Technical and economic feasibility of a 50 MW grid-connected solar PV at UENR Nsoatre Campus

The purpose of this study is to investigate the technical and economic feasibility of a 50 MW grid-tied solar photovoltaic plant at UENR Nsoatre Campus. The suitability of the site for PV plant development is initially examined with site assessment criteria. PVsyst software is then used to model, simulate and estimate the performance of three PV technology plants. Economic analysis is conducted on the three PV systems with RETScreen software. NASA SSE solar irradiation data set from NASA website were used for the assessments. Site assessments results showed that mono-crystalline silicon, poly-crystalline silicon, and thin film (CdTe) systems would occupy 9%, 10%, and 13% respectively of the 2000 acres acquired for the campus. The performance analysis showed that monocrystalline silicon, poly-crystalline silicon and thin film (CdTe) systems would export 67315 MW h, 67506 MW h, and 68991 MW h respectively to the grid annually while meeting more than 48% of campus electricity needs. The costs of the energy produced by the systems are 12.4 cents/kWh, 12.3 cents/kWh and 10.9 cents/kWh for mono-crystalline, polycrystalline and thin film systems respectively. The determined costs of energy for the systems are lower than the set feed-in tariff of 14 cents/kWh. NPV was positive for all the systems while; benefits to cost ratios were greater than 1.0 with reasonable payback periods of 7.2 years for crystalline silicon technology systems and 6.4 for thin film technology system. •A 50 MW grid-tied solar PV system can be deployed at UENR Nsoatre Campus without any major constraints.•Annual energy production of the PV systems investigated varied between 67,315 MWh and 68,991 MWh•Though CdTe PV technology system costs 3.9% less compared to other technologies it yielded more than 2.4% energy yearly.•Project initial cost significantly affects NPV and energy generations costs irrespective of PV technology.