Technical and economic feasibility analysis of a PV grid-connected system installed on a university campus in Iraq

In this article, a technical-economic study has been displayed to evaluate the productivity of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) solar system in a campus of University of Zakho, Iraq. The feasibility of this study is based on performance ratio, capacity factor, cost of energy and yield factor. The analysis of the system has been performed using System Advisor Model (SAM) software and real data of Zakho city that is available in national renewable energy laboratory (NREL). Results show that the system produces 5205 AC MWh during the year with a maximum power generated by the arrays equal to 3.15 AC MW. The yield factor from the proposed PV system for first year is 1554 kWh/kW, whereas the capacity factor nearly equal to 17.7%. Findings indicate that the cost of energy generated by the solar system is 6.3¢/kWh. The payback period to restore the cost of the government electrical energy without using the local electrical generators is 7 years while the payback period becomes 4 years when local electrical generators is used. Finally, results demonstrate that the investment in the technology of PV system is quite favourable in this site and hence, this article has a valuable information for those who wish to invest in PV technology in Iraq.