Techno-Economic Performance Evaluation for Olive Mills Powered by Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Systems

Ovidio Rabaza, José Contreras-Montes, María Jesús García-Ruiz, Fernando Delgado-Ramos and Daniel Gómez-Lorente
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Ovidio Rabaza: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
José Contreras-Montes: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
María Jesús García-Ruiz: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
Fernando Delgado-Ramos: Institute of Water Research, University of Granada, 18012 Granada, Spain
Daniel Gómez-Lorente: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain

Energies, 2015, vol. 8, issue 10, 1-16

Abstract: In recent years, due to the rise in petroleum prices and greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy has been recommended as a power source for different types of facilities. For the period 2010 to 2020 the European Commission has established three key objectives related to climatic change and energy sustainability, such as reductions of CO 2 emissions, increases in the use of renewable energy, and improvements in energy efficiency. A key industry is olive oil production in olive mills, where there is a great opportunity to reduce electricity consumption, increase additional profits related to the reduction of technologies that are harmful to the environment, and to cut back maintenance costs. For this reason, a feasibility study of grid-connected photovoltaics (PV) systems has been carried out for different types of olive mills in Andalusia (southern Spain). This region is highly energy dependent, but has an abundance of “green” resources to be exploited. The results of this study contemplate a reduction in spending on electrical power of between 2% and 37%, and an increase in the use of renewable energy of between 2% and 26%. These results are according to the self-consumption or net metering policy and the production capacity of olive oil.

Keywords: olive mill; photovoltaic; sustainability; net metering; self-consumption; HOMER software (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: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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