Techno-economic, social and environmental analysis of different photovoltaic cell technologies under tropical weather conditions

Abstract

Despite Nigeria's enormous energy resources, it has the largest number of people without access to electricity in the world. This is partly due to the lack of diversification of its sources of energy generation, leaving a large number of its population in darkness. This study thus employed the System Advisor Model developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to estimate the technical and economic performance of a 100 MW solar PV power plant at Kaduna in Nigeria, considering six different PV cells, i.e., c-Si, mc-Si, 3-a-Si, a-Si/mono-Si, CIS, and HIT-Si. The potential hydrogen, ammonia, land requirement, jobs that could be created, and the environmental impact of installing the PV systems were also assessed. From the results, the 3-a-Si PV system achieved the lowest real LCOE (2.88 cent/kWh) and highest NPV ($30,545,648) due to its high energy yield. The study revealed that the annual hydrogen production from PV cells, using different scenarios of 10 %, 15 %, 20 %, and 25 % of the electricity generated, varies between 311 and 348 metric tons, 467–522 metric tons, 622–696 metric tons, and 778–871 metric tons, respectively. The estimated LCOH for hydrogen production from a 100 % PV power plant electricity can range from $1.83/kg to $2.05/kg across various PV technologies analyzed. The project's economic viability depends on module cost. Nigerian and West African governments can reduce initial PV unit costs by implementing policies, incentives, and tax cuts.