A Comparative Analysis of the Technical and Economic Feasibility of a Grid-Connected Solar Plant

This study aims to find out how well a PV solar facility possessing 400 MW grid-connected designed in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia, can meet the demands of an electric load. A dispatch method that forecasts future solar production and electricity consumption was created using the HOMER program. This study investigates the optimal operation of three configurations for a solar plant with three different module sizes. The solar plant was designed using PVsyst and the results were exported to the HOMER program. The proposed system is compared to the base system, which includes load following as well as cycle charging regarding HOMER, is executed utilizing techno-economic optimization and environmental perspectives to obtain the Total Net Present Cost, the minimum Levelized Cost of Energy, and the minimum CO2 emission. The optimization procedures were executed with zero unmet loads and excess energy. The optimization findings illustrated that the suggested system with a large PV module has better energy, economic, and environmental results with the grid purchases (2,347,286,329 kWh/year), LCOE (0.0477 $/kWh), and CO2 emission (1,480,778 ton/year). The optimization procedures were executed with different load levels, and in all cases, the results confirmed that the plant designed with large panels is more economical.