USE OF SOLAR ENERGY IN SLOVENIA FOR ELECTRICITY GENERATION AND SANITARY WATER HEATING

Potrošniki se srečujejo z nenehnim višanjem stroškov konvencionalnih virov energije, ki služijo kot energenti za oskrbo s toplo sanitarno vodo in pridobivanjem električne energije. Države so se zato odločile spodbujati gospodinjstva k uporabi obnovljivih virov energije, katerih uporaba bi ne samo pripomogla k večji samooskrbi gospodinjstev in s tem manjšanju mesečnih stroškov električne energije in stroškov segrevanja sanitarne vode, ampak tudi k varovanju okolja. Raba obnovljivih virov energije namreč nima negativnih vplivov na okolje kot ima raba konvencionalnih virov energije. Slovenija ima glede na geografsko lego in naravne danosti zelo dobre možnosti za izrabo obnovljivih virov energije. Poleg gozdov in rek, kot virov za lesno biomaso in vodno energijo ima tudi zelo dobro osončenost, in prav ta je za gospodinjstva najbolj uporabna, saj je aplikacija sistemov za izrabo sonca neprimerno enostavnejša od ostalih aplikacij. Glede na potrebe gospodinjstev, se le ta lahko odločijo za aplikacijo solarno termalnega sistema, ki bi jim služil kot poceni vir toplote za segrevanje sanitarne vode ali pa fotonapetostnega sistema, ki bi jim služil kot zanesljiv vir pridobivanja električne energije. V kolikor so potrebe po ogrevanju sanitarne vode večje, sočasno pa se kaže tudi potreba po električni energiji, pa se lahko posamezno gospodinjstvo odloči za aplikacijo kombinacije obeh sistemov, tako imenovane sončne kogeneracije. V nalogi bomo povzeli tehnologije izrabe energije sonca, ki so na voljo na trgu, ter s pomočjo SWOT analize ugotoviti katere so glavne prednosti tehnologij izrabe energije sonca in katere njihove glavne slabosti, ki preprečujejo energiji sonca, da bi postala glavni vir energije za potrebe pridobivanja električne energije in toplotne energije. Predstavljene bodo tudi tehnične in zakonske omejitve uporabe tehnologij izrabe energije sonca v Sloveniji. Na kratko bo opisan sistem subvencioniranja tehnologij izrabe energije sonca v Sloveniji, ter na konkretnem primeru predstavljen izračun vračilne dobe za fotonapetostni sistem v primeru prejetja državnih spodbud.Nowadays consumers are facing with significantly rising costs of conventional energy sources that are used for water heating and electricity supply for domestic use. Because of the rising costs of conventional energy sources, most of the countries decided to stimulate consumers to use renewable energy sources in their households with incentives from the incentive schemes for renewables in order to help them to be more self-supplying and less dependent on prices for conventional energy sources. Nevertheless, the use of renewable energy sources does not just mean lower energy costs but also lower burden for the environment. Slovenia has an excellent geographic location for the use of the renewable energy sources, as it has a lot of wood biomass, hydro power and solar power potentials. Installation of solar power systems is the most interesting for households due to easy installation and high feed-in tariff from the incentive scheme for renewable energy sources. For domestic use, households can decide between the installation of solar thermal system for water heating or photovoltaic system for electricity generation. If the needs for water heating are constantly high and there is also a need for electricity supply, a solar cogeneration can be installed, which is a combination of solar thermal system and photovoltaic system. In this diploma work, we will present the technologies for solar power exploitation that are currently available on the market. With the help of the SWOT analyses, we will try to find out what are the main advantages of solar technologies, and their main disadvantages that are preventing them to be the primal source of energy for the purpose of electricity generation and water heating. We will also present the main technical and legal barriers for solar power exploitation in Slovenia. In addition, the presentation of incentive schemes in our country for the solar power exploitation technologies and a calculation of payback time for a photovoltaic system that is a part of incentive scheme will be made