Optimal investment strategy in photovoltaics and energy storage for commercial buildings

In order to attain higher degrees of energy efficiency and lower energy consumption costs, buildings stakeholders are installing local photovoltaic (PV) renewable generation and energy storage (ES). The stakeholders, however, need to determine the sizing capacity of these resources in order to economically invest. The sizing of the resources result in to investment costs, which must be economically justified for them in the long-run. This only occurs if the savings obtained from the resources surpass the investment costs. An optimization model can incorporate these criteria along with the consideration of the time value of money and various battery techno-economic parameters (e.g. life expectancy, efficiencies, and costs) to determine the optimal capacities. The results show the value of the proposed model in assisting the stakeholder investment process.