Influence of PV power generation on energy consumption in domestic buildings in Saudi Arabia

Due to its geographical location, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is blessed with huge solar resources. Through its Vision 2030, the Government has set up a target of installing 9.5 GW of renewable energy systems by 2030.... [ view full abstract ]

Due to its geographical location, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is blessed with huge solar resources. Through its Vision 2030, the Government has set up a target of installing 9.5 GW of renewable energy systems by 2030. This is planned to be delivered though mixed wind energy and solar energy technologies. For solar energy alone, the government has recently announced plans to invest around US$109 billion over the next 20 years. Most of this deployment will be large-scale solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar (solar thermal). Most conducted studies predominantly focus on large-scale solar PV potentials in Saudi Arabia and do not address the possibility of installing PV on domestic rooftops and how the power generated impacts energy consumption in such buildings. This is the subject of this paper. 

At present, the domestic electricity demand is almost 100% dependant on generation using fossil fuels, and as indicated earlier KSA has natural resources that can be exploited to support sustainability and improve energy security. This work presents both consumption data of two typical buildings in KSA linked to both TRANSYS thermal simulation of the buildings as well as energy yields from appropriately designed PV arrays on the roofs of the buildings. A dynamic simulation model was developed to provide half-hourly power demand under different scenarios, which was then compared with generation from potential solar PV. The results indicate that PV output could reduce electrical loads by around 30% while enhancing insulation could contribute to around 20% savings in energy demand. The paper includes economic analysis including annual savings in electricity bills, a discussion on the implication of the results on the proposed feed-in tariff, as well as generalised implications to the deployment of PV system at scale in domestic buildings in KSA.