A Comparative Analysis of Rooftop Photovoltaic Solar Energy Systems on School Campuses in Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate the factors including motivations and incentives that drive private schools for rooftop solar installation, the impacts of the energy shift in terms of carbon reductions and financial assessment in terms of savings after shifting to the panels. Misber School and Nordic International School was chosen for this study. Misber School has done complete investment on the solar PV system and Nordic School is working on virtual storage that is paying bill to solar distribution company and WAPDA. The interviews and questionnaire survey was carried out to investigate the motivations. The Retscreen software was used to evaluate the carbon emission reductions and financial assessment. The results show that the main motivations behind shifting to solar are to reduce electricity bills and to reduce reliance on external source of electricity. The barriers in installing solar PV system are high initial cost, space constraint and technical issues. Government policies and incentives are also an important factor in slow progress in this sector. Installing the solar PV system avoided 14.4 and 9.3 tons of CO2 annually, from being released to the atmosphere, in Misber and Nordic school respectively. The results of the financial analysis investigated the profitability of these two PV systems through evaluation of several financial indicators such as IRR, Simple payback period, benefit–cost ratio (BCR) and NPV. Solar PV system helped both schools in the reduction of their monthly electricity bills. But the high NPV, BCR and IRR showed that Misber School has chosen a better option. Pakistan is facing energy shortfall; solar PV technology can help meet in part the problem of energy scarcity in the country.