Techno-Economic Feasibility Analysis of a Grid Connected Solar Photovoltaic Power System for a Residential Load

In the present paper the software Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER) is used to optimal design and analyze a domestic power system which includes a grid connected solar photovoltaic (PV) based power system along with battery storage to supply a single residential load located near Siliguri, West Bengal (with latitude and longitude of 26 degrees 72'N and 88 degrees 41'E respectively). In this context, the analyses have been carried out in two modes - grid connected and stand-alone. The simulation results obtained are mainly on cost of energy, pay-back period, environmental emissions etc. On the basis of these results, two modes are compared with the grid-only (base) mode. Performance of each component (i.e. battery, inverter, rectifier etc) of the model is evaluated and finally sensitivity analysis is performed to optimize the system at different conditions. The Government subsidy is, also, addressed into the analyses.