Energy consumption

In the design of a photovoltaic system is important to be able to evaluate the consumption of users with respect to the production of system. In particular, it is necessary to quantify the self-consumption.

The self-consumption [kWh] is the amount of energy produced by the system and at the same time consumed by the user. The program indicates this amount as share of self-consumption as the percentage of production of system self-consumed by the user.

Please pay attention to the fact that consumption and self-consumption are amount different.

The self-consumption may not exceed the consumption and normally self-consumption is less than the consumption, this implies that a part of the consumption must be fetched from the network or from batteries if availables, in fact:

Energy taken by electricity grid + Energy taken from the batteries = consumption - self-consumption

A precise evaluation of the self-consumption requires to know the energy production and consumption as a function of time to compare the trend of these data. The software allows you to define the self-consumption by manually setting the share of self-consumption, or to make perform the evaluation to the program, in this case is on the check mark on Calculate Total annual consumption and Share of consumption based on the profile of electricity consumption.

The designer can manually define the share of self-consumption based on own experience, or if is already in possession of the data of self-consumption design situation similar to the one under study.

If a grid-connected system provides for energy storage and If you do not use a profile of electricity consumption to define annual consumption, but you simply define the Total annual consumption, the calculation of Share of Self-consumption and the simulation of the use of photovoltaic energy must be considered as indicative and their reliability is low. So it is recommended that you use a profile of electricity consumption.

The program provides the tools to define the power consumption of individual electrical devices with which to create a database of reusable information. The combination of the consumption of the devices realizes a consumption profile that identifies the energy consumption of a user.