Photovoltaic Energy Conversion

Overview

An EEE 591 (Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, ASU) final project that models a 5 kW residential PV system paired with a 14 kWh battery and evaluates its economics under two utility billing policies: net metering and net billing. Using an 8,760-hour (full-year) simulation with Salt River Project time-of-use rates, it quantifies annual electricity costs, net present value, levelized cost of energy, and payback period to assess whether home solar-plus-storage is financially viable under current Arizona rate structures. **Highlight:** 51.3% annual bill reduction under net metering ($1,832.55 to $892.78)

Key Achievements

• Built a full 8,760-hour simulation in Python: time-of-use rate construction across three seasons, an hour-by-hour battery dispatch model (10-100% SOC, 95% charge/discharge efficiency), and grid import/export accounting
• Implemented financial-engineering methods from scratch: NPV discounting, capital-recovery annualization, and a geometric-series NPV for O&M growth, including a 7-year battery replacement schedule over a 25-year horizon
• Found net metering reduces the $1,832.55 baseline annual bill to $892.78 (15.1-year payback) vs. $920.72 for net billing (15.6-year payback), with both yielding negative 25-year NPV (-$7,572 and -$8,059) at a 3% discount rate
• Ran a battery-cost sensitivity analysis (±25% around $300/kWh) showing each $75/kWh change shifts NPV by ~$3,162, and estimated net metering would need battery costs below ~$150/kWh to reach a positive NPV
• Generated the figure set (load profile, summer/winter energy flows, battery SOC, bill and economics comparisons) that supports the IEEE-style report

Approach

The analysis was implemented in Python with NumPy and Pandas for the hourly simulation and Matplotlib for figures. The pipeline loads 8,760-hour load and PV-production CSVs, builds a time-of-use rate array from SRP seasonal/peak definitions, dispatches the battery hour-by-hour to maximize self-consumption, then computes annual bills under each policy and runs the financial model (NPV, annualized cost, LCOE, payback) plus a battery-cost sensitivity sweep. Results are written up in an IEEE-style report with abstract, methodology, results, and conclusion.

Tools & Technologies

Gallery

Results

Both policies cut the annual bill by roughly 49-51% (net metering to $892.78, net billing to $920.72) but neither is economically viable under current Arizona rates: 25-year net NPV is -$7,572 (net metering) and -$8,059 (net billing), payback is 15.1-15.6 years, and LCOE is $0.0956/kWh; net metering holds a ~$487 lifetime NPV advantage. Full details are in docs/EEE591_Project_Paper-1.docx.pdf.