Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States.
Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, United States.
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Jun 20;722:137932. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137932. Epub 2020 Mar 14.
With the increasing implementation of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, comprehensive methods and tools are required to dynamically assess their economic and environmental costs and benefits under varied spatial and temporal contexts. This study integrated system dynamics modeling with life cycle assessment and life cycle cost assessment to evaluate the cumulative energy demand, carbon footprint, water footprint, and life cycle cost of residential grid-connected (GC) and standalone (SA) solar PV systems. The system dynamics model was specifically used for simulating the hourly solar energy generation, use, and storage during the use phase of the solar PVs. The modeling framework was then applied to a residential prototype house in Boston, MA to investigate various PV panel and battery sizing scenarios. When the SA design is under consideration, the maximum life cycle economic saving can be achieved with 20 panels with no battery in the prototype house, which increases the life cycle economic savings by 511.6% as compared to a baseline system sized based upon the engineering rule-of-thumb (40 panels and 40 batteries), yet decreases the demand met by 55.7%. However, the optimized environmental performance was achieved with significantly larger panel (up to 300 units) and battery (up to 320 units) sizes. These optimized configurations increase the life cycle environmental savings of the baseline system byup to 64.6%, but significantly decrease the life cycle economic saving by up to 6868.4%. There is a clear environmental and economic tradeoff when sizing the SA systems. When the GC system design is under consideration, both the economic and environmental benefits are the highest when no battery is installed, and the benefits increase with the increase of panel size. However, when policy constraints such as limitations/caps of grid sell are in place, tradeoffs would present as whether or not to install batteries for excess energy storage.
随着太阳能光伏 (PV) 系统的日益普及，需要综合运用各种方法和工具，以便在不同的时空背景下动态评估其经济和环境成本与效益。本研究将系统动力学建模与生命周期评估和生命周期成本评估相结合，以评估住宅并网 (GC) 和独立 (SA) 太阳能 PV 系统的累积能源需求、碳足迹、水足迹和生命周期成本。系统动力学模型专门用于模拟太阳能光伏在使用阶段的每小时太阳能发电、使用和存储。然后，该建模框架应用于马萨诸塞州波士顿的一栋住宅原型房，以研究各种光伏电池板和电池的尺寸方案。当考虑 SA 设计时，原型房中没有电池的情况下，使用 20 块电池板可实现最大的生命周期经济节约，与基于工程经验法则（40 块电池板和 40 块电池）设计的基准系统相比，生命周期经济节约增加了 511.6%，但需求减少了 55.7%。然而，通过显著增大电池板（最大 300 个单位）和电池（最大 320 个单位）的尺寸可实现优化的环境性能。这些优化配置将基准系统的生命周期环境节约提高了高达 64.6%，但将生命周期经济节约降低了高达 6868.4%。在设计 SA 系统时，存在明显的环境和经济权衡。当考虑 GC 系统设计时，不安装电池时，经济和环境效益最高，并且随着电池板尺寸的增加而增加。然而，当存在政策限制（例如电网出售的限制/上限）时，是否安装电池以进行多余的储能将成为权衡取舍的问题。
