˚a dyrt att projektet inte l¨angreblir aktuellt att genomf¨ora.En annan slutsats ¨aratt platsvalet b¨orfokusera p˚aatt maximera solinstr˚alningenoch minimera kostnader f¨orkraftn¨atetoch infrastruktur. L¨onsamheten f¨orsolparksprojektet kan generellt s¨att¨okas genom att v¨aljaen plats i s¨odraSverige, b˚adef¨orden h¨ogre solinstr˚alningenj¨amf¨ortmed norra Sverige samt att det ger f¨ordelarmed n¨atkompensationer f¨orminskade f¨orlusteri n¨atet.Marken kan med f¨ordelanv¨andasmed ett dubbelt syfte, vilket syftar till att den anv¨ands b˚adef¨orsolparken samt ett ytterligare syfte s˚asom vindkraft, en flygplats, deponier, eller som betesmark f¨orf˚areller liknande. Tre potentiella platser f¨orsolparker har analyserats i s¨odraSverige. Specifik mark ¨arvald p˚a Oland,¨ i Skurup och i Stenungsund. Produktionen fr˚antv˚aolika storlekar av solparker har utv¨arderatsp˚ade tre platserna med hj¨alpav en modell som utvecklats i MATLAB. Timdata f¨orsolinstr˚alningfr˚an2017 och 2018 har h¨amtats fr˚ansystemet STRANG˚ som ¨agsav SMHI. Timdata f¨ortemperaturen har h¨amtats fr˚an den n¨armstav¨aderstationtill respektive plats, ¨aven denna data kommer fr˚anSMHI. Platserna j¨amf¨ors med avseende p˚akraftproduktionen fr˚ansolparkerna samt det resulterande LCOE v¨ardet. LCOE v¨ardet inkluderar specifika n¨attariffer,markkostnader och investeringskostnader f¨orsolparker fr˚anrapporter som ¨aven j¨amf¨orts med kostnaderna f¨orde tv˚ast¨orstasolparkerna i Sverige. N˚agraslutsatser fr˚anj¨amf¨orelsenmellan de tre platserna ¨aratt solinstr˚alningenhar en stor betydelse f¨or l¨onsamhetenf¨oren solpark, dock l¨agre¨anett 1:1 samband mellan ¨okad solinstr˚alningoch ¨okad produktion fr˚ansolparken. En optimering av ett antal designparametrar f¨orsolparkerna resulterade i liknande v¨ardenf¨or de tre platserna, med undantag f¨oravst˚andetmellan raderna av moduler som beror p˚aden lokala latituden. En unders¨okninghar gjorts av hur skiftande elpriser kan p˚averka framtida solparker. Fluktuerande elpriser under ett dygn med l˚agaeller noll-pris perioder mitt p˚adagen implementerades f¨ortimproduktionen fr˚an olika solparker. Detta anv¨andesf¨oratt unders¨oka fr˚aganom ifall det skulle vara b¨attreatt rikta solcellerna ¨ost-v¨astist¨alletf¨ormot s¨oder. Resultatet visade ett entydigt svar om att en ¨ost-v¨astriktning inte blev mer l¨onsamt f¨orn˚agotav de unders¨oktafallen. Ytterligare ett framtida scenario har unders¨okts,detta fokuserade p˚avilka f¨or¨andringarsom kr¨avsinnan en solpark ¨arl¨onsamgenom att endast s¨aljael till spotpris. Resultatet beror p˚aantaganden f¨orb˚adeframtida elpriset samt investeringskostnaderna. F¨orantagandet att spotpriserna kan m¨otaett LCOE v¨ardep˚a0.5 SEK/kWh, skulle investeringskostnaden beh¨ova sjunka till 5000 SEK/kWp. 3 Contents List of Figures 7 List of Tables 8 1 Introduction 9 1.1 Background . 10 1.2 Purpose . 10 1.3 Delimitations . 11 1.4 Research methodology . 11 2 Frame of reference 12 2.1 PV plants . 12 2.1.1 Components in a PV plant . 13 2.1.2 Design of PV plant layout . 18 2.1.3 Performance . 18 2.1.4 Operation and maintenance . 19 2.2 Grid connection . 19 2.2.1 The Swedish power grid . 19 2.2.2 Regulations . 21 2.2.3 Grid tariffs . 22 2.2.4 Connecting a PV plant to the grid . 23 2.2.5 Physical constraints in the grid . 25 2.2.6 Grid companies in Sweden . 26 2.3 Siting . 26 2.4 Economics . 29 2.4.1 Economic model . 29 2.4.2 Expected prices . 30 2.5 Future scenarios . 32 3 Model 33 3.1 PV Plant Layout . 33 3.1.1 Initial design . 34 3.1.2 Layout and area . 34 3.2 PV Plant Performance .