above selected Li-ion battery capacity provides the main compo-
nents for a SHS that assures the supply of a daily 0.25 kW h around
the year for LED bulbs and electronic devices within the geographic
areas where the implementation needs are concentrated on the
global level.
Table 5
summarizes the economic details for the elaborated SHS
solution and provides also the specific lifecycle GHG emissions. The
initial investment for the installation is
€
659 for 2015, but drops to
almost half this value by 2030. The cost of the battery is around
two thirds of the initial investment. Most of the cost reductions
over time are by far due to the Li-ion battery cells following the
learning curve. Also some cost reductions result on the PV genera-
tor from the need for a smaller panel over time and its reduced
specific cost.
As shown in
Table 5
, there is a strong drop in the installation’s
NPC over time, almost by a factor of 3 between 2015 and 2030.
Most of this reduction is by far attributed to the battery; newer
generation batteries have lower cost, while reaching higher
number of cycles. This massive drop in the NPC is an indicator of
the big potential of this application. The resulting LCoE in
Table 5
is 1.09
€
/kW h for the 2015 installation and drops down to
0.38
€
/kW h in 2030. This is still significantly higher than the cost
of grid-connected electricity, which is conventionally under
0.25
€
/kW h. Nevertheless, as this application focuses on supplying
electricity for LED lamps and electronic devices, the electricity
demand is relatively very low (0.25 kW h/day), while its added
value is very high. This remains very well reflected in the equiva-
lent electricity bill, which is a metric chosen here to provide a com-
parison to conventional grid-connected power. This cost is
equivalent to 8.29
€
/Month for the 2015 installation and drops
down to 2.89
€
/Month for the 2030 installation.
For the here optimized installation the specific GHG emissions
are 99.1 gCO
2
/kW h for 2015 dropping to 33.7 gCO
2
/kW h in
2030. As a comparison, a combined cycle power plant has a specific
GHG emissions around 500 [gCO
2
eq/kW h], while for dedicated
biomass power plants this value is typically around 200
[gCO
2
eq/kW h]. The SHS emissions are reduced over time due to
the lower energy consumption in the manufacture of Li-ion
batteries and PV panels through process optimization and due to
the lower specific emissions of this energy
[56]
.