A Comparative Economic Feasibility Study of Photovoltaic Heat Pump Systems for Industrial Space Heating and Cooling

Celena Lorenzo, Luis Narvarte and Ana Belén Cristóbal
Additional contact information
Celena Lorenzo: Instituto de Energía Solar—Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28031 Madrid, Spain
Luis Narvarte: Instituto de Energía Solar—Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28031 Madrid, Spain
Ana Belén Cristóbal: Instituto de Energía Solar—Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28031 Madrid, Spain

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-20

Abstract: The use of photovoltaic (PV) systems for powering heat pumps (HP) leads to an economic, energy efficient and environmentally friendly alternative for heating and cooling generation. A technical solution developed by the authors permits stand-alone configurations to operate without batteries, mitigating up to 75% of the solar power fluctuations resulting from cloud-passing. Once its technical feasibility has been demonstrated, the economic potential of this innovative solution should be assessed (avoiding a battery system is a significant advantage). This paper presents a comparative economic assessment of this autonomous (AU) solution and a self-consumption (SC) solution, that would substitute a grid-powered HP system for the space heating and cooling of two livestock farms located in Spain. Results show that PV-HP systems are economically feasible regardless of the technical solution: the Profitability Index ( PI ) is in the 2.23–2.97 €/€ range, the Internal Rate of Return ( IRR ) is in the 8.1–10.9% range, the Payback Period ( PBP ) is in the 9.2–11 years range and the savings in terms of the Levelized Cost of Energy ( LCOE ) are in the 57–70% range. The AU solution offers a higher economic profitability, because it permits larger savings in the electricity bill. The SC solution presents lower LCOE s because of its greater electricity production.

Keywords: photovoltaic; heat pump; economic assessment; autonomous system; self-consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/16/4114/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/16/4114/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:16:p:4114-:d:396584

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().