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31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2676-2679, In order to have both predictable power demand and supply, in accordance with an increased selfconsumption of PV generated electrical energy, it seems natural to coordinate the installed PV units with consuming and storing devices inside a locally build-up smart grid. By the generation, storage and consumption of power in one´s own home but also by sharing between users in an integrated neighbourhood, energy production and demand can be coordinated when it includes sharing of information for exchange excess power and storage capacity, inside smart neighbourhood grids and the external power grid. Consequently households are equipped with additional ICT based hardware for measuring, controlling and optimizing their energy consumption and generation. In order to test and prove this underlying technology under real conditions, field tests with collaborating users are already underway in Konstanz (Germany) and will continued and extended at user sites in the Province of Caserta (Italy).

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2780-2783, This paper describes the optimized power development including PV and CSP in Saudi Arabia in terms of LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy) as well as its potential influence to the GDP of the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia is facing a rapid increase in power demand due to increasing population and the economic growth. Domestic consumption of oil could reach the recent production level in less than 20 years at this rate. As the potential of increase in oil production is limited, substitution of oil by other sources of energy as well as energy conservation is critical. To cope with this problem, a simulation model which consists of two modules is proposed in this article in order to evaluate the proposed target values by the government and to suggest the optimized power supply plan. The first module is Electricity Simulation Module that aims LCOE minimization of the power system, potentially consisting of PV, CSP, nuclear and thermal power. The second module is the Macroeconomic Module calculating the GDP for each scenario in power development. The estimated future I/O table for Saudi Arabia has been extended to include PV, CSP and nuclear industrial sectors. The influence to the GDP has been compared between the two scenarios.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2686-2689, With a decrease in feed-in tariffs for photovoltaic (PV) systems in Europe and a decrease in the cost of Li-ion batteries, PV battery systems for increased self-consumption are becoming of increasing interest. A 4.8 kWh PV battery system with lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries was designed. The battery pack was installed with the commercially available LiTHIUM BALANCE A/S battery management system that manages the battery cells for achieving higher yield and increased service life of the battery packs. The PV battery system was installed in the EnergyFlexHouse at Danish Technological Institute, a full-scale flexible measurement platform for construction and installation technology. This gave the possibility to test the PV battery system in a single-family house environment. The PV battery system was connected to a PV array of 3.5 kWp. High resolution consumptions data for typical single family households was used for minute by minute load simulation in the tested PV battery system. Economic calculations based on Danish feed in tariffs are calculated for a PV battery system and a PV system without battery to clarify if it is profitable for a Danish consumer to install a PV battery. Economic calculations shows that a PV battery system could potentially stimulate the demand for PV systems despite decreasing feed in tariffs.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2703-2708, Most of the installed PV storage systems in residential areas are installed in single family houses. The field of application of PV storage systems can be extended to apartment buildings by providing a concept, that allows the joint use of one PV storage system by a number of apartments. This paper describes a concept, that combines an integrated multi-level energy management system for an apartment building with a PV generator and a storage unit. Therefore a measurement concept is introduced, that allows quasi-real-time metering and simultaneous multiple access to one battery storage unit. The global objective is to present a holistic concept, that provides an energy management system that optimizes on the level of the apartment, the whole building and the integration in the energy market all in one.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2767-2769, There are two main ways to convert and use the solar energy. The first one is conversation of solar energy into thermal and the second one is solar energy conversion into electrical energy through semiconductor photovoltaic cells. In the recent years, numerous researches have been made for the development of solar photovoltaic and thermal hybrid systems which provide electrical and thermal energy simultaneously. Hybrid systems are often integrated with solar concentrating devices. In these systems it is important to remove the heat from the semiconductor converter. The hybrid systems are composed of different knots and quite complicated. Consequently for the design and moreover for optimal design of the mentioned systems it is necessary to develop an appropriate mathematical model and a software package. For that propose the mathematical model of the solar hybrid (concentrated and non-concentrated) systems is considered in this work which enables to estimate the electrical and the thermal energy produced by a solar hybrid system, the size of the surface and the amount of heated water during a day. As well as the analysis of characteristics of hybrid systems were performed.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2848-2853, Methods of utilizing residential produced photovoltaic (PV) power by converting to thermal energy through heat pumps (HP) are present in literature, where thermal energy is dispersed as either heat or hot water at the instant moment of PV production. In this paper an alternative solution is described, where the thermal energy is stored in a buffer tank (BT) capable of dispersing heat to either the heating system of a house or a hot water tank, for later use. The thermal storage solution including a BT can increase the self-consumption of residentially produced PV power and thereby shift electric energy demand of the HP to hours where excess PV power is present. The self-consumption of the PV energy affects the overall net present value (NPV). In this paper, a method which maximizes the NPV by finding the cost-optimal combination of PV, HP and BT sizes, is proposed. Results show that the thermal storage with a BT is a better investment than a PV system without HP or no investment. Furthermore, it showed that the optimization model developed in this project is capable of finding the optimal combination of component sizes based on our data.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2745-2750, With increasing population shifts to urban areas and demands for post-war energy efficient renovations across Europe, solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment in multi-family housing will play an increasingly important role towards meeting renewable energy, climate, and sustainability goals. This paper describes the stories of three Swedish residential cooperatives who have installed large-scale PV systems across multiple buildings on their estates. In all cases, reduced operating costs were the original primary motivator; however unforeseen cost increases, changes in policy, and excess supply in the electricity market have made economic success less likely than originally expected. Regardless, the owners consider their projects a success due in part to short term social and long-term environmental benefits, which were originally less important and difficult to quantify. We can conclude that community owned PV offers more than just economic benefits, and Sweden’s unique ownership and management structure of residential cooperatives can offer insights towards increased deployment in other nations in Europe.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2808-2813, A combination of falling technology prices and government financial incentives has led to the rapid expansion of the solar microgeneration industry in the UK and around the world. With conditions for investment becoming more favourable, viability appraisal is now of great interest to potential investors ranging from individuals to large companies and authorities. A methodology to predict solar resource available to solar technologies in urban areas is presented that combines a radiative transfer simulation with shading derived from digital surface model (DSM) data. The radiative transfer simulation includes water vapour, ozone, clouds and surface albedo determined from MODIS satellite products along with aerosol properties that are derived from the GLOMAP model. A DSM is used to calculate the height of near-by obstacles and the horizon from each point of interest to establish when the site is in shade during a year. The site-level radiance field is adjusted by elements in shade and integrated over the view hemisphere of the photovoltaic (PV) panels to take into account panel tilt. Modelled annual global radiation (Wh/m2/a) estimations are validated using power output data from 17 sites across four major UK cities (Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds and Sheffield) and show good agreement with -3.68% and +2.62% mean percentage error under assumed performance ratio conversions of 0.75 and 0.8 respectively. The results are compared to the outputs of both Esri ArcGIS and PVGIS, the first of which predicted annual global radiation with -15.97% and -20.78% mean percentage error with the latter returning +3.34% and +10.23% mean percentage error for the 0.75 and 0.8 performance ratios.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2762-2766, The support of the energy consumption by integration of a PV system is a main issue for residential and industrial users. We present an evaluation where the integration of a PV system is analyzed in order to increase the own consumption ratio under consideration of a flat annual load duration curve. The airport is using combined heat and power units (CHP) based on natural gas to support their energy demand. The power is fed-in to an internal grid and the waste heat is used in absorption refrigeration for air conditioning. The current load profile and the annual load duration curve are rather constant. The task is to integrate a free-mounted PV system on the airfield and to evaluate the influence of the PV power production to the load curves. The analysis shows that a PV system concept neither supplies the power system nor supports the power supply of the absorption refrigeration. Due to the PV specific daily and annual load profile the photovoltaic system would destabilize the power supply. Thus, the efficiency of the CHP would decrease significantly. This means that the integration of a PV system to an inefficient energy supply system of the airport and thus to a reduction of the profitability.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2814-2817, Due to increased pressure from environmental agencies and ongoing slow maritime economy, the compliance of environmental regulations stipulated in IMO conventions became hard for ship owners from implementation point of view. That’s why various measures have been taken in shipbuilding to reduce emission as well as improve fuel efficiency of the vessels. Some measures are directly related to design of the ship hull such as Mewis duct, air bubble lubrication, scrubber etc. And some are related to engine and fuel used. Other than that the most appropriate alternative has been and will always be using renewable sources of energy like wind and solar, the most abundant and free one. The Impulse Power project is evident of the effectiveness of solar energy by propellingthe 31m yacht MS Turanor totally on solar power with the help of batteries. MS Turanor project was part of scientific expedition but if we want to use this system for commercial ferries or cargo ships, then there is a problem to obtain continuous output due to intermittent supply of renewable energy and high power requirement needed for completing the commercial responsibilities and service liability to society. Answer is that commercial ship can make use of renewable energy as auxiliary or part fuel source. Due to higher power and continuous power requirement it may not be viable to use huge number of Li-ion batteries which are costlier i.e. around $350/kWh.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2612-2621, The decentralized character of the German Energiewende is most evident in the installation of more than half a million domestic rooftop solar systems. Their success story however has slowed down in the last two years because of frequent regulatory updates, anti-dumping measures, decreasing feed-in tariffs and little experience with the influence of electrical self-consumption. To make it even more complex solar battery systems were introduced to the market increasing the number of layout factors. In this paper we present a detailed techno-economic model to compute the profitability of different PV-battery-setups. All technical parameters as well as current German regulation and appropriate cost functions especially designed to small systems and derived from an extensive market survey are taken into account. Rates for self-consumption are determined by a continuous power flow simulation. All input data is assessed and uncertainties analyzed by means of a Monte Carlo Simulation. A sensitivity analysis finally identifies the parameters of highest influence. Optimizing self-consumption with batteries is close to being a business case for electro-chemical storage and this paper provides a detailed analysis of various setups and technologies.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2755-2761, The storage of energy in batteries is a cause of the failure and loss of reliability in PV systems. Battery state of charge evolution usually consists of measuring manually the electrolyte density; this method can only be employed by people in charge of the maintenance of an installation and is not feasible for a private individual wishing to have at least daily information. In this paper we identified the parameters of two solar lead acid batteries using the method “parameter estimation tool” of Simulink library. The selected mathematical model is the Guasch model. In order to validate the model, a comparison between results gotten by calculation with those by experimental data found by testing this battery under different constant currents has been undertaken. This method allows us to know and predict the behavior of the battery in the applications of photovoltaic solar energy.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2672-2675, PV installations on individual dwellings are generally designed in order to maximize the electrical output given the physical constraints of the building. Financial incentives also play a major role, the structure of the feed-in tariffs and the fiscal measures leading to a majority of 3-kWp residential PV installations in France. When possible, the solar panels are South-facing and tilted at 30° to 40° for a maximum yield. However, if the aim is no longer to maximize the solar panels’ output but to match as much as possible the PV production profile to the electrical load curve, several new approaches appear: - the first and most commonly studied is to shift some electrical loads to hours of the day when the solar panels generate electricity. This demand side management generally acts on electric hot water tanks, electrical heating, heat pumps and electric vehicle batteries when relevant. - the second and novel approach is the one presented in this paper, which consists in adapting the PV installation to the electrical load curve of the house.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2736-2741, The present study shows that performing energy saving retrofit in air conditioning (A/C) and lighting then utilizing solar PV energy to supply the remaining load demand in grid can reach non-nuclear goal in Taiwan. An office was chosen as the demonstration site (D-1). Four energy-saving retrofits on air conditioning and lighting results in 65% energy saving. A 6 kWp solar PV system for self-consumption and without feeding energy back to grid is further installed to replace additional 20% energy to reach 85% total energy saving. The total investment for solar PV system and energy-saving retrofit is USD30,000. The net total energy saving in 20 years is USD80,000, including M&O cost. If energy-saving in air conditioning and lighting can reach 60% as D-1 did in the whole country, the nuclear power (18% electricity) can be abandomed. Several scenarios to reach non-nuclear goal are proposed. The energy storage for each 3 kWp PV unit is estimated around 4-6 kWh. Heat storage can be utilized to reduce cost dramatically as it is 10 times cheaper than battery.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2696-2698, This article presents the numerical and experimental analysis of the performance of two rooftop building integrated solar PV/T hybrid air collectors (BIPV/T) and a BIPV façade. Some main problematic of this kind of component is that energy needs and their production are not always concomitant. Moreover, their configurations don’t always permit to obtain optimal operative conditions for both thermal and electrical production. Thus, the objective of this work is to propose area for improvement of their performance based on three applications. The first system was designed to be coupled with a ventilation system. The second system comprising a metal absorber was designed for fodder drying. The advantage of this application is that it is realized during summertime, when PV modules most need to be cooled. The third application was a bifacial BIPV double-skin façade. For each system, the thermal and electrical numerical models developed are presented as well as their validation on various test benches and a demonstrator. Numerical and experimental parametric studies permitted to define first area of improvement of solar components performance. Thus, some influencing parameters were defined: the thickness of air gap, the air velocity and the optical properties (emissivity) of layers, especially PV modules front glass.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2784-2788, This paper analyzes the energy supply system of the municipality of Bressanone, province of Bolzano, studying renewable energy sources (RES) high penetration scenarios. Particularly, the benefits from the increase of photovoltaic installed power and high and low efficiency storage devices were evaluated. Firstly, the reference scenario was built using energyPLAN, system analysis tool based on energy consumption and production data for the year 2010. Three different scenarios were then produced and compared, with the reference system, on few parameters: renewable energy integration, carbon dioxide emissions and economic costs. The results show that an increase of photovoltaic capacity up to 20 MW (approximately 1 kW/person) produces an improvement of all the evaluating parameters: increases RES integration, reduces CO2 emissions and slightly decreases annual economic costs. The threshold of 50 MW of photovoltaic rooftop potential capacity in Bressanone – filtered for insolation level and historical city center - could be reached with an increase of annual economic costs. In order to further improve renewable energy integration and CO2 emissions, scenarios with different installed capacity of storage and different round-trip efficiency were thus investigated.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2726-2731, The objective is to present the methods and procedures of the development activities of the cooling equipment model for PV module in order to reduce the operating temperature and increase the performance of the electricity production of a Photovoltaic Solar Plant (PVPP). The methodology is based on the development of procedures, measurement and verification (M&V) of three models of modular cooling units. The production models of the plate-tube type, model A and B did not show constructive and no operating problems, on the other hand, the model multiple channels type, model C, presented problems in the welding process due to the small thickness of the sheets in addition, it is failed the leak test, developed leaks, a fact which led to their exclusion, since its construction entails higher development costs. The M&V on empirical tests show that the operating temperature of the PV module with the model A remained below NOCT (47±2°C), whereas the PV module without modular cooling unit recorded temperatures above 60,0°C with maximum temperature of 68,06°C. Therefore, the final model selected for the building in series is the model A cooler.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2804-2807, A microgrid system with 100 kW of power and 150kWh of battery storage capacity is being planned and physically built from scratch at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Energías Renovables, S.A. in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain), in order to provide a smart energy solution for a small-size touristic village which consists of 25 bioclimatic houses, also located at ITER premises, that are commercially rented as accommodation all year round. The houses, which normally are fully occupied, were designed and built in unique designs which adapt to the environment, having nowadays become icons of major architectural interest. Each house has its own solar photovoltaic plant, aesthetically integrated and originally conceived for connecting to the utility grid, so that while the grid connection guarantees the energy supply, the energy produced by each house provides by itself a certain net balance in order to reduce the overall CO2 emissions.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2732-2735, In the foreseeable future, sustainable electrical energy systems should be capable to handle up to 100% of renewable energy contribution. Due to the recent price-drops, PV will play a major role in the global renewable energy portfolio. The technical implications of this development (also referred to as "energy transition" in Germany) in all areas electricity supply (generation, transmission, distribution, management) are manifold and consequently lead to a new system design. For the effective integration of PV the major challenges are volatile generation given by sun’s position, actual weather conditions, and the load level. On one hand the article addresses the generation side by adapting the PV power plant layout to meet the load requirements (e.g., via azimuth and tilt angle modification to achieve peak power output during periods of high demand and higher prices on the spot market, or via thermal conditioning of PV modules (e.g. more power output in the morning), and on the other hand the article discusses several possibilities of load management (e.g., load shifting, inducements, load adaptation, appropriate market design).

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2774-2779, Flexible Solar Photovoltaic (FSPV) array has been tested as a mobile power source for marine environment. A multi-purpose testbed has been designed and implemented for experimentation with submerged FPSV modules. The FSPV system design for such offshore applications requires consideration of the impact of contoured layout, operating depth, SPV technology and dynamic Non Uniform Illumination (NUI). The experimental study of characteristics such as short circuit current variation as a function of depth and contour angle have resulted in comprehensive, technology aware FSPV system models. This facilitates the application of solar power optimization techniques. Suitable electrical architecture and maximum power extraction techniques are proposed for the offshore FSPV systems and are validated using the developed system models.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2646-2649, The aim of the research is to identify the optimum allocation of PV and wind power plants within the four main islands of Japan, for a green power supplier producing power exclusively by PV, wind and biomass. PV and wind power has different type of power fluctuations, which are unique to the geographical location. In this research, firstly, the potentials of PV and wind power in each region of Japan are calculated according to the geographical and social constraints. Secondly, the optimum allocation of the PV and wind power plants, in terms of the LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity) is determined considering the hourly change in meteorological conditions in each region based on the hourly weather records of the Meteorological Agency. Only the necessary capacity is calculated for the biomass power plant since its power output is irrelevant to the geographical and meteorological conditions. Finally, the cash flow has been derived under the optimum power plant allocation.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2770-2773, The inclusion of storage in grid-connected PV-systems sets new challenges to the forecast of the power flows from and to the grid, as instantaneous PV-production – currently predictable with reasonable accuracy – and power feed-in to the grid gets decoupled. Forecast schemes of the power flows have to include details of the storage system as size and control strategy. In this paper gives results from a simulation study on the operation of PVSystems focusing on the deviation of forecasted and actual power flows for systems with storages operating with different control schemes.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2799-2803, An off grid solar PV-driven system for precooling and storing post-harvest crops is proposed for desert agricultural areas in Egypt. For operation during night as well as days with low solar radiation, both thermal and electrical energy storage is considered. Previously existing parametric MS Excel-based models are further developed and integrated into a new model so as to be capable of simulating the operation of off grid PV-driven cold stores throughout the year in hourly steps. The weather data, cold store construction, stored crops properties, and a crops loading/unloading scenario are inputted to the developed model. The cooling load time series is accordingly calculated. Based on the parameters of the inputted system components the operation is simulated and the technical feasibility is assessed. As an example, a case is considered where a 20ft-reefer container is used as cold store and tomatoes are loaded and unloaded in a certain scenario. So as to assess possible trades between system components, the model compares system alternatives with a combination of components sizes. All technically feasible alternatives are compared economically and the most economical is compared to a conventional diesel-powered reference system. With scenarios of gradual removal of subsidy of diesel in Egypt within 15, 10, and 5 years, the PV-driven cooling system attains a discounted payback period of 17, 12, and 7 years respectively.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2818-2823, Electricity generated by renewable energy sources, especially photovoltaic, is growing with high pace. Where penetration of renewables is high, energy production can, depending on weather conditions, exceed demand during certain times of the day. This causes electricity prices to fall and to become eventually even negative during such times and it poses considerable challenge to grid stability. Such a scenario is neither economically nor technically desirable. With prices for batteries falling, new storage technologies evolving and ICT becoming ubiquitous, semiautonomous systems with a high degree of energy self-sufficiency are coming into reach. Their adoption can have significant impact on existing business models and energy infrastructures. As experience is limited and field testing restricted by technical and financial constraints, simulation is the only means to study the technical and economic issues associated with the realisation of such systems where the roles of producers, distributors and consumers of energy merge. Here we report on a novel approach to model such heterogeneous systems in a unified simulation environment.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2650-2671, There are several barriers to achieving an energy system based entirely on renewable energy (RE), not the least of which is doubt that high capacities of solar PV can be feasible due to long, cold and dark Finnish winters. Technologically, several energy storage options can facilitate high penetrations of solar PV (up to 29 TWhe, or 16% of annual electricity production) and other variable forms of RE. These options include electric and thermal storage systems in addition to a robust role of Power-to-Gas (PtG) technology. Approximately 45% of electricity produced from solar PV was used directly over the course of the year, which shows the relevance of storage. In terms of public policy, several mechanisms are available to promote various forms of RE. However, many of these are contested in Finland by actors with vested interests in maintaining the status quo rather than by those without faith in RE conversion or storage technologies. These vested interests must be overcome before a zero fossil carbon future can begin.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2795-2798, This paper presents a toolbox for the design and simulation of energy management strategies for battery based, building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems. The toolbox uses as inputs the demand power profile of the building, the normalized photovoltaic (PV) generation for one year, the desired rate of self-consumption, the battery technology to be used (among lead-acid, lithium-ion, second-hand lithium-ion and vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB)) and the grid code to comply. Based on this input, the toolbox calculates the photovoltaic power needed to achieve the self-consumption rate, the battery capacity needed to comply with the applicable grid code and the size of the manageable load if applicable. The toolbox then tunes the control parameters of the energy management strategy. Finally, a one-year simulation of the system is run, and an automatic report is generated which presents a summary of the system together with some merit factors to evaluate the strategy performance. It also shows the graphs of the power exchanged with the grid before and after the strategy has been applied, the power delivered by the battery and its state of charge (SOC) over one year.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2680-2685, With decreasing subsidies for PV energy fed into the grid other economic incentives are needed to sustain the growth of PV power. An effective solution is to increase self-consumption for grid-connected, residential PV systems by means of generating hot water by the use of a heat pump. This widely used concept of thermal energy storage has been adapted for a facade element with integrated PV modules for the first time. The so called Swiss PV Wall System (SPWS) contains all elements needed in the façade, behind the PV modules with a power of 1 kWp, like a PV inverter, a heat pump and a hot water tank. Simulation showed that virtually 100% of the PV energy can be used either by the heat pump to produce hot-water or the household’s electricity needs. A functional model of the SPWS was realized and first measurements showed that the heat demand of a one family household may be covered for the majority of the months during the year. Economic analyses showed that the cost per kWh heat is at about 0.215 CHF and thus lower than standard solar thermal and some fossil solutions.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2622-2627, One of the first of its kind, a pilot project involving the instalment of solar roads in Krommenie, was successfully implemented by the consortium of the province of North Holland, TNO, Ooms and Imtech. Seen as a living lab for knowledge gathering in this nascent application area, with a potential of widening the proliferation of PV technologies, the testing of the operating performance of the installed solar road stretch is ongoing. In this context, the theoretical model for energy yield of the solar road is developed to facilitate the future comparative analysis with the realtime measured data. A combination of Inductive Power Transfer (IPT) to solar roads has been suggested for convenient charging of e-bikes in stands.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2832-2843, Global water demand is increasing whilst the renewable water resource is diminishing. This has resulted in an increase in demand for seawater desalination, with reverse osmosis (RO) accounting for 65% of the 80.9 million m3/day of desalted water produced globally in 2013. A prevailing concern is high energy demand and availability of fossil fuel resources, resulting in the drive for renewable energy powered desalination systems. In the near future, the increasing desalination demand can be met through SWRO plants powered by hybrid PV-Wind-Battery and Power-to-Gas (PtG) power plants at a cost level competitive with current fossil fuel powered SWRO plants.Hybrid systems allow for higher full load hours and optimal utilization of the installed desalination capacity. In this paper, we provide a global estimate of the water production cost for the 2030 desalination demand with renewable electricity generation costs for 2030. The levelized cost of water (LCOW), which includes water production, electricity, water transportation and water storage costs, ranges from 0.59 €/m3 – 2.81 €/m3 for the 2030 desalination demand. The global system required to meet the 2030 global water demand is found to cost about 9790 billion € of initial investments. It is possible to overcome the water supply limitations in a sustainable and financially competitive way.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2699-2702, The production of Domestic Hot Water (DHW) by hydronic solar thermal collectors was for many years the leading renewable energy technology in the residential sector. However, the installed cost of solar PV has fallen dramatically over the past decade and the generation of electricity by PV systems excess to the needs of the individual household now presents a challenge to the stable operation of the LV distribution network. The utilisation of this excess electricity to provide DHW, combined with the lower investment costs, may now make economic sense for the householder and deliver benefits to the energy system as a whole. As both an energy supplier and a network operator, E.ON has an interest in providing cost-effective energy solutions and optimising the integration of solar PV within the overall energy system. This paper evaluates the opportunity for simultaneously mitigating the negative network impacts of PV and improving the economic performance of residential energy systems. It draws on economic modelling, laboratory and field trials addressing the economic, environmental and practical merits, and remaining challenges of this technology.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2844-2847, The Spanish port authorities as promoters of sustainable energy patterns, are participating in several projects at European and national level on the integration of renewable energy into their ports. 46% of the Spanish ports authorities have within their environments, facilities for renewable energies. Solar photovoltaic installations, with 53%, are those that have greater presence. In this paper we will discuss the experiences made by the Spanish port authorities who have opted for the integration of photovoltaic solar energy facilities in their ports, reveling the potential offered by photovoltaics within ports as an energy tool.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2742-2744, PRONTAS is a project aimed at building a solar-powered plane of 16 meters wingspan capable of flying autonomously for indefinite time to carry out different scientific, institutional or commercial pre-defined missions. Solar airplanes have the advantage of flying at high altitudes with no need of contaminating conventional fuels. This plane will be remotely controlled to carry out several missions like surveillance, rescues, environmental protection, communications in case of emergencies, material research or urban development and geographical control. This plane is powered exclusively by solar energy captured through the photovoltaic cells that cover its wings, and has a storage system that allows for flying continuously, even at night and during low radiation conditions. The plane is equipped with an autonomous navigation system that it is both capable of maintaining a preset trajectory and taking the best flight strategies according to the energy available, depending on the environmental conditions of solar radiation.

31st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 2789-2794, This paper began from the quest of effective approaches to integrate Photovoltaic Panel as sustainable design component with existing physical layers of cities to transform Indian cities into smart ones. In India, the concept of ‘Smart City’ is still a question of what, why, when & how, since the new NDA Government has announced to develop 100 smart cities as satellite towns of larger cities and by transforming the existing mid-sized cities and allocated a sum of Rs. 7060 crores for this plan. With this background, the paper will study the provisions for energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, proposed in the ‘Draft Concept Note on Smart City Scheme’ by Ministry Of Urban Development, Government of India. It attempts to identify the role of PV in order to transform existing Indian cities into smart cities. The research explains few international benchmarking of smart cities in terms of applications of PV towards energy efficiency and delivering smart services. Further, the paper explores detailed account of energy requirement based on the types of cities in India to be transformed into smart cities and concludes with various strategy options to integrate PV in the mainstream urban planning system.