Towards Cost-Efficient Grid-Connected PV Power Plants in Northern Scandinavia

• Main Authors: Good, C., Persson, H., Kleven, O., Norton, M., Boström, T.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: WIP 2011
• Subjects: PV Systems; Large PV Power Plants and Distributed PV System Aspects and Grid Connection; Northern Sweden; Piteå
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.4229/26theupvsec2011-5bv.2.49; http://www.eupvsec-proceedings.com/proceedings?paper=14481

26th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 4347-4355 : Northern Scandinavia has a yearly insolation that is comparable to Central Europe. This is true for both optimal inclined fixed systems and for two-axis tracking systems. Despite this fact, the installed PV in this region is only a minor fraction compared to Germany, which is one of the world’s top PV nations. This paper presents a calculated levelized cost of electricity for Piteå in Northern Sweden on the same level as for Freiburg in Southern Germany. According to these calculations, the system reaches grid parity even without subsidies. These calculations were based on simulations performed for different high efficient PV technologies with both fixed mounting and solar tracking for four locations in Scandinavia and Germany. The results show that the performance of different technologies is dependent on the system design. Since the module area is limited on the relatively expensive two-axis tracking systems, the optimum choices in these calculations were high efficient mono-crystalline modules. The work presented is a part of the installation of a combined commercial and research 20 kWp two-axis tracking system that is currently being installed in Piteå, Sweden.