Energetic-Environmental-Economic Feasibility and Impact Assessment of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic System in Wastewater Treatment Plant: Case Study

Horia Andrei, Cristian Andrei Badea, Paul Andrei and Filippo Spertino
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Horia Andrei: Department of Doctoral School of Engineering Sciences, University Valahia of Targoviste, 130004 Târgoviște, Romania
Cristian Andrei Badea: Interface Engineering, 030828 Bucharest, Romania
Paul Andrei: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University Politehnica of Bucharest, 060042 București, Romania
Filippo Spertino: Department of Power System, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-22

Abstract: Wastewater treatment plants and power generation constitute inseparable parts of present society. So the growth of wastewater treatment plants is accompanied by an increase in the energy consumption, and a sustainable development implies the use of renewable energy sources on a large scale in the power generation. A case study of the synergy between wastewater treatment plants and photovoltaic systems, aiming to improve the energetic, environmental and economic impacts, is presented. Based on data acquisition, the energy consumption analysis of wastewater treatment plant reveals that the highest demand is during April, and the lowest is during November. The placement of photovoltaic modules is designed to maximize the use of free space on the technological area of wastewater treatment plant in order to obtain a power output as high as possible. The peak consumption of wastewater treatment plant occurs in April, however the peak production of the photovoltaic is in July, so electrochemical batteries can partly compensate for this mismatch. The impact of the photovoltaic system connectivity on power grid is assessed by means of the matching-index method and the storage battery significantly improves this parameter. Carbon credit and energy payback time are used to assess the environmental impact. The results prove that the photovoltaic system mitigates 12,118 tons of carbon and, respectively, the embedded energy is compensated by production in 8 ½ years. The economic impact of the photovoltaic system is analyzed by the levelized cost of energy, and the results show that the price of energy from the photovoltaic source is below the current market price of energy.

Keywords: wastewater treatment plant; photovoltaic system; grid-connected; storage battery; data acquisition system; modeling and simulation; energetic; environmental and economic impact (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 (2)

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