Sustainable Energy Assignment

Solar Photovoltaic Rooftop for Indonesian Household

Andrean Diyandana
Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Program
1206263364

Department of Chemical Engineering

Faculty of Engineering
Universitas Indonesia
Depok 2015

Abtract
The depletion of oil and gas reserves forces human to find a new shape of energy resources.
Indonesia as developing country has many advantages because it is located in equator line of
the earth. Wind power, ocean wave, hydropower, solar energy are brand new renewable
energy to be developed in Indonesia. According to the equatoric zone, Indonesia has high
Global Horizontal Irradiance of sunlight every year. The potency should be maximalized with
the usage of solar panel for electricity. The solar panel in Jakartans household rooftop can be
a solution to reduce electricity from conventional energy. The installation of solar panel must
considering some factor like the selection of solar cell material, type of household rooftop,
sun position, law and regulation of renewable energy implementation, and the last but not
least is economics consideration. The renewable and cheap energy of solar panel must be one
of the important reason to implent this technology.
Keyword(s): solar cell, solar panel, electricity, household rooftop

1. Introduction
As developing country, Indonesia has a sharp growth of electricity needs. Industrial
sector, office building, shopping center, and household need electricity to support human
activities during day and night. Based on indexmundi, the electricity consumption in
Indonesia in 2000-2014 has growth from 68.01 to 158 billion kWh. Based on conventional
electricity generation, Indonesia still depends much on oil as main source of energy. Even
there are power plant which is generated from coal, hydro, geothermal/steam, oil still become
primadonne for energy supply.

Graphic 1. Indonesias Electricity Consumption

(source: : http://energy.gov/eere/energybasics/articles/crystalline-silicon-photovolatic-cell-basics)

Renewable energy is needed to prevent the oil drop reserve and energy crisis,
especially in developing country like Indonesia. Many kinds of renewable energy which have

known by most people are biofuel, microhydro, tidal/wave, wind, geothermal, and solar
energy. The biggest problem of renewable energy is its sustainability to maintain the long
term energy supply. And another dilemma is the manufacturing of renewable energy
infrastructure like whirlwind, solar photovoltaic panel, and biofuel production is the usage of
conventional oil/gas/petroleum energy to boost the manufacturing equipment like
compressor, pump, turbine, and other machinery. The maintenance renewable energys
infrastructure and facilities also a problem to retain the sustainability.
Solar photovoltaic panel is one of equipment to use solar as renewable energy. The
panel will convert the photons from solar ray to be electrons so it will generate the electricity.
The Indonesian household have high consumption of electricity, especially at night. The
electrical night activities like lamp illumination, watching television, and computer usage are
increasing the kWh to peak point of every household consumption. The campaign of energy
saving and sustainable energy is affordable to reach, starts from household. The electricity
consumption for household can be saved from solar photovoltaic panel. This panel should be
installed on every household rooftop to catch the suns energy. The DC to AC inverter will
save the electricity, so it will be enough energy for peak usage at night.
Indonesia is located in equatorial area, which is rich of sunray every year. If the
sunray couldnt be converted to a brand new energy, it will waste the chance to reduce oil and
gas dependency. So, with Global Horizontal Irradiance(GHI) 180-230 W/m2 or 1600-2000
kWh/m2 every year, solar photovoltaic installation on every household rooftop will give much
energy saving cost from local grid electrical state company.
2. Literature Studies
2.1 The Principle of Solar Photovoltaic
Solar photovoltaic panel contain of modules. Each module contain of cells. The solar
cell is an electronic device that convert energy from sunlight to electricity. The base science
of solar cell is solid-state physical chemistry. The knowledge of this science is applied to
make semiconductor like diodes and transistors, which are the foundation of building blocks
off all electronic devices[1].
The particle of light is called photon. The particles of light are received by solar panel.
They are converted to be electricity. The particle of electric is called electron. Photons are
massless energy that hasnt electricity charge and doesnt decay when travelling the empty
space. Photons also carry an angular momentum spin, which isnt dependent on their
frequency. The relationship of photon energy and momentum become the fundamental of

electromagnetic radiation. The pressure of electromagnetic radiation on some objects results

in the transfer of photon momentum on an object. This momentum creates forces
displacement of electrons, located in the area of momentums impact[2]. So, the
electromagnetic force of photon energy and momentum become the basic principal of
photoelectric effect, which conduct the electron movement as we known in solar photovoltaic
cell.
When photons impact the solar panels, they are absorbed by semiconducting
materials. The common semiconducting material is silicon. The electrons within
semiconductor material are knocked loose from their atoms if they are hit by photons. The
electrons will move to leave the atom. If the system is design with good electricity
conducting materials, the electrons will flow as electricity[3]. The movement of electrons
whic are create electricity just availabe in one direction, so it is known as direct current(DC).
To convert it to alternating current, it must be inverted in an inverter. So, every solar panel
has DC-AC inverter.
2.2 Type of Solar Photovoltaic Panel
There are several types of solar photovoltaic panel. The types are based on
semiconductor material. Every solar photovoltaic material has different efficiency,
manufacturing process, and advantages-disadvatages. Here some types of solar photovoltaic
cell.
2.2.1 Crystalline Silicon Solar Cell
The crystalline silicon usage as solar cell has been established since 1950s. The
silicon-based solar cell is the most common type in commercial solar cell. Solar cells from
silicon material are a single-junction technology which has been a rival of thin-film solar
cells.
A silicon atom has 14 electrons, but their natural orbital arrangement allows only the
outermost four electrons to be given to, accepted from, or shared with other atoms. These
four electrons, called valence electrons, play an important role in the photoelectric effect.
Large numbers of silicon atoms bond with one another by means of their valence electrons to
form a crystal. In a crystalline solid, each silicon atom normally shares one of its four valence
electrons in a covalent bond with each of four neighboring silicon atoms[4].

The solid thus consists of basic units of five silicon atoms: the original atom plus the
four atoms with which it shares valence electrons. The solid silicon crystal is thus made up of
a regular series of units of five silicon atoms. This regular, fixed arrangement of silicon atoms
is known as the crystal lattice. Crystalline silicon has a bandgap energy of 1.1 electron-volts
(eV). (An electron-volt is equal to the energy gained by an electron when it passes through a
potential of 1 volt in a vacuum.) The bandgap energies of other effective PV semiconductors
range from 1.0 to 1.6 eV. In this range, electrons can be freed without creating extra heat[5].
The photon energy of light varies according to the wavelengths of the light. The entire
spectrum of sunlight, from infrared to ultraviolet, covers a range of about 0.5 eV to about 2.9
eV. For example, red light has an energy of about 1.7 eV, and blue light has an energy of
about 2.7 eV. Most PV cells cannot use about 55% of the energy of sunlight because this
energy is either below the bandgap of the material used or carries excess energy.

Figure 2. Comparison of Solar Cell Material

(source: http://energy.gov/eere/energybasics/articles/crystalline-silicon-photovolatic-cell-basics)

2.2.2 Thin Film Solar Cell

Thin film solar panels accounted for 11% of all solar panel sales in
2011[6]. Production capacity is expected to grow at an annual rate of 24%, reaching more
than 22 GW by 2020 (or a global market share of 38% in terms module production)[7]. There
are three primary types of thin film solar panels on the market today: Amorphous silicon (aSi), cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium gallium selenide (CIS/CIGS). In the
overview chart below you can see their main characteristics[8]:
Table 1. Thin Film Material Comparation

Parameter
Best research-cell

a-Si

CdTe

CIGS

efficiency
Best solar module

13.4%

19%

20.4%

efficiency
Thin film market

8.1%

14.4%

14.5%

share

32%
- Mature

43%

25%

technology
Advantages

- Excellent for

Low cost

small devices

manufacturing

- Low efficiency
- High cost
Disadvantages
Major manufacturers

equipment
Shar

- Medium efficiency
- Rigid glass
substrates
- Highly toxic
First Solar

- High efficiency
- Flexible substrates
- Costly traditional
process
- Market share
expected to grow
Solar Frontier

2.2.2.1 Amorphous Silicon

The first thin film solar cells were based on amorphous silicon. The technology is
most commonly used in devices that require very little power (e.g. pocket calculators)
because of low efficiency rates. The future of larger-scale amorphous silicon solar panels
does not look very bright: Sharp retired 160 out of their 320 MW production capacity in
Japan earlier this year. Optisolar, Signet Solar, Unisolar, and many other companies that were
touting the amorphous technology are acquired, bankrupt or closed[9].
2.2.2.2 Cadmium Telluride
CdTe solar cells are the second most abundant photovoltaic (PV) technology in the
world marketplace after crystalline silicon, currently representing 7% of the 2014 world
market. CdTe thin-film solar cells can be manufactured quickly and inexpensively, providing
a lower-cost alternative to conventional silicon-based technologies. The record efficiency for
a laboratory CdTe solar cell is 21.5% by First Solar, while First Solar recently reported its
average commercial module efficiency to be 14.7%[10].
2.2.2.3 Copper Indium Galium Selenide

Since its initial development, copper indium diselenide (CuInSe 2) thin-film

technology has been considered promising for solar cells because of its favorable electronic
and optical properties. It was later found that by substituting gallium (Ga) for indium (In), the
bandgap can be increased from about 1.04 electron-volts (eV) for copper indium diselenide
(CIS) films to about 1.68 eV for copper gallium diselenide (CGS) films. Optimal devices
have been fabricated with only a partial substitution of Ga for In, leading to a substantial
increase in overall efficiency and more optimal bandgap. These solar cells are commonly
known as a copper indium gallium diselenide [Cu(InxGa1-x)Se2], or CIGS, cells[11].

3. Project Preparation
The installation of solar PV panel on rooftop has some requirements. These
requirements has purpose to ensure the feasibility of installation, so solar PV panel will worth
enough to supply household electricity. Based on Indonesia sosio-economic environment, the
requirements are:
3.1 The Suitability of Rooftop
The solar PV panels are assembled in array, mounting frames to support the panels
and secure them to the roof. The wiring, inverters, and other components of panels are
depend on type of installation. The accessibility, roof configuration, roof materials and
structure, and aesthetic aspect of solar PV installation become the suitability of installation. If
accessibility to roof is difficult(no stairs) and the roof materials are rinkle, so it wouldnt be
suitable for PV panels installation.
3.2 The Solar Resource
The installation in rich solar ray intesity city is one of the powerful reason for solar
PV installation. Jakarta is one of the city in South East Asia with high solar ray intensity.
Based on Energy Council 2007, most of South East Asia country receives average
GHI(Global Horizontal Irradiation) of 180-230 W/m2 or equivalent to 1600-2000
kWh/m2/year. For Jakarta, the GHI around 1900 kWh/m 2 is a huge amount of irradiance to be
converted to electricity, according the maximum GHI by www.solargis.info is 2400 kWh/m2.

Figure 1. Global Horizontal Irradiance Map

(source: www.solargis.info)

3.3 The Capacity of Installation to Fit The Roof

After the solar PV panels are possible to be installed, the next problem is estimation
of the potential installed capacity. If the capacity is expressed in kilowatt-peak(kWp), the
equation to calculate the capacity is:
C R=

CM
RCR x A R
x
1000
AM

( )(

where:

AR is the total roof area available for installation of solar modules (m2)
CM is the individual module rated capacity in (Wp)
AM is the area of one module (m2)
RCR is the Roof Cover Ratio, which is the fraction of roof area that the modules will
cover.

3.4 The Delivered Energy from System

The energy yield of solar PV panells installed can be estimated with the energy yield
equation:
E=C R x GHI a x D
From the equation, the variables are explained below:

CR is the potential installed capacity of the solar PV rooftop system

GHIa is Global Horizontal Irradiation over one year period in kWh/m2.

D is the derate factor to convert direct current(DC) to alternating current(AC). It

ranges between 0.6-0.8.

3.5 Legal and Regulatory Framework

The law according to energy project is one of factor to be considered. Some distric
government usually play the rule of the law for some project. The installation of solar PV
panels on rooftop has a bigger threat to fail because of non-technical aspect like law. The big
question is :Is there any regulatory that rules the solar photovoltaic installation?. It needs
approvement of project execution to realize development of sustainable energy. The
regulation according to electricity in Indonesia is presented in table below.
Table 2. The Law according to Electricity in Indonesia

Key Provisions
Electricity
Supply
Licensing

Role of regional
autonomy

The 2009 Law

- National Electricity Plan or RUKN
- The Regional Electricity
Development Plan must comply
with the Regional Electricity Plan
- The regional authorities can
provide licences for power
projects which are intra-regency
and do not involve the sale of
electricity to holders of a Central
Government issued licence
-- The
provides
The Central
regionalGovernment
authorities are
to
prepare a Regional Electricity Plan
or RUKD, based on the National
Electricity Plan or RUKN
- The Regional Electricity
Development Plan must comply
with the Regional Electricity Plan
- The regional authorities can
provide licences for power
projects which are intra-regency
and do not involve the sale of
electricity to holders of a Central
Government issued licence
- The Central Government provides
licences (IUPTLs) to PLN and to
IPPs selling to PLN

Tariff

- The Central Government approves

tariffs for Central Government
issued IUPTL holders (e.g. PLN
and IPPs selling to PLN)
- The regional authorities approve
tariffs for IPPs selling to nonPLN utilities
- Tariff variations, according to
different business areas, are
permitted
- The authorities must consider the
interests of the relevant business
as well as the public
- Tariffs must be approved by the
Indonesian/Regional House of
Representatives

Cross-border sale
and purchase

- Possible by the holder of an

IUPTL from the Central
Government.
- Purchase conditions include that
there be a shortage of power
supply. Sale conditions include that
domestic power needs have been
fulfilled.

Direct sale of
electricity to the
public

- No link between electricity

licensing and whether the
electricity facilities are connected
to the National Transmission
Network.
- The 2009 Law suggests that the
holders of an IUPTL can sell
directly to the public without
connecting to PLNs transmission
grids.

4. Solar Photovoltaic Panels Installation to Support Household Electricity

4.1 Jakartas Household Electricity Needs
Every household in Jakarta, usually has 220 V. This value is an average of household
electricity in every area of Jakarta.
4.2 Typical Jakarta Household Rooftop
The rooftop style in Jakarta is variable in each house. For housing complex in certain
area, usually it has similar building style with similar roof and rooftop material. For old
building/old-style houses, it has different rooftop material than modern-style houses. The oldstyle houses in Jakarta use clay as rooftop material. This material is suitable to be installed
with solar panels, but this material is leakproof if too much contact with rain. The modernstyle houses use ceramic as rooftop material. The disadvantage of the material is it is too
glitchy so safety aspect will be a big problem for workers to install the solar panels.
4.3 Solar PV Panel for Rooftop
Solar PV has system to convert photon to become electron. The development of solar
PV still needs improvement. The efficiencies of solar PV panels still not high enough to
replace energy from local grid. So, the most realistic usage of solar PV as energy is the
combination of electricity from local grid and solar PV panels.

Figure 2. Schematic Combination of Electricity from Solar PV Panels with Local Grid
(source: Bosch, 2012)

Solar PV Panel has many types. The panels is constructed by modules. As have been
known, the solar photovoltaic modules types which has been invented based on their
performances are:
a) Crystalline Silicon(module efficiency: 13-19%)
b) Thin Film(module efficiency: 4-12%)
4.4 Economical Feasibility
The electricity price in Indonesia, especially in Jakarta for household is Rp1,352/kWh
for 2200VA. With this price, the installation of solar PV panels should reduce the total cost of

electricity. But, the big problem is solar PV panel price. If the price is high enough than
electricity, it couldnt be an economical saving for sustainable energy. The average price of
solar PV panel module is Rp14,000/Watt for Crystalline-Silicon. The workers service for
installation and maintenance will increase the cost. The efficiency of solar PV panel also
impact to how big and how much the panel needed for household. If the area of panel isnt
realistic enough, so the combination of electricity from photovoltaic and local grid is
emergingly needed.
The failure of solar PV because of water contamination and thunder also become
consideration for solar energy usage. If the panels are broke, so it will need cost to repair the
panels. Meanwhile the reparation of panels, the energy back to the local grid, which is
increase the cost of electricity. So, from electricity cost, maybe solar PV could save money.
But, from procurement and reparation cost, it will spent more money.
For the calculation, the average electricity monthly price of household is Rp620,690.
So, the energy is around 460 kWh. The solar panel with Shell trademark has 64 inch x 32
inch with 175W. If the sunlight is 8 hour, so the energy from panel is 1.4 kWh for a day and
42 kWh for a month. This condition can be presented in table below:
Solar Panel Type

Shell

Price

Sunlight

Energy

provided Energy provided

($)

Time

per day (kWh)

per

810

(hour)
8

1.4

(kWh)
42

month

64 inch x 32 inch 175W

Average

Monthly Price per kWh Average

Tariff (Rp)
620,690

(Rp)
1,352

energy

per

month

(kWh)
460

The price of this solar panel is $810. So, the price should paid for the solar panel is:
Cost =

460 kWh
x $ 810=$ 8,871=Rp 124,200,000
42 kWh

The cost to cover all electricity at average household in Jakarta is too expensive. It doesnt
include the installation cost. It hasnt been calculated the efficiency of solar panel. So the
recommendation is solar panel in Jakartas household should cover the quarter or eighth of
electricity, to reduce the cost.

The hope of solar PV rooftop is the demands increasement of solar panel so the price
of W/m2 is become lower. If the price become lower, the bigger size of solar panel could be
installed and cover more electricity usage from local grid.

5. Analysis
According to the calculation, it needs Rp124,200,000 to provide solar panel in
Jakarta. It hasnt include installation cost of worker payment. According to Rate of Return, it
is predicted that the payback period of solar panel payment with the high amount of cost
calculated above is 16 years. Based on maintenance habit of Indonesian people, usually
electronic device like that will break after 3-4 years. With the payback period that takes too
long time and decay period less than payback period, it still not worth to install the solar
panel in on Jakartans household rooftop. Especially to cover all electricity, it needs much
cost. So the better recommendation is small panel to provide small electricity to reduce a little
of electricity from local grid.
Conclusion

Indonesia as one of high GHI country is potential to use solar energy for electricity.
Solar photovoltaic panel installation is needed to reduce the energy from local grid in

big city like Jakarta.

The capacity of installation, delivered energy system, legal, and regulatory for solar

energy usage is the important factor to the realization of solar energy for household.
The economical aspect of solar PV panel must be considered for money saving, if it
can save energy payment but increase households spent for installation.

Refrences
[1] Gevorkian, Peter. 2010. Alternative Energy Systems in Building Design. New York:
McGraw-Hill
[2] Solar America Initiative, http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/initiatives.html
[3] Solar Advisor Model, https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/sam/
[4] International Energy Agency Electricity Information. 2005.
[5] International Agency Energy Prices and Taxes. 2005.
[6] Eurostat Gas and Electricity Market Statistics. 2005

[7] Duffie and Beckman. 2006. Solar Engineering of Thermal Processes. New York: WileyInterscience
[8] Kreith. 1978. Principles of Solar Engineering 3rd Edition. New York: Hemisphere
Publishing Corporation
[9] Gordon. 2001. Solar Energy: The State of the Art. London: James&James
[10] Gevorkian. 2008. Solar Power in Building Design. New York: McGraw-Hill
[11] Asian Development Bank. 2014. Rooftop Solar Development Handbook. Manila