Impacts of Array Orientation and Tilt Angles for Photovoltaic Self-Sufficiency and Self-Consumption Indices in Olive Mills in Spain

Abstract

Olive mills are extensive in the Mediterranean Basin, and Spain constitutes approximately 45% of global production. The industrial sector faces a new energetic paradigm where distributed generation provided by small renewable energy sources may reduce the dependence from fossil energy sources as well as avoid energy distribution losses. Photovoltaic self-consumption systems can play an important role in confronting this challenge due to their modularity and their decreasing cost. Most of self-sufficiency energy studies are focused on building sector and discussions about the idiosyncrasy of industrial load profiles, and their matching capability with photovoltaic generation profiles can be scarcely found. This work analyzes the potential of photovoltaic self-consumption systems as a function of the array power, array tilt, and orientation angles to face the electric consumption in olive mills. Different recording intervals and reporting periods are considered. Results show that a self-sufficiency index of 40% may be achieved on olive harvest basis. Moreover, due to the load profile particularities, percentage error lower than 1.6% has been found when considering a recording interval of 60 min when matching the olive load consumption and photovoltaic generation profiles. Chosen array tilt and orientation angles may be key parameters to maximize the self-sufficiency index.