Design, Simulation and Feasibility Analysis of a Solar Rooftop PV System for Academic Building 4 of Daffodil International University

Abstract

Electricity is a vital element of the economic development of a country and quality of living. The energy sector of Bangladesh is entirely dependent on natural gas. However, natural gas reserves are depleting. As a result, it is essential to reduce reliance on natural gas. Besides, burning fossil fuels is one of the primary sources of the greenhouse effect and climate change. Solar power is the most viable option for reducing dependency on gas and reducing greenhouse gas emissions as this is clean energy. Every day, Daffodil International University uses a lot of energy. Almost all of the electricity is supplied from the national grid. So, a feasible solar project will aid in the reduction of grid supply. The architecture, simulation, and feasibility study of a solar project are presented in this article. The most critical step in creating a solar project model is calculating the load at various times of the year, measuring the rooftop and its productive location. These data have been measured at the beginning. The average load for full and reduced load is 9737.57 kWh/day and 3037.3 kWh/day, respectively. The project's effective area is 1845 𝑚2 which was measured practically. PVSYST was used to determine the number of solar panels and the highest capacity. Besides, different losses are also mentioned in this section. The solar panels have a maximum capacity of 298 kW to generate electricity. To visually reflect the project, Sketchup Pro is used. In this thesis, HOMER is the leading simulation software here. Two simulations are performed. One is for the whole building's loads, and the other is for the classroom, washroom, and corridor loads. The cost of energy is BDT 8.95 for full load and BDT 8.12 for the reduced load. So, when the load is reduced, the cost also decreases. So, reduced load results in a much feasible system.