Discussion on the Application of Rooftop Photovoltaic Power Plant in the Steel Enterprise

In recent years, sustainable energies such as the solar and wind energy were widely applied to substitute traditional energies in the industrial sector. An emerging trend is that plenty of photovoltaic (PV) power plants were installed on the roof of the factory buildings in steel enterprises. In this paper, we reviewed the recent development of rooftop PV power plants and discussed the collaborative scheduling between rooftop PV power plant and existed power system. A case study was conducted in a steel enterprise with annual capacity of 8 million tons of steel in China. The design, cost, and benefits of installing rooftop PV power plant are investigated. Results demonstrate that the annual power output is around 20 million kWh, which can cover 5–10% of the total power consumption of the plant. The payback period of the PV power plant is seven years which is economically feasible.