An International Comparison of the Economics of Building Integrated PV in different Resource, Pricing and Policy Environments: The Cases of the U.S., Japan and South Korea

In recent years, the Center for Energy and EnvironmentalPolicy (CEEP), working with affiliated academic andresearch institutions in the U.S. and East Asia, hasinvestigated the technical and economic feasibility of usingdispatchable photovoltaic (DPV) systems in distributedpeak-shaving (PS) applications. In each case, modestamounts of battery storage are used in conjunction with aPV array to achieve firm peak shaving for commercialbuilding operators. Recent investigations have addedemergency power as a second function of DPV-PS systemsinstalled on commercial buildings.This paper reports on CEEP’s latest studies carried out in theUS, Japan and South Korea which offer a cross-nationalreview of the performance of dual-function DPV systemsdesigned to serve peak shaving and emergency power needsof the commercial buildings sector. The market assessmentresults for each country are derived from PV Planner, aspreadsheet analytical tool developed at CEEP to runsimulations of building integrated PV applications underdifferent resource, pricing and policy environments. Theanalyses in all three countries rely on electricity load datafrom actual buildings, resource data for specific nationallocations, and actual electricity tariffs in use in each country.The paper recommends policies that can enable PV tocompete as an energy service application in an internationalmarket.