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Fuzzy logic home energy consumption modeling

for residential photovoltaic plant sizing in the
new Italian scenario

ARTICLE in ENERGY SEPTEMBER 2014

Impact Factor: 4.84 DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2014.06.100

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 Fuzzy logic home energy consumption modeling for
residential photovoltaic plant sizing in the new Italian
scenario

Lucio Ciabattoni, Massimo Grisostomi, Gianluca Ippoliti and Sauro Longhi

Dipartimento di Ingegneria dellInformazione, Universita Politecnica delle Marche, 60131
Ancona, Italy

Abstract
In recent years, Italy has seen a rapid growth in the photovoltaic (PV) sector,
following the introduction of the feed in tariff (FIT) scheme known as Conto
Energia. In July 2013 the Italian government definitively cut FITs, leaving
only tax benefits and a revised net metering scheme (known as Scambio sul
Posto) for new PV installations. In this scenario, the design of a new PV plant
ensuring savings on electricity bills is strongly related to household electricity
consumption patterns. This paper presents a high-resolution model of domestic
electricity use. The model is based on Fuzzy Logic Inference System. Using
as inputs patterns of active occupancy and typical domestic habits, the fuzzy
model give as output the likelihood to start each appliance within the next
minute. The model has been validated with electricity demand data recorded
over the period of one year within 12 dwellings in the central east coast of Italy.
The tool has been used to evaluate the self consumption percentage to correctly
size a residential photovoltaic plant in a case study. A cost benefits analysis is
presented to show the effectiveness of PV generation in the new Italian scenario.
Keywords: Italian PV market, Fuzzy logic, Sizing PV plant, Household
consumption modeling

1. Notes

The following version of the paper has been personally revised by

the author. For further information (e.g. the code of the simulator
or the CBA analysis .xls file) do not hesitate to send an email. The
original version can be found at:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544214007993
Sincerely
Lucio Ciabattoni

Preprint submitted to Energy March 4, 2015

2. Introduction
Over the last decade renewable energy sources have had a great impact
on European Union electricity production, following the approval of Directive
2001/77/EC, [1] which provided a framework for the development of renewable
energy technologies in Europe. The European Parliament continued support-
ing renewable sources with the directive, also known as the 20-20-20 targets
[2], which sets as objective for EU in 2020 the achievement of a share of 20%
from renewable sources in the consumed energy mix, the reduction of 20% of
greenhouse gases emissions and the increase of energy efficiency to save 20% of
EU energy consumption. Photovoltaic (PV), although behind other technolo-
gies in terms of installed capacity, is currently the most important distributed
generation (DG) technology in Europe. The European solar market growth has
been largely policy-driven and depended on financial support from the govern-
ment [3, 4]. Nevertheless without such support, what will spur solar demand?
Italy took the decision to cut PV incentives to cope with soaring costs which
reached to the financial cap of 6.7 billion euro on June 2013, instead of 2016 as
previously expected. To 15th October 2013, a total of 17.4GW of PV capacity
from 549, 877 PV systems have been installed in Italy under the governments
feed-in tariffs (FITs), while further 500 PV systems with a combined capacity of
around 200M W are currently registered to the scheme but not yet in use, as Ge-
store Servizi Energetici (GSE) figures reveal (as shown in [5]). At the end of July

Figure 1: Year 2005-2013. Number of PV installation during each feed in tariff scheme and
total power installed in Italy.

2005 the Italian Industry and Environment Ministers approved the introduction
of FITs for photovoltaic energy systems. This long awaited law (called First
Conto Energia) has been introduced to grant 20-years incentives for systems
between 1kW p and 1M W p. In [6] were defined the conditions and modalities
for setting the special tariffs. These rates may qualify as a responsible entity of
the PV system natural persons, legal persons, public bodies, households and/or
buildings. The different rates of FIT were between 445 e/M W h (for 1 20

2
kWp plants owned by a natural person) and 490 e/M W h (for 50 1, 000 kWp
plants owned by a legal person) and could increase either by selling energy back
to the grid or by taking advantage of the net metering option. The second
Conto Energia became effective only after the publication of [7]. The decree
introduced for the first time three types of integration levels (non-integrated,
partially integrated and fully integrated) in order to determine the incentive
rate to be paid to each PV system. In particular the higher rates were approved
for the small residential plants up to 3 kWp which are architecturally integrated
(490 e/M W h), the lowest rates were valid for large systems not architecturally
integrated (360 e/M W h ). As the goals set by the Second Conto Energia
were achieved, the Third Conto Energia [8], entered into force and regulated
incentives for all the systems coming into service after December 31st 2010.
The revised FITs suffered cuts of between 4.73 per cent and 36.25 per cent,
depending on the type and size of the PV plant and on the date of its grid
connection. Although the main guidelines were the same as before, the decree
introduced some significant changes. The new categories to determine the in-
centives were: PV systems (on buildings or other plants), integrated PV
systems with innovative features, concentration PV systems and PV systems
with technological innovation. After realizing that PV installations in Italy had
grown exponentially and that the expected cost of the Third Conto Energia,
borne by consumers through an extra charge on the electricity bill, would be
unsustainable, the Government immediately revised the incentive system. The
Fourth Conto Energia [9] replaced the incentive system introduced by its pre-
decessor only nine months before and originally intended to provide the support
system for photovoltaic (PV) plants between 2011 and 2013. Incentives were
significantly reduced compared to those provided under the Third Conto Ener-
gia. The revised FITs suffered cuts of between 0.85 per cent and 45.64 per cent
between June 2011 and December 2012. Furthermore the decree introduced
increments to increase FITs by the following: 5 per cent for ground-mounted
PV plants located in industrial or commercial areas, waste treatment areas,
exhausted quarries or polluted areas; 5 per cent for small PV plants managed
by municipal cities with fewer than 5, 000 inhabitants; 5 e/M W h for rooftop
PV plants replacing asbestos; 10 per cent to PV plants whose construction costs
contains at least 60% by components manufactured within the European Union.
The last feed-in tariff scheme called Fifth Conto Energia became effective in
2012 [10]. Under this decree the government slashed the incentives for large-
scale PV installations which generate electricity above self-consumption needs;
this encouraged small and medium installations which generate power to meet
power producers needs. The tariffs of the 5th feed-in scheme (only for plants
with a capacity of up to 1 MW) were alternative to net metering and, unlike
the previous support schemes, were divided into an all-inclusive feed-in tariff
(to the share of net electricity injected into the grid) and a premium tariff (to
the share of net electricity consumed on site). An example on how FITs varied
for a building integrated 3kW p plant since their introduction in 2005 can be
found in Fig. 2. However Italy will remain one of the countries where solar will
be considered as one of the most attractive power generation solutions. High

3
Figure 2: Year 2005-2013. Evolution of the Italian FITs, according to the Ministerial Decrees,
for a 3kW p building integrated PV plant.

irradiation levels and the falling cost of PV equipment coupled with the rising
cost of grid-based electricity prices will certainly play a key role in driving so-
lar demand in this country. The Italian solar industry is expected to fend for
itself with a little help from a revised net metering scheme known as scambio
sul posto [11], the main alternative to the feed-in tariff. In this scenario PV
system owners get credits for the value of the excess of electricity fed into the
grid over a time period. The amended net metering scheme, outlined in the
new energy strategy, came into effect on 1st January 2013. The revised scheme
has simplified procedures for the calculation of kilowatt hour credits and will
be limited to PV systems no greater than 200kW . Without the feed-in tariff to
provide that extra push, the net metering system could be set to play a more
important role in the Italian solar market in driving solar uptake as well as
self-consumption. Further encouraging self-consumption, the Italian Revenue
Agency is set to introduce tax breaks for off-grid PV systems without access to
the yet expired countrys feed-in tariff. PV systems installed with a maximum
budget of 48, 000 euros from 1 July 2013, will have access to a fiscal break of
50%. This includes systems under the net metering scheme.

2.1. Photovoltaic Sizing And Home Energy Management

In this scenario overall cost-saving by PV-generation systems would only
have a marginal impact if the energy consumption pattern of the household
does not match the most beneficial generation pattern and no actions of energy
management (EM) are performed. Households EM is widely recognized as a
priority to reach PV grid parity all over the world, see, e.g., [12, 13, 14] and,
combined to control and monitoring techniques, to reduce overall energy usage
[15]. There are increasing number of studies on smart homes and the benefits
of demand-side management [16, 17, 18].

4
 Accordingly the forecast [19, 20] and simulation of households electricity
consumption patterns received strong interest in literature, see, e.g., [21, 22, 23,
24]. Most of the existing models and analysis focus on data from specific geo-
graphic regions and try to explain the results in a local perspective [25, 26, 27]. It
is well known that distributed generation would only have a marginal economic
impact in a near-term perspective without a proper sizing [28]. Photovoltaic
sizing is an important research field in this area but most of the works concern
with the optimization of stand alone systems without an analysis of the demand
response scenario for grid connected users, see e.g. [29, 30, 31, 32]. In this sce-
nario only the knowledge of the typical demand pattern for each household will
make possible the proper sizing of a photovoltaic plant, the design of demand
response techniques and energy management actions. The pattern of electricity
use for any individual domestic dwelling is highly dependent upon the activities
of the occupants and their associated use of electrical appliances.
In this paper we present a high-resolution model of domestic electricity use,
based upon a combination of patterns of active occupancy and daily activity
profiles (typical appliances usage frequency and starting time). The model is
built using a bottom-up approach, according to [33]. The basic building
block is the appliance, i.e. any individual domestic electric load. The model,
piecing together the individual blocks, gives as output through a fuzzy logic
inference system the 1 minute resolution overall electricity usage pattern of
the household.
Energy usage models developed in literature e.g. in [33, 34, 35] are configured
using statistics describing mean total annual energy demand and associated
power use characteristics of household appliances. In our model, exploiting the
flexibility of the fuzzy method, we consider in addition: when each appliance
is likely to be used, modeling the specific users habits, allowing the generation
of the daily energy usage profile. Another feature of our model is the chance
to add a seasonality usage of some appliances according to users habits (e.g.
different starting time and frequency from summer to winter).
Using this model a case study on the proper sizing of a PV plant (in the
central east region of Italy) based on a costs benefits analysis (CBA) is proposed
and an economical evaluation of EM action is performed.
In this paper, Section 3 deals with the description of the model structure,
where the different appliances are categorized. Section 4 provides a brief intro-
duction of the Fuzzy Inference System used, followed by a presentation of the
simulator. Model validation results are given in Section 5, where the simulator
output is compared with one year data sets recorded from 12 dwellings in the
central east coast of Italy. In Section 6 is presented the application of the FIS
consumption simulator for the PV optimal sizing.

3. Appliances classification
In this paper we develop a model of the electricity use pattern for any in-
dividual domestic dwelling using a bottom-up approach, according to those
proposed by [33]. The basic building block is the appliance, i.e. any individual

5
domestic electric load, such as a television, a washing machine, a dishwasher.
This approach on the one hand allow us to model proper Usage Patterns for
each appliance, and on the other hand requires their classification into differ-
ent categories. Taxonomy is necessary because each appliance belonging to the
same category is modeled in the same way, has the same inputs and outputs in
the Fuzzy Logic Inference System, as shown in Table 2. The main categories
are described in the following.

3.1. Continuous use appliances

This category includes all the appliances characterized by a continuous use
not depending on factors like the time of the day and the number of active
occupants of the dwelling. Theyre on 24/7 and the daily consumption pattern
is constant. Refrigerator, freezer, Wi-fi router, cordless phone, clock radios
belong to this category.

3.2. Periodical use appliances without human interaction

In this category we model the appliances characterized by a periodic use
that doesnt require the interaction with the user during their operation. For
example after switching on the washing machine, there is no need of any people.
Input parameters used for modeling this category are: the average load profile,
the average period of use of the appliance, the time of the day in which the
probability of use is greater. Oven and microwave oven, dishwasher, washing
machine, cooker hood belong to the category.

3.3. Periodical use appliances with human interaction

This category is similar to the previous one with the difference that it is
necessary the interaction with the user during the operation of the appliance.
For example the iron requires the continuous presence of one person for its
operation. Vacuum cleaner, cooking appliances, hair dryer are other samples of
appliances belonging to this category. To model them we need another input
referred to the number of unoccupied people of the dwelling for each time of
the day. Input parameters of this appliances category are the average load
profile, the average period of use of the appliance, the time of the day in which
the probability of use is greater, the number of the unoccupied people in that
moment in the dwelling.

3.4. Multimedia appliances

This category includes all the appliances characterized by a daily use. Belong
to this category all appliances related to entertainment and multimedia. The
period of use of these appliances is an unnecessary information since they are
used almost every day. Their use depends on: the number of active people in
the dwelling, the time of the day, the time elapsed since the last start.

6
3.5. Lighting
A light model which takes into account the level of natural daylight, is used
in this work. This model uses as input the time of the day, the number of the
occupant of the dwelling and the normalized number of lights of the dwelling.

4. Fuzzy Inference System

Fuzzy rule-based systems (FRBS) have been successfully employed for sys-
tem modeling in many areas. Existing fuzzy systems in the literature can
be classified into three main categories: Mamdani , Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) and
Tsukamoto systems based on their implemented fuzzy rule structures. Further-
more, depending on the intended application, the fuzzy modeling research field
can be divided into two main approaches. The first is the linguistic fuzzy model-
ing (LFM) where good human interpretability of the underlying fuzzy model is
paramount for tasks such as knowledge mining and data analysis. This is usually
achieved by adopting the Mamdani rule structure for knowledge representation.
The other is the precise fuzzy modeling (PFM) where T-S and Tsukamoto fuzzy
rule structures are generally used in the learned fuzzy model to achieve high out-
put accuracies for function approximation and regression-centric applications.
Having good fuzzy rule-base interpretability and high modeling accuracy are
contradictory requirements and one usually prevails over the other based on
the modeling objective and fuzzy rule structure employed. Generally, Mamdani
fuzzy models are more interpretative than T-S fuzzy models from a human per-
spective and thus can better explain and describe a modeled systems behaviors.

4.1. Fuzzy Modeling

The modeling of the appliances usage has been performed with a LFM
approach to determine if wether or not it is going to be started. Since the
aim of this work is to represent the household energetic behavior we choose
Mamdani model, in order to give the best interpretability to the rules. The
usage pattern, depending on the appliances category, can be related to many
variables, such as the number of active people in the house, the typical frequency
of the appliance, the time of the day, the temperature. For example, when
people are not at home, most appliances will not be used (only the so called
continuous use appliances). In daily appliance electricity profile, the occupants
use virtually little power (stand by and fridge-freezer) during the night, may
wake up and have breakfast, vacate the house during the morning and then
return around mid-day for lunch, e.g. starting the microwave. In the evening,
the meal is cooked, television is watched, lights are on, showers are taken, etc.
This typical pattern can drastically change during the weekend and holidays
(when people can be in the house mostly during daytime) and, moreover, it
can change from dwelling to dwelling due to different life styles. The main
factors influencing occupancy pattern and appliances usage are: the number
of occupants, the time the first person gets up in the morning and last person
goes to sleep, the periods house is unoccupied during work days, holidays and

7
weekends. When analyzing the households load profile we need information on
the active occupants of the dwelling. To compute the overall occupancy pattern
a specified model can be used, for instance that one developed by [36]. Starting
from basic information in this paper we build a 1-minute resolution daily active
occupants pattern for each day of the week. To compute the number of the busy
occupants a counter is used; this counter is increased every time an appliance
that requires interaction with a person is switched on, and decreased every time
it is switched off. The number of unoccupied people in the dwelling can be
computed from the active occupants pattern and the current value of the busy
occupants counter. Knowing this value for each time of the day, we can enable
or interdict the switching on of the appliance. A further important feature is to
identify the typical frequency of each appliances starting for each household.
This parameter is rarely a crisp value, e.g. the washing machine starts usually
from 2 to 3 times a week, and often related to the time of the day, e.g. the
television starts some hours a day usually at night. In this work all information
regarding occupancy, appliances frequency and typical start time are taken with
a brief interview. The former are used to build the active occupancy pattern
and the latter to build fuzzy rules.

4.2. Appliances Fuzzy Inference System

The membership functions of the input variables (a sample is shown in Fig.
3) consist of triangular asymmetric and trapezoidal functions. The trapezoidal
function is totally represented with four points, known also as fuzzy set: A =
(a1 , a2 , a3 , a4 ). This representation is interpreted as membership functions:



0 , x < a1

xa
a2 a1 , a1 < x < a2

1

A (x) = 1 , a2 < x < a3 (1)

a x

a4 a3 , a3 < x < a4

4




0 , x > a4
When a2 = a3 , the triangular function can be considered as a particular
case of the trapezoidal one. The input variables for the FIS inference are the
time h(t) of the day, the percentage p(t) of unoccupied people in the dwelling
and DT /T (t) that is the time elapsed since the last appliance start normalized
on his period. Table 1 shows the fuzzy sets we assumed for the input variables
to model the household considered for the sizing case study. Values are chosen
after the manipulation of the information deriving from the interview to the
occupants.
A sample of the fuzzy control rule base for a Periodical use appliance with-
out human interaction (e.g. the dishwasher) is shown in Table 3; the Max-Min
fuzzy inference algorithm is considered, [37] . The outputs of the FIS engine
are the probability P (t) to start a certain appliance: (N) None, (VL) Very Low,
(L) Low, (M) Medium, (H) High, (VH) Very High and the total time D(t) the

8
 Table 1:
Considered fuzzy sets for input variables.

h(t) Abbr. a1 a2 a3 a4
Early Morning EM 0 0 300 450
Morning M 300 400 750 800
Afternoon A 650 750 1000 1150
Evening E 1050 1100 1250 1300
Late evening LE 1250 1300 1440 1440
DT/T(t) a1 a2 a3 a4
Very Advance VA 0 0 0.3 0.6
Advance A 0.5 0.75 0.75 1
In Time IT 0.9 1 1 1.1
Late L 1 1.25 1.25 1.5
Very Late VL 1.4 1.8 2 2
p(t) a1 a2 a3 a4
Very Low VL 0 0 0.2 0.4
Low L 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Medium M 0.3 0.5 0.7 0.9
High H 0.7 0.8 1.0 1.1
Very High VH 1.0 1.1 inf inf

9
 Table 2:
Fuzzy input output variables for the different appliances categories.

Category IN IN IN OUT OUT

Continuous - - - - -
Periodic without human h(t) DT /T (t) - P (t) -
Periodic with human h(t) DT /T (t) - P (t) -
Multimedia h(t) DT /T (t) p(t) P (t) D(t)
Lighting h(t) DT /T (t) p(t) P (t) -

appliance will be on: (VL) Very Low, (L) Low, (M) Medium, (H) High, (VH)
Very High. Output membership functions, shown as example in Fig. 4, consist
of sigmoid functions with different values for each appliance category. As de-
scribed in section 3, there are 5 different categories of appliances and each one
has different fuzzy input-output variables. In particular Table 2 contains inputs
and outputs for each category. Concerning the defuzzyfication we use the modi-
fied Center of Area defuzzyfication method since the centroid method evaluates
the area under the scaled membership functions only within the range of the
output linguistic variable and the resulting crisp output values could not span
the full range. The fuzzy logic controller uses the following equation to calculate
the geometric center of the full area under the scaled membership functions:
R
f(x) xdx
mCoA = R (2)
f(x)dx

where mCoA is the modified center of area. The interval of integration is be-
tween the minimum membership function value and the maximum membership
function value. Note that this interval might extend beyond the range of the
output variable.

Figure 3: Membership function of the input variable DT /T (t). The x-axis is the ratio
between the time elapsed since the last start and the average starting period.

10
Figure 4: Membership function of the output variable P (t). The x-axis is the probability to
start an appliance.

Table 3:
Dishwasher FIS sample. Input DT /T (t) is in the first row, while h(t) is in the first column.
Probability P (t) are the central values of the table.

VA A IT L VL
EM VL VL VL VL VL
M VL VL VL L L
A VL VL L L M
E VL L M H VH
LE VL VL VL VL VL

4.3. Model Implementation

The aim of the simulation tests is to evaluate the potentialities of an energy
management technique applied for different households, in order to evaluate the
economic benefits users can obtain. The model has been realized using Lab-
VIEW, the graphical programming environment of National Instruments. In
particular the FIS has been realized using the LabVIEW fuzzy toolkit while
the input-output membership functions and the rule set with the fuzzy system
designer. As the simulator is not time driven when a simulation runs one-min
resolution electricity demand data can be generated for a specified time period
using two nested FOR loops (the outer for the days of the year and the inner
for the minutes of each day). Each single appliance block, implemented as a
functional global variable, is in the inner loop and runs in two phases. During
the first iteration of the simulation all the configuration parameters are loaded,
e.g. the fuzzy rule set of the appliance, the consumption profile, the maximum
power, the typical starting frequency, number of people typically interacting
with the appliance (all the mentioned parameters are fully editable in text files
and fuzzy rules through LabVIEW graphical interface). After the first iteration
the likelihood an appliance will start within the next minute is evaluated with
a time resolution of one-minute (except for the so called Continuous use appli-

11
ances). In particular, since the FIS output is a probability value, to manage
the start of an appliance this value is multiplied by a calibration factor (equal
to the difference in hours between the average period of use of the appliance
and the time elapsed since the last start), as stated in [33]. The result is then
compared with a random number (within the real interval 0 1). The appliance
will start if:
this number is less than the scaled probability
there is at least one person in the house
there are sufficient active people in the house (only for some appliances
categories)
the sum between the current electrical consumption and the max power
of the appliance is less than the power the customer can absorb from the
grid.
Table 2 shows the need of taking into account also the number of active
people in the dwelling for Periodical use appliances with human interaction
and Multimedia Appliances. Starting from the typical pattern of people in
the household we decrement this number when an appliance of one of these
categories starts and increment this number when the appliance is turned off. To
simulate EM actions, fuzzy rules have been modified to approximate a different
user behavior regarding the starting time of the two main shiftable appliances
(dishwasher and washing machine). As an example, without any action, fuzzy
input sets for periodical use appliances without human interaction are:
the time of the day h(t)
the time elapsed since the last appliance start multiplied his typical start
frequency DT /T (t)
and a typical rule formulation is:
if h(t) is afternoon and DT /T (t) is late, then the probability to start the ap-
pliance is low.
The installation of a PV plant can have a great impact on the energy behavior
of users. they can use an energy manager [38], forecasting tools or simply plan
to start appliances according to weather forecast. To model this behavior a
new input DX(t) is added in the model, the time distance from the peak power
production time of the next day. According to this new input, the same rule
discussed above will change:
if h(t) is afternoon and DT /T (t) is late and DX(t) is very low, then the
probability to start the appliance is very high.

5. TOOL VALIDATION
We validated the model collecting a set of consumption data from 12 volun-
teer dwellings in and around the town of Ripatransone in the province of Ascoli

12
Piceno, Italy. All people in these households have been briefly interviewed to
build occupancy patterns and fuzzy rule sets starting from their typical energy
habits. A set of data loggers were installed in the dwellings and configured to
record demand at 1 min intervals. An example 24h demand profile for a sin-
gle dwelling taken from the measured data set is shown in Fig. 5. In order to

Figure 5: 1-min resolution consumption for one of the considered households in Ripatransone
(AP), Italy on a spring day (March 12 2012). One the x-axis are represented the minutes in
a day.

create a consumption database we installed in four of these dwellings individual

appliance monitors (IAMs from Current Cost company) to extract 6 seconds
resolution consumption data of most of the household appliances (e.g. washing
machine, dishwasher, multimedia appliances, iron, oven, microwave). For the
remaining 8 dwellings, appliances were not directly monitored, but the profiles
were used choosing for each appliance the most similar profile in the database
(e.g. same brand for the dishwasher, same size for the TV or the laptop battery
charger). It is important to emphasize that the differences between single appli-
ance blocks for the different dwellings are taken into account changing the fuzzy
rules, the occupancy profile and using different consumption patterns from the
database (according to the different appliances).

5.1. Experimental Results

The final aim of this simulation tool is the prediction of the human behavior
(e.g. the starting of an appliance within 1hour of its real start) especially during
daylight periods, in order to give a good method to correctly design a PV plant
and evaluate Energy Management actions benefits. Consequently the purpose
of the following validation is to show that the measured and simulated data
have similar statistics and differ only for limited quantities. To this end, the
model was used to create synthetic data for 12 dwellings covering a full year
at 1 min resolution. Table 4 reports the RMS error, the standard deviation
and the RMS% error of measured and simulated values for all 12 dwellings.
These values are computed for different time scales, showing a good modeling
performance in particular for what regards the daytime period, our main focus

13
Table 4:
Model validation results. Percentage Mean Error, RM SE, SD and RM SE% between the
simulated and measured values.

Time Scale Mean Error RMSE SD RMSE

(%) (KWh) (Wh) (%)
Daytime 0.56 0.514 0.408 8.02
Daily 0.35 1.062 0.890 11.58
Weekly 0.29 6.012 4.360 7.11

to compute the self consumption percentage. Indeed the RM SE% calculated

from 9AM to 5P M in the whole year for the 12 dwellings is 8.02%, showing a
good capability of the simulator to model the human behavior during the day.
Fig. 6 shows a 1-min data comparison between the simulator output and the
measured values for one day and one dwelling.

Figure 6: March 23 2012. 1-min resolution data for one of the considered households in Ri-
patransone (AP), Italy. The dotted blue line is the simulation load profile, the red continuous
line is the measured one.

6. PHOTOVOLTAIC PLANT SIZING: A CASE STUDY

Due to the random nature of solar energy, great effort must be made to design
PV systems that optimize energy savings, self consumption and costs. In this
section we propose a PV sizing case study using the consumption pattern of one
of the previously considered household with an annual electrical consumption
of 2300 KW h. The key of the proposed sizing method is the self consumption
percentage, computed by the simulation tool. A 3 year historical solar irradiance
data set is used to calculate the output of a varying size PV plant (1 to 3.5 KWp)
and compared with the consumption pattern computed by the simulator in order
to obtain the self consumption percentage for each considered PV plant size. A

14
financial evaluation technique is used to compare the different investments under
the revised Italian net metering scheme known as scambio sul posto in which
GSE pays a contribution Et to the customer equal to:

Et = Ct min(Ft , Wt ) (3)
where Ft and Wt are respectively the injected and withdrawn electricity in
KW h and Ct represents a coefficient comprehensive of the electricity cost and
net services cost in eur/KW h. For the global cost of the PV plant, an average
of the main solar installer prices in the considered area has been considered.

6.1. ECONOMICAL ANALYSIS

The cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is a financial valuation technique used to
predict the effects of a project, a program or an investment, verifying its benefits.
CBA, as an alternative to traditional methods of economic analysis, represents
also a method of ex-ante evaluation by external parties that have to decide
on the financial viability of an investment or have to choose how to allocate
scarce financial resources among different possible investments. To evaluate the
economic convenience of PV systems on the considered building we carried out
the CBA of different sizes of PV plants to choose the best one. The discounted
cash flows generated from each investment have been calculated for 20 years,
equal to the period in which PV module producers guarantee at least 80% of
their initial performance. The net present value (NPV), calculated for each PV
plant size, is:
K
X Ct
NPV = t (4)
t=0 (1 + r)
Where Ct is the cash flow at time t, r the discount rate and K the consid-
ered lifetime of the investment. The cash flow Ct is the difference between the
discounted annual cash inflows It and outflows Ot .
We considered the value of the discount rate r equal to Weighted Average
Cost of Capital (WAAC). The WAAC we choose is equal to 5% comparing the
investment of the PV plant to a 20 year government bond and considering that
the investor wants to earn a 1% more than investing in Italian Treasury Bonds.
In particular It consists of the annual directly saved energy by self consump-
tion (considering a 3% annual increase of the unitary energy price), the net
metering contribution Et and government contributions (50% of the plant cost
in taxes deduction for the first 10 years).
Ot is the cash outflow and consists of the investment cost of the plant (re-
alized entirely with own capital) and the annual maintenance cost. The annual
maintenance cost has been assumed to be equal to 0, 5% of the initial investment
cost.
Considering that NPV calculation strongly depends on the used reference
discount rate r used (for which the same investment may be convenient or less

15
in relation to its value) it is useful to consider as financial indicator also the
IRR (internal rate of return), calculated as the rate r for which results:

N P V (r ) = 0 (5)

According to a sensitivity analysis on the decline rate with size, PV investment

unitary cost is considered in three different scenarios:

(A) as an average of the actual price proposed by 3 of the most important

system integrator companies of the central east region of Italy (Energy
Resources SPA, O&M Green Energy and Link Energy).
(B) the cost for 1 kWp considered is the average (3800 euro) price proposed
by these companies and the percentage decline rate is 7% each 0.25 kWp.

(C) the cost for 1 kWp is considered as a 6months projection (3200 euro) cost
proposed by these companies while the decline rate has been considered
equal to 5% each 0.25 kWp.

Table 5 reports the unitary costs for the scenario A, the self consumption
percentages of two simulated scenarios (user performing EM actions and user
maintaining the same behavior) and CBA results for different PV plant sizes in
the analyzed case study. Table 6 reports the NPV results for the cost scenarios
B and C. Figure 7 shows the trend of NPV and IRR depending on the PV plant
size for the cost scenario A.
The sensitivity analysis confirmed for all PV systems an economic conve-
nience strongly related to the matching of production and consumption pat-
terns.
In scenario A the values of NPV, which range between 790 and 2070 eand
IRR, between 6.89 and 9.71 %, show better results for a 2.25 KWp plant. In
particular revenues decrease from 2070 to 1360 ewith a 3 KWp plant and IRR
decrease of 2%, emphasizing the need of the correct sizing of the plant. We have
furthermore analyzed the situation in which the user performs basic EM actions
(he starts the 2 main shiftable appliances around the peak production hours of
each day).
In the cost scenario B (starting from the typical cost for a 1 kWp plant and
considering a constant decrement of 7% each 0.25 kWp) NPV ranges between
812 and 2218 e, with a difference between the best and worst case of 169%.
The analysis of the EM benefits shows that NPV can further increase from 18%
to 33% (from 218 to 576 e) depending on the plant size. In the cost scenario C
(starting from a cost of 3, 200 efor a 1 kWp plant and considering a constant
decrement of 5% each 0.25 kWp) NPV ranges between 1, 169 and 2, 470 e, with
a difference between the best and worst case of 112%. The analysis of the EM
benefits shows that NPV can further increase from 16% to 36% (from 218 to
576 e) depending on the plant size. In this cost scenario the analysis suggests
that the best NPV can be obtained for the 2 kWp plant without performing
EM actions and for the 2.25 kWp plant when performing EM.

16
Table 5:
Cost scenario A. Unitary costs, self consumption percentages (SC) and CBA results (NPV
and IRR) for the considered case study with and without energy management actions.

No EM actions EM actions
Size Cost SC NPV IRR SC NPV IRR
(kWp) (e/kWp) (%) (e) (%) (%) (e) (%)
1.00 3850 41.1 787 7.91 53.4 1005 8.64
1.25 3750 35.3 937 7.85 47.3 1208 8.60
1.50 3500 31.3 1251 8.35 42.9 1566 9.11
1.75 3150 27.4 1711 9.28 38.5 2067 10.07
2.00 2950 24.2 2048 9.71 35.2 2443 10.51
2.25 2750 22.5 2069 9.47 32.9 2501 10.30
2.50 2700 20.6 1730 8.51 30.6 2198 9.36
2.75 2500 19.4 1716 8.42 29.4 2215 9.32
3.00 2450 17.5 1363 7.60 26.9 1888 8.51
3.25 2320 16.2 1310 7.46 25.8 1879 8.44
3.50 2260 15.7 1047 6.89 24.7 1624 7.85

Table 6:
Cost scenarios B and C. Unitary costs and NPV for the considered case study with (NPV em)
and without (NPV) energy management actions.

Scenario B Scenario C
Size Cost NPV NPV em Cost NPV NPV em
(kWp) (e/kWp) (e) (e) (e/kWp) (e) (e)
1,00 3200 1169 1387 3800 812 1030
1,25 3040 1464 1734 3534 1096 1367
1,50 2888 1795 2110 3287 1440 1755
1,75 2744 2135 2491 3057 1810 2165
2,00 2606 2470 2865 2843 2189 2584
2,25 2476 2442 2874 2644 2218 2650
2,50 2352 2211 2678 2459 2053 2520
2,75 2235 2031 2530 2286 1946 2445
3,00 2123 1849 2373 2126 1843 2367
3,25 2017 1673 2242 1978 1749 2318
3,50 1916 1603 2180 1839 1763 2340

17
Figure 7: Results of the cost benefits analysis. NPV (blue line) and IRR (red line) for the
different sizes of PV plants computed when a user performs EM actions (squared markers) or
maintains the same energy behavior (triangular markers).

7. Conclusions

In recent years (2005-2013), Italy has highlighted a rapid growth of the pho-
tovoltaic sector, after the introduction of the feed in tariff scheme known as
Conto Energia. In this context, due to higher FITs, the expansion involved
mainly PV systems on buildings. During July 2013 the Italian government
definitively cut FITs for new PV installation leaving only tax benefits and a re-
vised net metering scheme (known as Scambio sul Posto). In this scenario the
matching of the production and consumption patterns is the only way to achieve
satisfying economical benefits. This paper introduces novel Fuzzy approach to
model household electrical consumption has been presented. Our model is built
using a bottom-up approach and the basic block is the single appliance. Using
as inputs patterns of active occupancy (i.e. when people are at home and awake)
and typical domestic habits (i.e. start frequency of some appliances), the FIS
model give as output the starting probability of each appliance. To validate the
model we have recorded electricity demand within 12 dwellings in Ripatransone
(AP), in the central east coast of Italy, over the period of 12 months. Simulation
performances, in particular for what regards daytime period (the mean error is
0.52%), make possible its use for self consumption estimation. The tool has been
used to correctly size a residential photovoltaic (PV) plant according to a cost
benefits analysis (CBA). Net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return
(IRR) have been computed for different sizes (1 to 3.5kW p) of PV plant in a
case study. A sensitive analysis on PV costs has also been performed. The NPV
computed for different sizes in the cost scenario A (considering the average of
the actual prices of a plant in the central east Italian region as the source for the
costs) can range between 787 and 2069 e, with a difference between the best and
worst case of 140%. Furthermore a parallel analysis of the economical benefits

18
of basic energy management actions (the shifting of the two main appliances)
has been performed. The CBA analysis shows that NPV can further increase
from 19% to 65% (from 250 to 600 e) depending on the plant size. In scenario
B NPV ranges between 812 and 2218 e(169% difference between the best and
worst case) while in scenario C between 1, 169 and 2, 470 e(112% difference).
The analysis of the EM benefits shows a further increase of NPV from 18%
to 33% (218 to 576 e) in scenario B and from 16% to 36% (218 to 576 e) in
scenario C. Results show that the convenience for users to install a PV plant in
the new Italian scenario is strongly related to the matching of production and
consumption patterns. Only in the cost scenario C the analysis suggests that
the best economic convenience can be obtained for a 2 kWp plant (without per-
forming EM actions) while all the other scenarios highlight a maximum value
for NPV with the 2.25 kWp plant. In particular, the parameter that denoted
the most influence on the economic convenience of PV systems is percentage
of the energy self consumed. Results highlight that an important increment on
revenues occurs with a 10% average increase of self consumption (due to EM
actions), suggesting that a strong effort on its optimization will have a crucial
impact on PV market.

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