HOUSEHOLD INVESTMENTS INTO SOLAR PV AND BATTERY STORAGE: AN ANALYSIS OF PROFITABILITY AND IMPACT. ESRI Research Bulletin 2017/07

Many countries worldwide have adopted policies to support the expansion of renewable energy sources (RES) aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and combating climate change. These support schemes have led to rapidly increased RES capacities. The installed solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity, for instance, has reached more than 300 GW globally at the beginning of 2017. This resulted in strong cost reductions for new PV systems and subsequently in reductions of the PV subsidies. At the same time, electricity retail prices increased in most countries depending on how the different governments decided to levy the RES subsidies. As a result, the consumption of self-generated electricity (the so-called self-consumption) from solar PV became more attractive than feeding the electricity into the grid and getting paid the subsidy. With strongly decreasing battery storage costs, more and more battery storages are deployed along with PV systems in several countries, further fostering self-consumption. In order to explore the main drivers of self-consumption and the resulting costs in different countries, we therefore compare and contrast two EU countries which differ strongly in terms of their solar energy policy as well as their geographical and meteorological conditions and solar PV potential: Germany and Ireland.