Abstract
The Philippine Industrial Sector contributes USD 124x109 (~PHP 6.5x1012) or about 1/3 in the economy. However, the electricity cost, which is 2nd highest in Asia, constitutes up to 10 % of their total operating expenses. This hinders foreign direct investment to the country. Solar photovoltaic grid-tied hybrid energy systems are one of the emerging ways to reduce electricity expenses of the industrial sector. Current net-metering policy, which enables grid-tied systems, restricts the export of energy to the grid up to 100 kWp with compensation equal to the average generation rate of the distribution utility. This work evaluates the techno-economic viability of putting up solar photovoltaic grid-tied hybrid energy systems for 66 randomly selected industrial establishments classified under electrical/electronics/semiconductors, steel/metal, food/beverages, transportation/logistics and textile/garment sub-sectors using Island System LCOEmin Algorithm (ISLA). ISLA will provide the optimal system component sizes of solar photovoltaic and battery in the least levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) by performing hourly calculations for one reference year using actual load profiles. The results suggest 63 out of 66 sample industrial establishments are viable to put up solar photovoltaic grid-tied hybrid energy systems, with a total solar photovoltaic capacity of 783 MWp. There are 7 establishments that are capable of off-grid solar photovoltaic-battery-diesel configuration. If export restriction in net-metering policy is lifted, the total solar photovoltaic potential will significantly increase up to 3,947 MWp, which corresponds to LCOE reduction to USD 0.14 (~PHP 7.2) per kWh and increase in renewable energy share to 34 %. This work shows that tapping solar rooftop potential and amending the net-metering policy increases operational savings of the Philippine industrial sector.
