Different Photovoltaic Penetration Rates for the Planned Area of Jakobsgardarna in Borlange, Sweden

The municipality of Borlange is planning to build a new modern, social and an ecologically sustainable district due to an increase in the city’s population. Over 1200 homes shall be built for people from all sections of the society. Due to such high levels of migration into the city, it is of utmost importance for the society to ensure that all the new constructions would be energy efficient and focused towards the goal of creating a sustainable society. The main objective of this study is to understand the importance of planning for Photovoltaics (PV) in new areas and performing a series of simulations for different scenarios with varying degrees of PV penetration for the planned residential area of Jakobsgardarna in Borlänge, Sweden. This was achieved by determining the load profiles for all buildings by thorough investigation over the previous works in the analysis of household demand loads and calculating the available roof area in several orientations with the help of model maps drawn to scale. Due to varied types of roofs and their structures, it was assumed that all buildings have a similar roof structure i.e. tilted roofs having a tilt of 30°. Batch simulation was performed in PVSyst for a base case scenario which provides the reference point for determining the total PV power and the total PV output in all orientations. The PV penetration is measured in terms of energy by dividing the total PV output with the annual demand load. Various scenarios of PV penetration are created based on the available roof areas at particular roof orientations. It can be observed that the level of PV penetration is highly dependent on the orientation of roofs. A 17% of PV penetration is observed when PV is installed only on South-facing roofs while the PV penetration reduces drastically to 9% when PV is installed only on East-West facing roofs even though there isn’t a linear reduction in the available roof area.